We were lucky enough to get the opportunity to film children’s book author and illustrator Nick Sharratt for an exhibition that we worked on along with our friends over at Leach Colour. Nick is famous for his illustrations for popular children’s authors Jacqueline Wilson, Jeremy Strong and Julia Donaldson. As an illustrator and former Library Assistant, Nat couldn’t wait to meet him in our boardroom on the day of filming.

The big day arrived and Nat hurried into the office, anticipating the arrival of Mr Sharratt. Only to find, to her horror, that the filming had been moved to another location and so her hopes of getting to meet this member of illustrator royalty were dashed! That is, until the company laptop needed dropping off at the filming location. Nat ran out of the door, laptop in hand and hurried over to the location in search of her idol. Upon arrival, Nat approached, wondering what she would say upon entering. Suddenly the door opened and a man asked, “Is that the laptop? Thanks!” intercepting her one and only ticket to meeting Mr Sharratt himself. Better luck next time!

It was fascinating working on this project and getting to see some of Nick’s early work, particularly illustrations that he created as a child and at university. The films we created, tell the story about how Nick became the well-known illustrator that he is today, as well as how to create a picture and colour it in. It’s great when a project comes along that ties together all of your passions and interests like this has, with our love for illustration and children’s books. We particularly enjoyed animating the intros and outros for the films, designing them to be in-keeping with Nick’s unique style.

The exhibition titled “Pirates, Pants and Wellphants”, is currently touring the UK.