'I'm a maximalist, so it's all colour and pattern,' says Emmy Lupin

Like many of the world's most talented illustrators, Emmy Lupin's journey into the profession was not exactly direct. She studied advertising and worked in design agencies, drawing on the side. Now she's one of the UK's most eye-catching illustrators, working for everyone from global corporations like Adidas and TikTok to small, independent businesses and charities.

"I never knew that it was possible to earn money from being an artist or that it could be a job," she explains. "I started off selling my illustrations as portraits and prints on the side, and it grew very gradually to what it is now – and now I can't imagine ever going back to working a non-creative job."

Emmy's mission is to create art that is relatable and fun and for people to be able to imagine themselves in the images. She does so through a female lens; friendship is a strong theme in her work, and she'll take her viewers from extreme highs to extreme lows and back again. That's life, and she captures it from the world around her in pieces that max out on colour and pattern – everything with a hand-drawn vibe.

Mixing a real-world feel with digital flexibility, Emmy uses Procreate most of the time but is equally skilled with traditional pen on paper, and her individual hand is prevalent in each image she conjures. "I am not technically minded, and I think that Procreate has the most similarities to working with pen and paper. I have used the same brush forever, which I think gives my work its specific style. I am an avid sketchbook user, though, and tend to work with Tombow Dual Tip Pens for that," she says.

Arguably, the work that put Emmy on the map commercially was Ready For Sport, an Adidas campaign aimed to shake off the atrophy of the COVID lockdowns. Emmy was commissioned to illustrate two athletes and the creative director loved her work so much that the brief was doubled to four. She's since worked on subsequent projects for the brand. "Drawing portraits has always been one of my favourite subjects – but with this, we needed to bring movement in and energy in, too," she says. "Although my style has evolved since I worked on these, I still think they look great."

More eclectic but with a wider scope, Emmy's commission from publisher Quercus to illustrate Emma Mumford's Manifesting Rituals card deck led to a project that resonated with her spiritual side. In addition to 44 card illustrations, the requirements included the box art and illustrations for the instruction booklet. The topics included women, flowers, landscapes and patterns.

"It was a huge challenge but great, consisting of everything I like to draw. Making sure the cards were similar in style but varied in terms of the subject was a challenge for sure – some of the manifestations had no specific image connotation, so we needed to work that out, too. Overall, I love how it came out," she explains.

Based in Nottingham, Emmy has a retail space that stocks cards, t-shirts, totes, stickers, candles, and her art prints, which feature colourful renderings of people, places, flowers, and more. There's plenty of eclectic lettering—often spelling out positive messages, perhaps with a touch of Midlands humour.

"Now that I have a physical shop and sell online, I have more freedom to work on different subjects, such as my personal work or client work. I love illustrating colourful landscapes and working with lettering and still life," she says.

Not all contemporary illustrators can enjoy the pleasure of physically holding a print and handing it over to a happy customer in exchange for cash. But how about wearing your work with a leading fashion label on it? For Christmas 2023, she worked with Nasty Gal on a series of jumpers, a project that afforded her complete creative freedom.

"The brief was 'Western Christmas' as everything cowgirl is very on trend," says Emmy. "I had to think of both the UK and US audiences and what will translate well from paper to clothing. They had little to no changes, so it was pretty much exactly as I wanted it, which was amazing. It also sold out in four days, and I would see people wearing them online or in real life – such an amazing feeling."

Her favourite personal project to date is one of the most personal we've ever come across – a pregnancy diary, which has helped Emmy in a number of ways. "Moving into a new chapter of my life and struggling with creative block, I worked on an illustration each month during my pregnancy, and they are honest and vulnerable," she says. "In a way, they are nice for me to look back on, too."

Back in 2020, we featured Emmy's Lockdown Diaries here on Creative Boom.