David Dean

When I was very small I was asked, at a clinic check-up, to draw some simple shapes (a test of development and coordination) and I drew instead a Fiat 127 car. Most of my childhood was spent drawing Star Wars characters and Transformers, and for many years I wanted to draw comics. Eventually it dawned on me that someone actually paints the pictures on book covers (and gets paid for it) - what a fantastic job that must be! And so I went to university to study illustration. I graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1999 with a BA(Hons) and an MA in Communication Design, and have been working as an illustrator ever since. And yes, I was right: it is a fantastic job. After many years of working in acrylic paint, I now work digitally though I try to retain the same aesthetic. I live in Cheshire, England with my two cats and hundreds of books.

Clients include: 

Penguin Random House, Barefoot Books, Chicken House, Egmont Children's Books, Bloomsbury Children’s, Faber & Faber, Nosy Crow, Michael O’Mara Books, Scholastic, Holiday House Books, Sleeping Bear Press, UcLan Publsihing, Piccadilly Press, HarperCollins, Little Brown, Walker Books, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion Children's Books, David Fickling Books, Penguin Random House, Hodder Headline, Macmillan, Chronicle Books, Time Warner Books, Duncan Baird Publishers, Transworld Publishers, Oxford University Press, Godsfield Press, Lion Publishing, HarperCollins, Crocodile Creek, V&A Museum of Childhood, BBC, Fox Kalomaski, Mother, Turner Duckworth and many others.

Awards & Recognition:

Shortlisted, Branding/Identity Category, British Book Design and Production Awards 2010

Gold Medal, 3x3 Picture Book Show 2012

Shortlisted, Children’s Books category, AOI Illustration Awards 2014

Merit, 3x3 Picture Book Show 2014

Honourable Mention, 3x3 Picture Book Show 2015

Bronze Medal, 3x3 Picture Book Show 2018

Distinguished Merit, 3x3 Picture Book Show 2018

Merit, 3x3 Picture Book Show 2018

Selected for Society of Illustrators Annual 2018

Shortlisted, The KItschies Inky Tentacle Award for best cover, 2018

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