This month we celebrated a huge milestone, 25 years of Arena Illustration.

We couldn’t have been more thrilled to have had the opportunity to share this moment with a room full of amazing, award-winning, best-selling and all-round brilliant artists as well as our greatly valued creative partners.  To have a day to share our anniversary with so many friends and colleagues was a very special moment in Arena Illustration's history.  

Here is a word from Tamlyn Francis, extracted from her incredible speech on the day.     

"This is a chance for us to celebrate our wonderful artists and brilliant clients and the amazing work that we’ve produced together over the last 25 years.

Also a chance to reflect on how much has changed in our industry but also to realise that our core values remain the same. Building trust between our illustrators and publishers, designers and editors, respecting other people’s ideas, negotiating and managing complicated projects with care and celebrating our achievements.

We thrive on what we do, try to survive through the difficult times, and strive every day to keep smiling and carry on, looking forward to new exciting opportunities and seeing where our journey takes us next.

I joined Arena in 1995, sharing an office with Alison Eldred for five years, learning the business with her guidance, expertise and her positive encouragement. In the year 2000 I accepted her challenge and became the new company director. I set about fulfilling my ambition for the business, to work mainly in children’s publishing.

My first job was to ask Caroline to come and work with me and she joined us in January 2021, learning the ropes from the other side of the desk, she had been a freelance illustrator up to this point and we had remained very close friends since college days.

We went to the Royal College degree show that first summer and recruited a fabulous animator Steve May who we knew would also be a fabulous illustrator. Adam Stower who we met while we were at Norwich joined us the year after that and we started to grow our business.

We have had many proud moments since then…

In 2012 Jonny Duddle and Alex T Smith were both shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and we were so thrilled when Jonny won both the Picture Book Prize and was overall winner with Pirates Next Door! Jonny’s pirate characters had three gorgeous picture book adventures and four young fiction titles and also their own TV series. Alex of course had created a new publishing best-selling series featuring his little dog Claude and sidekick Sir Bobblysock, who went on to star in their very own TV series too.

Caroline and I jumped at the chance of visiting John Howe in New Zealand when he was working on The Hobbit films and one day that I will never forget was a private tour of Weta studios in Wellington with Richard Taylor.

I also won’t forget the day that Val Brathwaite called me to ask if Jonny Duddle would like to do a sample for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. What an amazing opportunity to work on the biggest brand in publishing! He did the sample artwork and won the job to re-cover all seven Harry Potter Books, which still look great now after 11 years on the shelves.

When the opportunity came for Levi Pinfold to create the 20th Anniversary House editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone he designed four separate covers and individual interior illustrations to represent the four Hogwarts Houses. They were so successful the remaining six books soon followed, a huge amount of work and commitment. Matched only by his recent commission to take on where Jim Kay left off, with the Illustrated edition of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

Thomas Flintham won the Blue Peter Children’s Book award with the author Pamela Butchart, a great pairing for Nosy Crow, they also won the Lollies together. Tom won the Federation of Children’s Book Groups prize last year and the Sheffield Children’s Book Award. And Tom’s Press Start series for Scholastic in the States has now topped 4 million copies sold.

Adam Stower has excelled in his illustration work on the mighty David Walliams publishing alongside his own dynamic duo Murray and Bun, for Harper Collins, now on their 4th adventure as Ghosthunters! Murray the Viking won the prestigious German Children’s Book Prize this year. Adam also won The Alligators Mouth award for his David Fickling book King Coo, Curse of the Mummies Gold.

Neal Layton’s wonderful Story of Stars has won the Library Association Award and his collaboration with Michel Rosen, Uncle Gobb won the Sheffield Children’s Book Award. Look out for Neal’s portrait of him on Michel Rosen day!

We have had so many other award nominations and shortlists, so many wonderful events, exhibitions, World Book Day Roadshows, Book Festivals and Book Shop Windows. Our artists are just the best! Thank you for working so hard, we know it’s not easy!

We are so thrilled that the Magic Cats are publishing Kristyna Litten’s brilliant world of Bearona, Ivy and Bearlock now has 20 co-editions! Thank you for a successful new partnership. 

We’ve recently welcomed Dotty Sutton, who already has secured a fantastic series with the team at Penguin Random House.

We hope that through our work we will grow new readers with our wonderful books, encourage parents to read to their children and share our own love of reading for pleasure."

A huge thank you to all the team, especially Emma, Alison and Alan who continue to make Arena Illustration the perfect home for the country’s best artists.  Thank you to everyone we have worked with, collaborated with and made brilliant art with.