How James Illustrates creates stunning art prints and gifts
Hi, I’m James and I began James Illustrates with a simple idea: To create a map of Norfolk unlike any other. It had to be quirky, captivating and unique. It needed to feature all the most loved places in the county, and have some fun facts and quirky features, creating a map that was more than just a map. I wanted to create a piece of art, that you can return to time after time and discover new things.
Cornwall, The Lake District National Park, Dorset, Devon and The Cotswolds have followed, with Suffolk and Cambridgeshire arriving soon. Each map is a labor of love, involving extensive research, many rabbit holes in the internet are explored and people chatted to. It’s amazing what I have discovered while researching my maps! Tea towels have followed which have proved to be perfect as gifts with mugs and jigsaws on the horizon.
Each map is hand drawn by me, with a little help from an iPad and laptop! It takes many hours and many revisions to get to the finished map, and then it’s not over. Every time I print a new edition of 100 I add a new detail, place or feature, so each map evolves over time.
The focus has been to make my products super high quality, whether that’s using the most stunning textured paper stock for the prints, sourcing beautiful aluminium frames to frame them, or using heavy weight ethically sourced cotton to make tea towels not only good to looked at, but good to be used too.
I have amazing production partners, my large screen prints are hand made by Well Nice Prints in Norwich and all my smaller prints made by Theprintspace art printers in London. This ensures a very high quality product across all my art prints. My tea towels are produced in the UK by Magic textiles in Leek, Staffordshire. I quality control, pack and ship all my products myself.
Please reach out if you have any questions regarding the production process.
