Reflections on 2025: Perspectives from the AOI and its Members
As we come to an end of 2025, and get ready to hit the ground running in 2026, we wanted to take some time to reflect on the past year in the illustration industry.
We are aware it has felt like a challenging year for many illustrators, navigating uncertainty, an economic downturn and concerns around AI. At the same time, many illustrators have had a productive year, finding opportunities to build their resilience, pivot their focus, or learn something new, with some seeing goals they had been working towards finally coming to fruition.
Through it all, the AOI has been here supporting and protecting illustrators as well as championing illustration, through our campaigning work, mentorship scheme, one to one advice and much more. As a not-for-profit organisation, all member fees go back into supporting members and the illustration industry more widely, and we thank all of our members for their support in 2025, helping to strengthen the industry and pave the way for a sustainable future for us all.
We speak to AOI members including illustrators, agencies as well as friends and supporters of the AOI, to hear first-hand what 2025 has been like for them. We hope this picture resonates with illustrators reading and offers some useful learnings and perspectives as we move into the new year.
Reflecting on 2025
We hear from illustrator members Katherine Tromans, Zebedee Helm, Gee Mullins and Sarah Jane Docker, about how 2025 has been for them. As members we speak to regularly on the Helpdesk, it’s great to hear about what they have achieved in the past year, during what has been an unpredictable year for many.
Sarah: “All in all, 2025 has felt like the building of a new foundation; in making my work more resilient, rediscovering play, facing the boring and practical parts being an illustrator and not being afraid to ask for help when needed, being humbled by other’s beautiful artwork and learning the importance of nurturing and giving back to the creative community, that keeps us all going.”
Zebedee: “I know how incredibly unpredictable this career of ours can be, and I have certainly had my fair share of lean years. However, in contradiction to my pessimistic expectations, 2025 has been a strangely abundant year. It does mean that I have barely had a chance to do anything other than work, which has taken its toll on my once ruddy outdoorsman complexion and my new year’s resolution to post on Instagram once a week was quietly ditched (a pitiful 17 posts in the calendar year). But as Noel Coward once wrote “work is more fun than fun”.”
I’ve been finding 2025 a shift, but positive in many ways.
Katherine Tromans
Gee: “Truthfully, I’ve had quite a paradoxical year! This year is the first year where a lot of the seeds I have sown since graduating have popped their heads up. I’ve taken on some of my biggest clients, went on a residency and feel like I’ve made momentum towards creating solid foundations and building a reputation (woohoo!).”
Kat: “I’ve been finding 2025 a shift, but positive in many ways. For the past few years I’ve been pushing my work into a new area so I’m now working more as a studio. This change came with taking on work that was in arts + culture space. I often enjoy working with community, or arts and culture projects, so I’ve been leaning more into this lately and really enjoying my client relationships and portfolio work it brings.”
Celebrating Achievements
A number of the illustrators we spoke to found they were able to work on some meaningful or exciting commissions, build relationships or achieve certain goals they had been working towards, even if smaller commissions or regular work did not show up in the same way they may have been able to expect in previous years.
Sarah: “Like other illustrators, I’ve definitely felt a slight downward trend in the amount of smaller commissions and enquiries that have kept previous years ticking over, however I have found myself placing more importance on, and giving more time to the developing and nurturing of my community in illustration (which I feel that we all might need now more than ever) and relationships with previous commissioners.”
[…] “In the Summer of this year, I signed with an agent for children’s publishing (a very exciting moment for me) who I’m excited to have in my corner. With her, I discussed areas where my portfolio needs development and made a list for myself to work through on these chilly Winter eves! I’ve been secretly saving and pouring over other artist’s beautiful books and illustrations in the in-between moments all year, figuring out what it is that I really love about them, trying to loosen up my own work.”
Zebedee: “At the very end of last year, I was asked to design a series of large murals for Fortnum and Mason. The brief was vague so I pretty much had a free rein. Unveiled in January they spanned four floors of the shop and didn’t come down until October, so for most of the year I had a surface area of about 2 tennis courts of my artwork, visible from 9am to 7pm in central Piccadilly. A nice backdrop for the sugared almonds, rare teas and thickly chocolate coated biscuits on sale in the store, but an even nicer backdrop to my year as a whole. Sometimes you really click with a brand and that proved the case this year with F&M.”
Kat: “One of my favourite projects from this year is the Imperial War Museum’s ‘Spies, Lies and Deception’ Project. I worked with the marketing team to create three illustrated routes and this is the one that they went with to roll out into their North branch in Manchester on Print, Online and out of home advertising. The brief and task was to create an appealing family campaign that would attract families that are interested in history. There was also a need that the campaign needed to be accessible and appealing enough to create intrigue amongst an age group of 8+.”
The Importance of Community
A resounding take-away from our conversations with members was about the importance of community. Many illustrators have found a huge benefit from building or reconnecting with communities around them, whether in person or online. Through community, they have found new ways to generate work or been able to source optimism or support, even when the industry feels uncertain.
Kat: “One of my take-aways from 2025 and something I’ve been doing throughout the year is to not focus on social media so much. I’ve instead been cultivating and putting energy into my relationships in person, community and friends in my studio/workplace or at events. I find work comes through the most unexpected places sometimes – word of mouth, recommendations, building my connections locally or my website. Online tools are great and will always be somewhere we use as creatives, but I think, more than ever we need real human interaction!”
With all of its uncertainties, 2025 has shown me just how many people and organisations exist out there who have a deep appreciation for human-made art and the depths and processes that come with it
Sarah Jane Docker
Sarah: “The year started with the chance to work on some beautiful books and I have found myself extra grateful for the people who come back with ideas, connections and projects for me time and time again. I was newly surprised by the online art community and the resilience of creative people in the face of issues that might threaten our livelihoods this year too. After spending a lot of 2023/24 a little pessimistic and worried about the future of being an illustrator, with all of its uncertainties, 2025 has shown me just how many people and organisations exist out there who have a deep appreciation for human-made art and the depths and processes that come with it.”
The AOI runs a number of meet-ups all round the UK, which are a great way to build or connect with your own community.
Nourishing Your Creative Practice
This year, many illustrators have discovered the importance of nourishing their creative practice, moving at their own pace, and rediscovering play, and in doing so, reminding people about the human behind the art.
Whilst it has been a positive year where she has achieved a lot of key goals, Gee also learnt a lot about navigating her own creative journey in 2025: “Conversely, I’m in the middle of an Endometriosis diagnosis and health wise have really struggled to keep up the momentum which has been a real mental battle this year. Whilst I’m still in the depths of navigating this, it has already taught me so much about the fundamentals of nourishing your creative practice (coming from a place of doing the opposite), and how non-linear the creative journey is. I’ve spent most of the year swimming against the tide thinking it might get me to the destination sooner. But I realised the hard way all this does is create force (and burnout) which is not a cute conduit for creativity. Learning to surrender and to let the stream take you, I have found is the anecdote – it is in itself, an act to feed the creative soul. Here’s to more of this in 2026!”
Sarah: “Realising that spare time doesn’t just come to me (who knew?) I’ve made more of an effort to find time to dig into my sketchbook this year, and in an attempt to show and enjoy more of the mess and human-ness behind making art, have been sharing the good, bad and the ugly pages online. It’s been a good opportunity to find PLAY in my work again, something that it can be easy to forget how to do when you have developed processes for yourself and repeat them over and over.
[…] Trying to let go of perfection and fear more, meant that I was able to sketch up some comics and experiment with small stories and animations that have helped others, in some capacity. I’ve always known that a big purpose of illustration was to carry a message, across language barriers too, but I had never deeply realised how far it could carry until this year.”
These personal and professional insights are topics we regularly aim to reflect on in our AOI Discusses series, available for members to watch back any time in Event Recordings.
Campaigning in 2025
Campaigning on behalf of our members and the wider illustration industry has always been a hugely important part of the AOI’s work, and this has been particularly pertinent as we navigate issues related to AI. In a year where the issues surrounding generative AI taking illustrators’ work for training were forefront, AOI campaigned on a number of areas to ensure the viewpoint and experiences of illustrators were heard.
We aim to keep the illustration community informed with new developments. Find out more about what we have done this year in our article, AOI Campaigning in 2025. Make sure to also keep up to date in 2026 on our AI Updates page.
We thank our members, friends and those who have supported us in our campaigning work this year. Chris Haughton has been a passionate advocate for illustrators, the industry and the AOI, as we work to ensure creators rights are protected. Speaking with Membership and Publications Manager Derek Brazell, Chris Haughton, shared his thoughts as we come to the end of the year.
I think we are at a crossroads right now. How AI is legislated now will determine the future of illustration and the wider creative industries. GenAI could be an existential threat, or, if we retain control of our rights, it could be a powerful new tool that we can work with. We as illustrators and the entire creative community need to come together and make our voices heard.
Chris Haughton
Supporting Others
Thanks to the AOI Mentorship Scheme, many illustrator mentees have been able to kickstart their illustration careers in 2025. You can find out more about this year’s AOI Mentorship scheme in our article series spotlighting the mentees, across Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
It has also been a year of giving back and we thank the AOI Mentors for their generosity offering their time, knowledge and expertise as part of the scheme. We hear from one of our long-term mentors, Claudine O Sullivan, on how she has found 2025.
“In a period of rapid change and uncertainty, the value of human creativity is essential. I believe the way we work as illustrators needs to evolve, and I see that shift as a positive. Over the past year, both personally and as a mentor, I’ve focused on strengthening my own personal practice and making work from its core. As a result, I’m now engaging with new and long-standing clients at a deeper level, creating work and relationships that can’t be replicated. I don’t underestimate the challenges facing our industry, but I’m choosing to respond in a way that sustains me creatively and preserves my relevance as a professional.”
Claudine shared more about this experience of returning to her personal practice in our AOI Discusses, on building resilience in uncertain times. Watch now in Event Recordings.
Human creativity is essential. By working from the core of our practice, we create work and relationships that can’t be replicated.
Claudine O Sullivan
Industry Insights
We spoke to AOI Industry Member Arena Illustration to hear their perspective on 2025, including how they have navigated the past year as a business and their thoughts looking ahead to 2026.
Arena Illustration has had a busy year launching author-illustrated series, picking up award nominations and attending events, including their own celebration of 25 years as a business. Tamlyn Francis shares more:
“ 2025 was an interstellar year for us. We launched brand-new author/illustrated series, set a gaggle of enchanting new characters out into the world, and set our sights on big and small screen opportunities.
Alongside all the inspiring projects we got to work on together we also created our own brochures, prints and postcards, ideal for our trips to major European book fairs, which are always a highlight for us.
In October we were delighted to celebrate our 25th anniversary with some of our dearest clients, friends and most of all our artists who inspire us every day.”
Thank You!
Thank you to AOI Members Katherine Tromans, Zebedee Helm, Gee Mullins, Sarah Jane Docker, Claudine O Sullivan, Arena Illustration and Chris Haughton, for their contributions.
We are aware there have been a lot of conversations online about difficulties and uncertainties for illustrators in 2025. Whilst we acknowledge that it has been a challenging year, we are encouraged to hear that many illustrators have achieved important goals, secured exciting commissions, found practical learnings or established new connections and community during this time.
We are excited to see what’s to come in 2026, as we continue to support, protect and celebrate our members and the illustration industry more widely.
Not yet an AOI member? Find out more about becoming a member here.
Back to News Page