Meet the Illustrator: Max Landrak

Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.

Quirky, irreverent, retro.

What items are an essential part of your creative space?

Lots of books, loudspeakers, strong coffee.

Do you have a favourite artistic medium?

Pen, ink, pastels.

Name three artists whose work inspires you.

Quinton Blake (Roald Dahl’s favourite illustrator), Roald Dahl (Quinton Blake’s favourite writer), Edward Munch.

Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?

I’d go all the way back to the Paleolithic age, where I’d paint a few iPhones on a cave wall. Just to mess with art historians and archaeologists.

Who or what inspired you to become an illustrator?

In primary school, I was a big fan of the Asterix series--the creators, Goscinny & Uderzo inspired me to write and draw epic stories about Vikings and Romans and Persians.

Can you share a photo of your creative work space or part of the area where you work most often? Talk us through it.

I have a large desk and a skinny desk. The large desk is my main work space, the analogue space. The skinny desk is for computer/digital work; research, editing text, cleaning up illustration.

What is your favourite part of the illustration process?

The early ideas stage; deciding what to include, what to leave out, how to make the next page look different to all the other pages.

What advice would you give to an aspiring illustrator?

Experiment a lot, develop a style that is yours, then keep evolving. 

Max Landrak is an art director, writer and illustrator who has lived in Oslo, London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Singapore. His quirky sense of humour has been recognised at international advertising award shows including Cannes Lions, The One Show and D&AD. He once made a short film about baked beans (a Tropfest finalist) and ran a marathon in Havana, Cuba. Max was born in the far north of Norway, and despite spending most of his adult life in Australia, can still build a mean snowman and a habitable snowcave.

You can follow Max on instagram or visit his website for more information.