Hannah Robinson illustrates celebrities’ entertaining essays on what makes Britain ‘great’ for GQ

In mid-September GQ’s latest issue, What’s So Great About Britain?, launched to much fanfare online. It’s cover shoot, shot by Charlotte Rutherford, saw British icons from FKA Twigs to Anthony Joshua, Brian Cox and even My Blobby come together on a hectic British high street, littered with pigeons, umbrellas and lost cat signs. As the rest of the issue rolled out it became clear that the greatness of this cover bled into it’s pages, with a series of essays from seven prominent figures such as the acclaimed video essayist Adam Curtis who tackles the ‘greatness’ of Britain, and actress Emma Thompson, who tells us why the British seaside is the best.

These columns were illustrated by the artist Hannah Robinson, a cartoonist who’s no stranger to editorial commissions, having been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and now GQ. Hannah’s illustrations take inspiration from a host of rogue sources, for example, the candy floss skin tones were inspired by burnt British tourists in the Algarve, where Hannah had recently visited prior to the commission. “Another creative influence was the flat, bold colours of old looney tunes backgrounds,” says Hannah. “I didn't want the illustrations to have painting-like subtle shading, I wanted uncomplicated, saturated, fun with a unified colour palette that married all seven essays together into a series.”

Hannah’s work doesn’t aim to closely mimic the authors’ voices, but rather marry the works together visually, using universal illustrative language so as not to confuse the text’s tone. After all, it must be a difficult task to create a cartoon that succinctly captures the politically complicated, sometimes doomy tone of Adam Curtis. Instead, Hannah adds a new layer of context with whimsical, approachable cartoons, putting all of these different celebrities on a level playing field.

“My process always starts very analogue, pencil and ink on paper. That’s where my voice really comes through,” says Hannah. “But the slightly weird thing is that I am not quite ‘in my body’ when I’m on a creative roll. When I have the idea, and get really stuck in it, I get into such a zone that when it’s all over, it feels like somebody else did the work.” Hannah’s love for London, British food (she recommends Tony’s Butchers in Finsbury Park) and a distinctly British, charming illustrative style make her the perfect fit for this series of stories, which range from the embarrassed, the proud, the critical and the curious.