An illustration of a cross-section of a grey apartment building against a green sky. Various people are shown in different rooms and shops, each with a yellow speech bubble containing their inner thoughts.

Illusive illustrator Jan Van Der Veken is making magnificent work in secret

Words: James Cartwright
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Date: 28 August 2012; Work
Illustration

For such a well-respected and wonderfully talented illustrator there’s a surprising lack of information about Jan Van Der Veken out there on the internet. His online presence is decidedly minimal, amounting to just a Tumblr, a short biography on Drawn and Quarterly and a few lines of a Wikipedia entry that offers “Van Der Veken developed his own artistic style…” by way of explaining Jan’s creative output. Not a lot to go on really. He doesn’t even have a proper email address.

What we can tell you about the Ghent-born illustrator is that he’s a practitioner of the Atomstyle, a 1950s adaptation of Hergé’s famous ligne clàire, specialises in book-cover and poster design and is so good at what he does that the New Yorker is always knocking on his door for cover illustrations. All of which should be enough to persuade you that this is one illustrator you really should know more about (even if we can’t provide you with that information right now).

Since writing this article Jan has been updating his website with an absolute torrent of new work so get on over there so see the magnificent fruits of his labours. Thanks Jan!