Richard Johnson recently conceived and illustrated an inclusive poster as part of an Association of Illustrators and In The Picture initiative.

The poster shows groups of disabled and non-disabled children in a fantasy story book. You can read more about the poster here.

In the interview below he talks about the processes he went through when creating the image.

1. Your poster contains a lot of images of children that have not appeared in an illustrated form before. Can you describe the process of researching them...

Because of the nature of the brief it was important to get the details right, this meant doing a little bit of research looking at modern equipment such as wheelchairs, splints and trikes and also making sure I was accurately depicting the children signing and Braille reading.

My main source of reference was initially talking to Scope's In The Picture project then looking at their website, which contains lots of reference photographs in their image bank. I also tried to start looking, in closer detail, at the world around me...

2. What did you find helped the most?

Scope's In The Picture website is a great source of reference and also inspiration.

3. Are there any pitfalls you would warn illustrators about when tackling this sort of picture?

I wanted to create an image which could be educational, but also quite eye-catching and magical, something that would hopefully appeal to children and adults alike. I felt strongly that I wanted to produce something that would show the children outside of their normal surroundings.

As I mentioned, I needed to draw each individual disabled child accurately, but it was also important to show them with non-disabled children, side by side, not to emphasise one or the other but make the children equal in status and activities. I almost wanted the viewer to see children first and then realise that the image contains children with disabilities.

This, I think, is what I would say to other illustrators when tackling this sort of picture. Every child is different, its important to depict the child first and the disability second.

4. What have you learnt most from doing this poster?

Making sure that disabled children are depicted and depicted equally.

I have learnt that this is an important area of illustration that should be developed further and perhaps into more modern areas of illustration, doing this project has certainly opened my eyes and I will, hopefully, be able to include what I have learnt in future projects.

Of course, it is also down to the commissioners to develop this area further into the public eye.

5. Do you think disability equality should be part of an illustrators training in the way it has been this year for the universities that have worked with us and at what stage should it be introduced, and why?

I think it would be a good idea to instruct training illustrators in depicting not only disabled equality but also equality generally.

For me, illustration is about drawing, and good drawing comes from looking and seeing. As students, who are developing their own ways of working, it can only be a good thing for them to understand the significance of developing their own visual language into areas of depicting different races, cultures and disabilities.

This would hopefully translate the message of equality to a wider audience through their artwork. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words .....

Richard has included some notes about how he created the poster on his website too at www.richardjohnsonillustration.co.uk/process.php

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