Celebrating 10 Years of Newark Book Festival 2026
4th June 2026
Ten years of celebrating books, authors and the joy of reading in one of the East Midlands’ best kept secrets. When Sara, the creative force behind the Newark Book Festival, asked me to mark that milestone with illustrations, I didn’t need to think twice.
If you don’t live locally to me, Newark may be a location that is unfamiliar to you. I live a few miles out from the town, but this little market town is steeped in Civil War and Cromwell history and boasts a high percentage of independent shops. Its crowning glory, Newark Castle, sits alongside the beautiful River Trent that winds through many villages in the surrounding area. A real hidden gem in the East Midlands.
For the past 10 years, Newark has celebrated reading with the famous Newark Book Festival, every year welcoming well known authors such as Matt Haig (who originally came from Newark and was a few years above me in school), Helen Russell, Cathy Bramley, Harriet Tyce and Jay McGuinness (also originally from Newark), to name just a few. The festival has held intimate interviews, theatre talks, author workshops and many other events.
Collaboration with Newark Book Festival
Originally Sara approached me to help illustrate the front cover of the event programme and the poster, but when sharing that I have a good few years of experience in graphic design (25 and counting), I also helped pull the full programme together to help promote all the events they are hosting in 2026.
The brief was to pull together the many themes of the festival across previous years and really celebrate what an achievement the festival is for Newark. Being local, I also wanted to bring in some of the town’s history and include the castle, the River Trent and the market square that are the central focus of the town.
With this as my base, I gathered all the themes together and started to imagine storytelling like the famous Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. Newark and Sherwood is famous for its greenery and trees, so I built the story around a large tree deeply rooted in symbolism and wisdom. I wanted the illustration to be full of surprises the more you looked, so I included fairy doors and windows in the trunk, bunting and fairy lights for celebration, alongside nods to book themes, fairy tales, crime, travel and adventure, nature, art and heritage. And of course not forgetting Barry the Bookworm, a long-time mascot for the event.
How I Created the Illustration
The illustration itself was hand drawn using a traditional dip pen and ink, then brought to life in full colour using a digital painting technique, so I could incorporate the correct brand colours of the Newark Book Festival without losing that handcrafted feel. The book and creative industry has taken a hit in the past year, from the increased use of AI, so it was important to create an original piece by hand. Let the delicate changes in line thickness and natural expression tell the story of celebration. We wanted nothing that felt generic or too literal, but held the same magic and escapism that books do.
Using brighter colours is less of my comfort zone than my usual natural tones, but I was thrilled with the end result and it has encouraged me to push myself to create more pieces this way.
Newark Book Festival gets off to a great start
There was an early kick-off event with Matt Haig that I was lucky to attend. He was there promoting his new book, The Midnight Train, and being a favourite author of mine, not only for his magical writing but for his take and support on mental health and autism, two subjects close to my heart, it was a wonderful evening.
If you love books and meeting some of your favourite authors, I highly recommend you take a look and book yourself some tickets.
This brief reminded me why I love collaborative work so much. If you have a project that could use a hand, come and say hello.