Andrew Ashton

Who is Andrew Ashton?

Andrew Ashton is a book designer and illustrator who has lived in Westcliff on Sea, Southend, in Essex for several years. He is a Philosophy graduate and joined Mensa International in 1992. He began his career in publishing at Kogan Page, the leading UK independent business publisher, in the early nineties. At the turn of the 21st century he moved to HarperCollins publishers where he still works. He has designed and illustrated books for many different lists and in many different styles from literary flamingo titles to non-fiction bestsellers such as Fighter Boys by Patrick Bishop.

Although his book designs are rarely acknowledged significant works for endpapers, title pages or page illustrations may be credited on the imprint page, or in the acknowledgements by the author, and such entries can be found in books by authors such as Paullina Simons, Janny Wurts, James Twining, Tracy Chevalier, Barbara Erskine and Robin Hobb. His illustrations are also in books by Barbara Taylor Bradford, Philippa Gregory, and Conn Iggulden among many others.

His most famous design is for The Dangerous Book for Boys, for which he co-won the 2007 Stora Enso Design and Production award with Nicole Abel at the British Book Industry Awards. As well as designing the book, he also helped set it with Linde Hardaker and was the colourist for the pictures as well as supplying a couple of pictures including the title motif used on every page. He has contributed to all the UK Dangerous Books for Boys so far and was the joint illustrator with Joy Gosney of the Pocket Book.