Ezra Whittaker is a freelance illustrator and designer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. With over 10 years experience, you’ve probably seen some of his eye-catching work – online, in print and even splashed across billboards. Ezra loves working with clients who are doing good in the world and making art that brings joy to people.
Kia ora, Ezra! You’ve recently gone back to freelancing, but you played such a big role in making Daylight what it is. You were one of the very first hires. What were you doing before Daylight, and what did the path look like to landing here?
Before Daylight, and pre-pandemic, I had freshly moved over to Melbourne to try and break into the creative industry over there. When COVID hit, my freelance work dried up pretty rapidly, so we made a snap judgement to move home. Within a week we were back, isolating out in the Waitakere ranges. It was during that time that I got a call about working with a tiny crew of people that would go on to be the nucleus of Daylight.
Did you always want to be an illustrator? Can you remember a moment that made you think, ‘This is what I want to do’?
As a kid, I always told people that I wanted to be a cartoonist, which I think is a kid’s best interpretation of what I’m doing now. It’s not something I necessarily ever had to think too hard about – drawing was one thing that I always received praise for from family and peers, so it just became the thing that I was known for. If I had to pick one moment, it would probably be when I was around eight or nine, the other kids in the classroom started getting me to draw characters from Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon — basically my first commissions, paid for with ‘exposure’.
Were there any pivotal moments or people that shaped your journey into illustration?
I think embedding myself into the creative community, particularly the local zine community, when I was in my early twenties led to a lot of important connections. You never quite know who you might meet through these sorts of communities. They might pop up years down the line and lead to an opportunity.
I also ran a small creative space in Grey Lynn with my now-wife Lauren and good friend Eden. The opportunity came up to rent a tiny shoebox of a building two blocks from our flat, so we decided to take the lease and use it as a studio space. We were all working other jobs but somehow found time to squeeze as much creativity as possible out of that space. We got a few other creatives in there to help offset the rent, hosted little markets, workshops, offered risograph printing services and basically just built a little community around it. There are a lot of people that I got to know really well during that time that I’m still good friends with.
In terms of specific people, I would say that I owe a lot to Toby Morris. I think he’s done a lot to support the generation of illustrators that have come after him, and personally I have him to thank for getting me on board as a contractor during the nascent days of Daylight. He’s one of those people that I met through the local zine community. That relationship definitely turned into a fruitful working relationship.
What do you love most about being an illustrator? Is it the process, the storytelling or something else?
I think that’s one thing that I still haven’t quite figured out – it sort of scratches an itch for me. It’s probably just that it’s the thing I do that most easily allows me to slip into a state of flow. Besides that, it’s just a great outlet for my creative compulsion – I have an urge to just make stuff all the time, and it’s a way of doing that without any real barriers.
You have a very distinct style but also this amazing ability to adapt it to fit a specific project or audience. What influences your style, and how did you develop it?
I think this comes back to always wanting to try out new things and experiment with my illustration. As an illustrator, there’s an interesting tension between consistency and adaptability in terms of style. The more consistent you are, the more potential you have to gain a large audience who want to follow your output, your particular brand of illustration. As a young artist, these are the people you are influenced by — the ones with all the clout. As a result, every up-and-coming illustrator is obsessed with ‘finding their style’ and once they crack that they think they’ll be set for life.
In recent years, however, I’ve learnt to lean into the fact that I prefer to mix things up quite a lot, and I’ve come to see the value in versatility as an illustrator. It probably will mean that I’m never going to be super-well-known as an illustrator, but I think it makes me a lot more useful and employable – not that those are the only markers of success, of course. It’s all about each of us finding the right balance between consistency and adaptability, and that can change over time.
What’s a project you’ve worked on that feels particularly meaningful or close to your heart?
I think the comic we produced for DOC a couple of years back for their Predator-Free 2050 campaign definitely stands as one of my all-round favourites. For starters, there was a strong kaupapa underpinning the project, and the clients were really engaged with the process. They added a lot of depth while also being really receptive to our creative solutions. It was a collaboration with Toby Morris who wrote the script, and it’s always a pleasure working with him. I also think it hit the sweet-spot for me in terms of timeframe. There was enough scope to really put a lot of love into the illustrations, but it did move at enough of a pace that I didn’t really get bored of the project. All that makes for a real dream project.
At Daylight you’ve often had to communicate quite complex messages for our partners across subjects you may have initially known nothing about. Particularly in the health/science sector. How do you approach this?
I think there are basically three different mindsets that come together to create effective explainer illustrations. It starts with having an open mind and a curious disposition. I get pretty jazzed on learning new stuff in general, so that definitely helps as a starting point. Then, if you can combine that with a logical design mentality you start to be able to distill the information down to its purest form. You start to carve away the unnecessary information until you have just the right amount left to convey the message in an efficient way. Lastly, there’s a creative aspect to it as well, being able to find alternative and novel ways to explain your concepts that will stick in someone’s brain much better than the raw information alone would.
Have there been any projects that have surprised or challenged you in unexpected ways?
There were certainly a lot of projects that pushed me outside of my comfort zone and forced me to adapt and try new things. I think the illustrations that need to convey lots of different narratives simultaneously tend to be the more challenging ones. And there’s no shortage of those sorts of jobs when you are working with organisations like the WHO, government agencies and universities where there are lots of conflicting ideas about what’s crucial information and what can be stripped back in the pursuit of concise communication.
I think one example would be the CCAG report cover that we produced, which required us to walk such a fine and nuanced line between climate urgency and optimism. The images had to work on a conceptual level, which was one thing, but then they also had to strike this balance where the dangers of climate inaction were made clear, but in a way that was offset by an optimistic alternative. It definitely meant that a lot more back and forth was required in order to arrive at the final solution.
How do you feel about the future of illustration, especially with the rise of AI tools? Are you excited or concerned?
I wouldn’t say that I’m squarely in either camp – I don’t think Illustration as a craft is going to be killed by AI any time soon, but at the same time, there’s a lot we need to be conscious of as we go further down the rabbit hole. It all comes down to how society by-and-large decides to use it.
It’s an energy intensive practice, so I think we really need to make sure that we are only using it when we really need to, and I would suggest that using it to replace human creativity does not rank high on that priority list. If it is used to streamline tedious tasks and genuinely reduce creative boundaries for people, then I’m all for it. However, my gut feeling is that more often than not, it’s going to be used to cut creativity out of the process, which I’m not thrilled about.
Basically if we use AI in a considered, careful and conscious way, then I think there’s potential for good to come out of it. Unfortunately, however, humans have a terrible track record when it comes to being considered, careful and conscious.
What trends or shifts are you noticing in the illustration world, and how do you think they’ll shape the industry moving forward?
I definitely think illustration is seeing the same sort of monoculture that you see in music and fashion. There are some definite trends that I think are interesting to observe. There’s been a big push against ‘corporate’ style vector illustrations in the past half decade or so, which I think tells a larger story about people wanting more personality in their illustrations. This sentiment is only going to get stronger with the proliferation of AI imagery. My prediction is that all of the styles that AI can pull off convincingly are going to be seen in a few years as incredibly cringe because that’s what’s going to come to represent lowest common denominator art. Conversely, the more unique an art style is, the more cut through it’s going to have.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in illustration or struggling to find their style?
Yeah… that’s a tricky one and definitely something I’ve struggled with quite a bit. When I give advice to young illustrators, it tends to have nothing to do with illustration, but it’s all stuff that you can train yourself to be better at.
Be observant and interested in the world — the more stuff you are passionate about or are engaged with, the more that that tacit understanding of the world filters into your illustrations. In other words, the best way to get good at drawing horses is to be really into horses, and so the more stuff you can be into, the larger your repertoire will be.
Be a good communicator, particularly if you are producing work for a client. You can be the best artist in the world, but if you can’t figure out what the client wants, you’re never going to nail a brief. This is probably the thing I’ve had to work on the most because it doesn’t come naturally to me and has led to a few project breakdowns early on. Keep your clients updated throughout the whole process and everything will run much smoother!
Lastly, don’t let perfectionism get in your way. When I’m illustrating, I kind of try and aim for a sweet spot where I’m 90–95% happy with it. It’s around that point that I think you start spending way too much time finessing the finer details for increasingly diminished returns. It’s sort of like the illustrators’ version of the last mile problem, where the final steps can take vastly more time and effort. That being said, I hugely admire people who can devote months to working meticulously on a single artwork. I think the sooner we can learn to live with a certain degree of imperfection, the better an illustrator we become.
Finally, creativity seems to flow through every part of your life, from your work to your hobbies. We’ve heard you dive into wild craft projects, tackle ambitious cooking experiments and more. Can you tell us more about these?
I do tend to have a healthy stack of half-finished projects. I think it stems from two different personality quirks combining. Firstly, there’s the drive to dabble in a bit of anything and everything. Secondly, there’s the compulsion for creativity that I mentioned earlier. Whenever I’m doing anything, I’m always thinking about how it could be done in a new way — what unusual flavour would actually work really well in this meal? How can I make this thing feel a bit more like this other, different thing? How can I take bits of this process and apply them to that process?
I have a genuine curiosity for a lot of different things, but also I easily get bored of projects and end up moving on to the next thing before I finish anything, which is a big problem. There’s the soda business that I’ve talked about for years, an online greeting card store, a sandwich shop, drawing club, a kids books… the list goes on. I’ve also got a stack of prototype board games that I need to finish and bring to market when I get a minute. That’s probably the thing that’s been hanging over my head the longest!
You can find more of Ezra's work here
