Julia Woolf

Before enrolling at The Cambridge School of Art at Anglia Ruskin University, where Julia completed her MA in Children’s Book Illustration, (receiving a distinction), she worked for twenty years in animation including a decade at Dreamworks in Los Angeles, working in Visual Development, Art and Layout departments.

When Julia returned to the UK she embarked on the Cambridge course and loved the fact that the course challenged her to experiment with different processes and taking her in a new directions.

With an illustration being shortlisted for the AOI Awards in New Talent, Children’s Books category, this was the beginning of her first author/illustrated book Giraffe on A Bicycle being published by Macmillan in 2016.

Giraffe on a Bicycle was featured on the BBC’s Cbeebies Bedtime Stories, read by Sir Chris Hoy.

Duck and Penguin Are Not Friends, (Julia’s third author/illustrated book) published in June 2019 by Andersen Press went on to receive an nomination for CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2020. It was also in the BookTrusts ‘Great 100 Books Guide for 2020’.

Calm Down Zebra, (Julia’s, second book with the author Lou Kuenzler) published by Faber and Faber in 2020 went on to receive a nomination at the Sheffield Children Book Awards 2020.

Alongside Julia’s published work, her illustration The Fox in the Forest was the inspiration for the architects Hawkins Brown’s design of Ivydale Primary School in South London, which subsequently won the RIBA London Award 2018. In the same year, Julia won the ARU Alumni Contribution to Culture Award.