I am an Aritst, Illustrator and Layout Specialist. As an artist and illustrator I specialize in creating beautiful content routed in realism with a joyful sense of whimsy. One of my best assets as a freelancer is my friendly professionalism which makes working with me both efficient and fun. I am passionate about understanding the unique intricacies of each project I work on and working collaboratively with my clients to develop a visual language that best meets their needs and vision. I work on a wide range of projects mostly focused on publishing with a special focus children's book illustrations, high end food art and board game design.…

Matthew King

5.0 (2 reviews)

I am an Aritst, Illustrator and Layout Specialist. As an artist and illustrator I specialize in creating beautiful content routed in realism with a joyful sense of whimsy. One of my best assets as a freelancer is my friendly professionalism which makes working with me both efficient and fun. I am passionate about understanding the unique intricacies of each project I work on and working collaboratively with my clients to develop a visual language that best meets their needs and vision. I work on a wide range of projects mostly focused on publishing with a special focus children's book illustrations, high end food art and board game design.…

Available to hire

I am an Aritst, Illustrator and Layout Specialist.

As an artist and illustrator I specialize in creating beautiful content routed in realism with a joyful sense of whimsy. One of my best assets as a freelancer is my friendly professionalism which makes working with me both efficient and fun. I am passionate about understanding the unique intricacies of each project I work on and working collaboratively with my clients to develop a visual language that best meets their needs and vision.

I work on a wide range of projects mostly focused on publishing with a special focus children’s book illustrations, high end food art and board game design.

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Language

English
Fluent

Work Experience

Social Media Coordinator at Hilton International South East England Cluster
November 1, 2015 - November 1, 2016
Designed and scheduled social media content for the 13 hotels in the cluster. Supervised, trained and managed the social media officers for each hotel in the cluster.
Senior Cover Designer at Barcelona Book Publishers
December 1, 2016 - June 1, 2021
Conceptualised and designed book covers for all books published under the label during that time. Collaborated with production team and authors to create fresh and unique covers to suit each book and its audience.
Freelance Artist at Mind Pipe Creative Studio
December 1, 2013 - Present
Work with clients worldwide bringing their design projects to life. Create artwork for children’s books, board games, logo and branding designs. Layout a wide range of books and publication types.
Founder and Owner at Domestic Dungeoneer Homeware
April 1, 2024 - Present
Design and range of homeware products targeted to wargaming communities (D&D and RPG). Selling products online, in stores and at trade shows.

Education

BA (Hons) Computer Visualisation and Animation at Bournemouth University
January 1, 2006 - January 1, 2009

Qualifications

Add your qualifications or awards here.

Industry Experience

Media & Entertainment, Professional Services, Education
    paper Popsi and the Lost Snowflake A Children's Book Illustration

    Popsi and the Lost Snowflake is a Children’s book illustration and layout project I was commissioned to do in Q4 2025. The client is making a series of books to teach children how to deal life’s troubles. It focuses on techniques for self regualtion. The client had a very specific style in mind the focus was on cute character, big eyes and big heads. They supplied AI look reference for me to work from and my job was to take those concepts and bring them to life and a more human painterly way.

    The project took 6 weeks to complete and is now available to by. I am super proud of this one and I am looking forward to working on book 2.

    paper Dan's Mischievous Shadow (Children's Book Illustration and Layout Project)

    Dan’s Mischevious Shadow is children’s book project I completed for a client at the end of 2025. This was a great project to work on. The client created a really sweat and touching story to help his son understand his Autism. The client had some very specific ideas but didn’t know where to start as such we worked together to develop a style that suited him and that his child could also happily engage with. From there I worked up a rough layout for the manuscript and created compositional sketches so that we could work out how the text and the artwork would relate.

    As well as creating all the artwork for the book I was also responsible for the layout and preparing the print ready files. In the end we did 3 versions as the client tested out different production routes including KDP, Ingram Sparks and Book Baby who we went with in the end.

    Once the client was happy we moved on to creating the full artwork. The main challenge for this project was to make the shadow fun but not scary and to keep the shadow dynamic and joyful at all times.

    I am really proud of the end result and I am so happy that I managed to make a book that my client is now sharing with his child and with other families dealing with similar differences.

    paper Caspian and the Enchanted Lake A Childrens Book Illustration Project

    Caspian and the Enchanted Lake is a Children’s book I worked on for a client. This project was a fascinating opportunity. The client wanted to tell a story that straddled Persian and Russian/Slavic folk lore traditions. This old world narrative guided us to a very classical and traditional style and I could not be happier with how it turned out. The artwork for this project was extremely intricate and complicated taking references from the great illustrators like Rackam, Dulac and of course Froud.

    This project took 8 weeks to complete in total and is one of my favourite that I have ever produced.

    paper The Domestic Dungeoneer. A D&D inspired home ware collection.

    For this project I was tasked with creating a series of designs for a Dungeons and Dragons themed homeware collection. The brief was high quality illustrations with a sense of humour. We build some great design for all the main classes as well as a series of low content books which now sell very well. This project was quite complex as it covered design over a wide range of products and a lot of testing to make sure that they colours would remain consistent across different printing approaches. Printing books and fabric products is not always straightforward.

    I a really proud of the work that I did on this project and we continue to add new items to the collection.

    paper Jemma and the Mermaids Call: A children's book illustration project published 2023 (client project)

    Gemma and the Mermaids call is one of my favourite projects I have ever worked on. For this project the client wanted to tell the story of a mermaid who worked with all the creatures of the sea to end the littering that was destroying their habitats. In this project I was responsible for conceptualizing the artwork and the style, creating all the illustrations , executing the layout and organizing the upload for publication. This project was published using BookBaby and the end result was really fantastic.

    The artwork is a celebration of colour and light and is a joy to read.

    paper Food art illustration for Dandelion Chocolate

    I have been working for Dandelion Chocolate for a couple of years now creating illustrations for their physical store, their insert menus and their online stores. This project requires a nuanced approach as they require both a traditional hand painted vibe with modern and contemorary styling. The client also needs all artwork to look and feel hand drawn but to be suitable for vector conversions within certain production limits.

    I absolutely love the work I have produced for them and I know that they have been very happy with my work.