I met Hanna Carter in Rome, Italy, in a season of my life that redefined friendship and craft and passion. It was our senior year of college, and a small group of our Graphic Design class at Iowa State University had the privilege of spending a semester abroad in Italy. A semester of running around Rome learning history and art and culture. Of eye-opening, world-defining, adventure-having, larger than life moments. Amidst one of the greatest adventures of my young life, at the apex of a perfect Roman summer, in a very old, very hot little building in Piazza delle Cinque Scole, Hanna sat down at the desk beside mine in our design studio. And thus began one of the greatest friendships of my life.

Hanna Carter is a powerhouse of a designer, an acclaimed Los Angeles Times illustrator, a children’s book illustrator, a well-spring of creative passion and energy, and one of the most beautiful incarnations of true friendship. She has been a part of the Portland design and illustration community for nearly a decade, and currently freelances.

Nicole Brate: For as long as I've known you, you've been developing and honing your illustration style. Could you say a bit about when you feel your journey with illustration began?

Hanna Carter: Going way, way back, I loved to draw as a young person. I was always pitched as the creative kid. My original love was writing more so than illustration. When I was writing things as a kid and as a teenager, it felt natural to pair that with illustration. To that point, I started working at the library when I was 16 and really fell in love with graphic novels and comics. And then that love sort of continued and evolved through college.

Honestly, I was sort of persuaded against illustration going through graphic design school. I think professors, maybe rightly so, were like “you won't make any money.” But I had some really great instructors, like Chuck Richards. He was, you know, a real, serious professional illustrator, and I think that was the first time I’d met anyone who did that fully. His whole thing was colored pencil drawing, which was very detailed and insane. And I was like, well, I don't know how to do that, but I do love knowing that you exist and that you are building your life doing this.

After I graduated and moved out to Portland, my first job was very techie, very boring, very back-end website stuff, and not really not much design. I needed some kind of creative outlet and I started drawing more then. And it was at that point that it was like, oh okay, this is something I'm gonna sort of toil on in my own personal life. When I went freelance the first time, I was like, okay, now I actually have time to put some energy into that. I don't think they paid me the first real gig. It was for a local paper. It was at that point that I was like, oh, I can do editorial illustration. So this is a very long, rambly answer, but that's the journey of where it started to become a real thing.

Nicole Brate: Is that the point when you thought of yourself as an actual, real illustrator? Or is there a certain point in your career where you were thought ‘this is it’?

Hanna Carter: I didn't feel legit until I started regularly doing work with the LA Times. The work that I did with them, because that one was consistent. So I did, I was working with them for 6 months or something like that, weekly, essentially. I was doing a lot of animation for them too. And all of those pieces started to feel like, okay, this is an actual chunk of my freelance career.

Nicole Brate: How do you know when a piece is done?

Hanna Carter: When the deadline hits?

Nicole Brate: The entirety of the time I've known you, your illustration style has changed and morphed. What do you do to engage with and keep your illustration style fresh and progressing? Do you have any inspiration?

Hanna Carter: Yeah. I try to perpetually surround myself with artists that I like, be it on social media or in person. Portland is a really great illustration town. There are a ton of really talented illustrators here. Whenever I can, I try to be either physically with that community. Though I will say, illustrators are a tough to pin down bunch. They're a reclusive little bunch. At one point, I was a part of a couple different local illustrator groups.

In terms of progressing style, that’s a tricky question because I'm in a little bit of a slow point in my illustration career. At least from the standpoint of nothing zaps you creatively like being slammed and then being pregnant. Now, I don't count illustration as a major part of my freelance work anymore, but it's a part of the freelancing ecosystem. But I hope that I'm improving. You know, I take inspiration from the people that are doing really great work out there, and I hope that I am rising to meet some sort of standard that they've set.

With illustration in particular, it is a real lifelong journey. Drawing is such a deep part of being a person. I think most people draw at one point in their life or another. Some people stop, but others don't. And so I expect that over the course of my life there's going to be some ebbs and flows, but I also hope and dream that at 90 I'll be doodling some stuff.

Nicole Brate: Is there any wisdom you'd like to share with artists experimenting with illustration or looking to carve out a career in it?

Hanna Carter: Respond to your emails quickly. Okay. I mean, that sounds like such a nitpicky, tiny little thing. But I find that in editorial work in particular, you gotta be fast. People need quick turnarounds, and the only way you can make real money with that work is by doing a lot of it. And it really pays to be on top of it.

The other thing I would say is that there's a lot of illustrators I know who pair their work with education and certain academia in some way. A lot of people pair it with teaching, mentoring, and that kind of thing. So it helps to find those people, and collaborate or learn from them in some way. A lot of my early work and a lot of how I figured out how to get going was just finding people who were talking about illustration and the particular niche of illustration that I wanted to do, which was editorial.

More broadly, I would say if someone is in the arts, wants to do illustration, and wants to do it as a career or not, there's a lot of different kinds of illustrators you could be. Some people do only kids' books, and some people do editorial. Most people kind of dabble in a handful of things. It doesn't necessarily make sense to box yourself in, but it does help to have a focus. Each little niche has kind of their own way of doing things, like newspapers kind of have their own way of doing things. Magazines have their own way of doing things. Books is an entirely other different thing. But I've found, in general, the illustration community is like a very giving, lovely community that just wants to help and build each other up. And so finding people who are already doing what you want to do and asking them questions is very nice and helpful and I'm sure that would be the thing to do.

Nicole Brate: Are there any other dream projects you'd like to embark on in your illustration career?

Hanna Carter: I've worked on children's books where other people have done the writing. I think long term, I would love to write and illustrate my own at some point. Should the right idea come to me. Broadly, I think the dream is just to keep doing it. You know? It's fun to have people pay me to do it, but it's also fun to just keep it as a lifelong pursuit. Not just something you get paid for, but something you interact with forever.