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Andrew Selby is Senior Lecturer in Illustration and Animation. From 2011 - 2014 he was Head of the School of the Arts and led it to become Top 40 QS World-ranked for Art and Design, and then served as Associate Dean for Enterprise in the School of the Arts, English and Drama between 2013 - 2019, overseeing the School’s VR³ÉÈËÊÓƵ Framework submission for 2021. The result of this submission was 100% of Loughborough’s research impact in Art and Design being deemed ‘world-leading’ and ‘internationally-excellent.’

An internationally recognised illustrator, Andrew's work has featured in newspapers, magazines, billboards and on the covers of major corporate reports for over three decades, including major campaigns for Nike, Barclays, Accenture, British Gas, Volvo and Eurostar. His iconic and thought-provoking illustrations have been commissioned by The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, Die Zeitung, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times and been awarded by 3x3: The Journal of Contemporary Illustration, Society of Illustrators’ of New York, Society of Illustrators’ of Los Angeles, American Illustration and the Association of Illustrators’ juried exhibitions and annuals.

Andrew is 3x3: The Journal of Contemporary Illustration Educator of the Year 2026 and a recipient of a VR³ÉÈËÊÓƵ Medal in recognition of his numerous contributions to the University’s staff and student community, as well as the impact of his academic research in illustration.

Andrew's research interests originated out of the intersection between illustration and animation by questioning its perceived ‘place’ in visual communication as part of the global creative industries. His research aims to identify, analyse and explain the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of contemporary illustration and animation across multiple service and product platforms. Andrew’s research considers applications of illustration and visualisation through the prisms of service design, human-centred design and social anthropology. These interests have resulted in individual and collaborative projects with other academics, industrial partners and organisations, traversing the areas of illustration and animation through a variety of published outputs including books, academic journal papers, chapters in edited works and juried exhibitions. His research has been successfully submitted to five Research Assessment Exercises and Frameworks in the UK between 2001 and 2021.

Andrew’s monographs include Animation in Process (London: Laurence King, 2009) and Animation (London: Laurence King, 2013) which were co-editioned in Spanish, Chinese, Taiwanese and Russian. He authored Editorial Illustration: Context, Content

and Creation in 2022 (London: Bloomsbury) and has organised and made several invited keynote contributions to academic conferences on illustration, animation, communication and media studies in Australia, South Korea, Singapore, UK, USA, Ireland, Japan, Portugal and Canada.

Andrew has held a number of publicly funded research grants, including the AHRC, British Academy and British Council, and contributed to EPSRC and Leverhulme funded projects. Andrew was Co-Director of the major international exhibition, Olympics and Culture; Tracings, Projections and Intersections, with Professor Linda Dennis (Joshibi University of Art and Design) that was exhibited in Tokyo as a precursor to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, sponsored by Nomura. This continues work Andrew has been involved in across East Asia over three decades which draw together expertise and opportunity in the creative and cultural industries between China, Japan and Singapore and the United Kingdom. He is a reviewer for the AHRC, EPSRC and several academic publishers.

In addition, Andrew is a director of TRACEY, the web-based research portal dedicated to exploring contemporary drawing and visualisation. He serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Communication and Media Studies (Melbourne: CommonGround) and the scientific committee of CONFIA, in addition to his membership of the 3x3 Illustration Advisory Board. He is a founding member of the International Association of Illustration Academics.

• ACC140 Negotiated Project
• ACC141 Major Project
• ACP205 Design Challenges: Management and Entrepreneurship
• ACP207 Defining a Specialist Project
• ACP200 Final Project

Andrew is committed to teaching methods that explore entrepreneurial approaches to visual communication. As a result, VR³ÉÈËÊÓƵ students have won numerous national and international awards, prizes and scholarships. These include over 40 D&AD New Blood Pencils, Society of Illustrators’ of New York Student Awards, Macmillan Children’s Book Prize, Crowbar Advertising Awards, Bologna Children’s Book Fair Award, Penguin Design Awards, Royal Society of the Arts, Young Creatives Network, British Film Institute Young Filmmaker of the Year and 3x3: The Journal of Contemporary Illustration. Loughborough students have worked with major national and international clients including Oxford University Press, DHL, The Radio Times, Mercedes Benz, Huel, Conran Design, Pearlfisher, Royal British Legion and H&M on a range of industry-led briefs. Andrew welcomes approaches from organisations wishing to work in a collaborative manner with Loughborough students. He has been closely involved in The Studio graduate incubator at the University for many years and has led annual events that help bridge education and the creative industries on Loughborough’s London campus.

An experienced external examiner with appointments reaching across postgraduate research, postgraduate and undergraduate teaching, Andrew has previously examined at the University of the Creative Arts, University of Central Lancashire, Birmingham City University, University of Gloucester, Coventry University, University of Plymouth, University of South Wales, Edinburgh University, Teesside University, The National Film School, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (Republic of Ireland), Silpakorn University (Thailand), Hong Kong Design Institute (Hong Kong), SSR Jakarta (Indonesia) and the University of Newcastle (Australia).

Andrew is currently appointed as external examiner for BA(Hons) Animation at Leeds Arts University and BA(Hons) Visual Communication for Birmingham Institute of Fashion and Creative Art in partnership with Wuhan Textile University (China). He served as an external panel member for validation and revalidation of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes including University of Dundee Duncan of Jordanstone, Cardiff University, Birmingham City University, University of Brighton and Universitat de Barcelona (Spain).

Andrew has been a consultant for organisations that utilise illustration as a mode of visual communication for stakeholders through partnerships and engagements, including work for Barclays de Zoete Wedd in South Africa, Bloomberg, Investec, CNN, CNBC, Sky and the Singaporean Ministry of Education. He is an invited member of All-Party Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group (APDIG), chaired by Barry Sheerman MP and a member of the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD). Andrew has undertaken Government Department for Business and Trade international missions to South-East Asia and the Indian sub-continent, working with UKRI and the British Council. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Andrew’s illustration work is held in public and private collections in the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Canada and Saudi Arabia. He has been commissioned to illustrate the influential covers for The Lancet including the Journal of Infectious Diseases, the Journal of Diabetes & Endocrinology, and the Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology.

Andrew welcomes interest from researchers and organisations for collaborative research projects and postgraduate supervision with interests particularly in the strategic and operational production, interaction and application of illustration and animation in emerging media for both practice-based and full thesis PhD variants of study.

Completed PhD supervisions:

• Dr Haifa Alhumaidan: Co-Design of Augmented Reality Book for Collaborative Learning Experience in Primary Education, co-supervised with Dr Kathy Pui Ying Lo, as part of the Service Design Mini Centre for Doctoral Training led by Dr Kathy Pui Ying Lo
• Dr Hind Alhumaihdi: Visualising Najd women’s oral history through rotoscope animation: A feminist case study in the Al Salem Museum, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr Hend Althibiti: Revealing, representing and repositioning Taif women: Investigating hidden oral histories of folk dance through animated documentary, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr Diwas Bisht: Diasporic memory ecologies: Creative explorations of intergenerational memories and identities in the British Bangladeshi community, co-supervised with Professor Emily Keightley, Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, as part of the Leverhulme Trust-funded research project Memory and the Post-colonial Imagination (MMPI): British Asian Memory, Identity and Community after Partition
• Dr Gill Bliss: Redefining the Anthropomorphic Animal in Animation, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr Nye Canham: Examining the application of STAMP in the analysis of patient safety incidents, co-supervised with Professor Thomas Jun, as part of the Service Design Mini Centre for Doctoral Training led by Dr Kathy Pui Ying Lo
• Dr Holly Ling Hou: An Exploration of Social Photography in a Visitor Museum Experience: Understanding Communication and Engagement through a Mixed Methods Study Incorporating Service Design, co-supervised with Dr Marco Bohr (Nottingham Trent University) and Dr Fred Dalmasso, as part of the Service Design Mini Centre for Doctoral Training led by Dr Kathy Pui Ying Lo
• Dr Sara Khomais: Translating Picturebook Type: A practice-led enquiry into the typographic design of picturebooks that are translated from English to Arabic, co-supervised with Dr Rob Tovey
• Dr Samantha Moore: Out of Sight: Using animation to document perceptual brain states, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr Mohamad Nor Ridzuan Bin A. Rasid: Reframing Motion Graphics in Graphic Design Education: A Practice-Based Study with Generation Z in Malaysian Higher Education, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr Mark Smith: The Implications of the Internet as a Distributive System for Moving Image Learning Resources, co-supervised with Dr Robert Harland
• Dr Xiyuan Tan: Representation of Chinese Minority Ethnicity in the Contemporary Context: Constructing Fictional Characters in a Chinese Zhuang Folktale Adaptation, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr E Yishi: National Identity and Chinese Animated Feature Films from 1958 to present, co-supervised with Professor Phillip Lindley
• Dr Ying Zhang: A Comparative Feminist Analysis of Chinese and Disney Animated Features 1970-Present, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Dr Xinyu Zhao: Exploring the emotional needs of family caregivers of Chinese patients with advanced cancer through storytelling, co-supervised with Dr Simon Downs

Current PhD supervisions: 


• Andy Robert Davies: Illustration as a method for investigating and articulating the narratives of the River Severn, co-supervised with Dr Rob Tovey
• Xiaojie Gao: Design of museum narrative systems: Building a cultural perception space and emotional connection between public and heritage, co-supervised with Dr Richard Johnson
• Sue Goddard: The animated film poem: Towards a definition and approaches to practice, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Tianhua Jing: Exploring design strategies for 3D avatar stylisation for motivational effects in gameful environments, co supervised with Dr Steve Summerskill (CSC funded)
• Aga Kowalska: Tactile Narratives: An Investigation into How Material and Design Strategies in Picture Books Support Storytelling Around Themes of Migration, Displacement and Evolving Identity, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Pia Malhotra: The art of feeling: Illustration as a method of affective data visualisation, co-supervised with Dr Karen Jiyun Sung
• Shiza Seher: Illustrating the perimenopause: Visualising the unseen through graphic narratives, co-supervised with Dr Richard Johnson
• Jiawen Cherie Xie: A study of digital interaction with exhibits by museum audiences at the National Museum of China, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells and Dr Xiyuan Tan
• Haozhe Xu: Visual metaphorical expressions of social anxiety symptoms among Chinese students in the UK through the lens of loose-tight cultural dimensions, co-supervised with Dr Xiyuan Tan
• Yueting Yang: Becoming Animal and Visual Metaphor: Therapeutic Encounters through Art and Affect, co-supervised with Dr Richard Johnson
• Yaohua Zhao: Innovating a museum service model through AR: Impact on emotion and education, co-supervised with Professor Paul Wells
• Yingtong Charon Zhao: Reframing the ethics of commercial illustration in the age of AI: Authorship, empathy, and cultural identity, co-supervised with Dr Richard Johnson (CSC funded)