Open for commissions
Bea Okafor draws chunky pictures for apps, magazines and small brands.
Spot illustration, characters, icon sets and sticker packs. Five inks, no outlines, and a reply within two working days.
Peel one off
Twelve recent pieces. Every one was drawn to be stuck on something, whether that was a phone screen, a magazine page or a laptop lid.
What you can hire me for
Five kinds of job, a starting price for each and how long they usually take from the approved rough.
Spot illustration
One picture that makes the point of a story or a screen before anyone reads a word of it. Drawn to the exact space it will sit in.
Characters
A character with a name, a personality and a handful of poses, built so your own team can keep using them long after I have sent the invoice.
Icon sets
Chunky, consistent icons drawn to one grid at two weights and delivered as SVG, from a dozen to a few hundred.
Sticker packs
Six to thirty die-cut stickers in one voice, with app-ready PNGs, the print files and the cut lines, ready for a printer or an app store.
Illustrated maps
A map of a place drawn the way people actually walk it, with the landmarks big and the streets forgiving. Print or screen.
Something in between? Most jobs are. Send the brief and I will tell you which row it is, or make up a new one.
Brief to files in four stamps
The same four steps on every job, whatever its size, with the days each one takes. The fox is the 43, drawn for a coffee subscription's welcome email.
Brief
You tell me where it runs, who sees it and what it has to say. I send back a one-page brief for you to correct before a line is drawn.
1 days
Roughs
Two or three pencil roughs, deliberately loose, so the conversation is about the idea and not about the color of the mug.
3 days
Color
The chosen rough drawn up in flat shapes and the five inks. One round of changes is included at this stage, and it is the stage to use it.
3 days
Files
Final artwork as SVG and a layered source file, plus PNGs at every size you asked for, named the way your team names things.
1 days
Whole strip, brief to files: 8 days
What it costs
Starting prices for each kind of job. The quote is the real number, and it lands in your inbox within two working days of the brief.
Spot
One illustration for one place.
- Two pencil roughs
- One color round
- SVG and PNG at three sizes
- Editorial or web use, one year
Character
A character and five poses.
- A one-page character sheet
- Five poses, one expression each
- Layered source file
- Color and single-ink versions
Icon set
Twenty icons on one grid.
- A grid and stroke spec
- Twenty icons at two weights
- SVG sprite and PNGs
- More icons at $35 each
Sticker pack
Twelve die-cut stickers.
- Twelve stickers in one voice
- Cut lines for the printer
- App-ready PNGs with alpha
- A printable sheet layout
Add-ons
Prices in US dollars, before tax. Half on the approved rough, half on files. Every price includes one round of changes at the color stage and an editorial license for a year.
What you can do with it
Every price on this page comes with one of these three licenses. Pick the column that matches where the work is going and the quote will already include it.
| You may | Editorial Included in every price | Commercial +25% on the price Most common | Buyout Quoted per job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run it in one publication or product | |||
| Use it in ads and campaigns | |||
| Put it on merchandise for sale | |||
| Term | 1 year | 2 years | Forever |
| Territory | One country | Worldwide | Worldwide |
| Exclusive to you | Category only | ||
| Recolor or edit the artwork | With a note to me | ||
| Source files included |
I keep the copyright on everything I draw, and every license lets me show the piece in my own portfolio once it has run. If the thing you need is not in the grid, it is probably one sentence in an email away.
The hand behind the stickers
I draw the pictures that make an app feel like somebody made it.
I am Bea, a vector illustrator in a shared studio over a bakery on Blossom Street in Ancoats. Since 2018 I have drawn onboarding characters for a budgeting app, forty-two icons for a transit map, a year of monthly spot illustrations for a food magazine and more sticker packs than I have counted. Everything is built from chunky shapes and the same five inks, so a set I drew in March still matches the one I draw in November.
I like a brief with a joke in it, I name every character after a Manchester bus route, and I answer email a lot faster than I answer the phone.
The five inks
Who the stickers went to
Apps, magazines and a festival or two. Most of them have come back for a second sheet.
Names set as wordmarks. The colors are theirs; the drawings under them are mine.
Stuck on the studio wall
Notes from the people who sent the briefs
We asked for one onboarding character and got a whole cast with names and a bus timetable. Our support team uses them in replies now.
Priya Shah Head of Product, PennyworthTwelve spots a year and not one of them needed a second round. Bea reads the article, which I did not know illustrators did.
Marcus Lindqvist Art Director, CrumbForty-two icons on one grid and they still look right at sixteen pixels. The spec sheet she sent is now our icon spec.
Dana Whitfield Design Lead, NorthlineThe sticker pack shipped a week early and the printer said the cut lines were the cleanest files they had seen from an illustrator.
Tomasz Nowak Producer, Salt FestivalShe sent a rough with a joke in the margin, we picked it, and it is still the most shared post we have ever put out.
Aisha Bello Marketing Lead, Loop ChatHalf up front, half on files, exactly the dates she said. I have worked with agencies that could not manage that.
Ruth Kaminski Founder, Kettle & CoRoom on the sheet
Three jobs a month, so the ones I take get the whole desk.
Open
Taking briefs for October and November. December is short and half of it is already spoken for.
A slot is one job of any size, from a single spot to a full icon set. Updated on the first Monday of every month.
The small print, without the small print
How much detail does the brief need?
Can I use your work in ads or on merchandise?
Do I get the source files?
What if I need it faster than the strip says?
Can you match a style we already use?
How does payment work?
Send me the brief
Six boxes and I can quote it. If a box is a guess, guess, and I will ask.
Brief received. I read every one myself and reply within two working days with a price and a date.