Scott McKowen

Scott McKowen is an illustrator, art director, and graphic designer. He was born and raised in Michigan, and his studio is in Stratford, Ontario. He designs posters for theaters and other performing arts companies across North America, and he creates illustration for books and magazines. He is known for his drawings on scratchboard, a process in which he uses a knife blade to carve white lines onto a black board. It is somewhat similar to engraving or woodcutting, in the sense that images are formed by carving white lines. In the last stages, color is often added to the illustrations.

He has designed theatre posters for the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, New York’s Roundabout Theatre, Pearl Theatre (New York City), Great Lakes Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, The Acting Company, Arena Stage, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, and regional theaters in major cities in the United States and Canada. He has done extensive work for The National Ballet of Canada, National Arts Centre, The Canadian Stage Company, and Theatre Calgary.

Describing his technique for creating theatre posters he has said, “I think of the play as a road map for any graphic design assignment. The first page of a script usually indicates the time and place in which the story occurs. I read the text to get the story in my head, but at the same time I’m watching for clues from the playwright about the world of the play.”

He has created illustrations for a variety of projects including book covers. He has illustrated the covers of over thirty books, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland, Oliver Twist, Peter Pan, Around the World in Eighty Days, Anne of Avonlea, as well as Neil Gaiman’s comic book series Marvel 1602. A recent project is to illustrate a series of children’s classics for Sterling Publishing.

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