Annie Atkins is a Welsh/Irish graphic designer and prop maker for film and television. She is known for her graphic design work in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and has gone on to work with director Wes Anderson on Isle of Dogs (2018) and The French Dispatch (2021).
Early life Atkins grew up in Dolwyddelan in Northern Wales. Her mother was an artist and her father a graphic designer. Atkins graduated with a degree in visual communications from Ravensbourne University London. After graduation, she worked as an art director in the advertising agency McCann-Erickson in Reykjavík, Iceland. In 2007, she enrolled in University College Dublin's master's in film production program after losing enthusiasm for her work at McCann-Erickson. Inteviewed in 2017, she said: "I thought I'd leave design completely, that I'd study film and be a camera operator or a technician, and then I found this whole other world of design."
Career After graduating from University College Dublin, she worked as a designer on the third season of the BBC costume drama The Tudors in 2008. As the role was broadly defined, she had varying responsibilities, such as working as a stonemason, signwriter and scribe, and prop maker. After The Tudors, Atkins remained in Dublin and bounced around film jobs.
Atkins was lead graphic designer on The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). The film won the Academy Award for Best Production Design at the 87th Academy Awards.
Atkins worked on her first video game project, "That's You!", in 2018.
She teaches workshops at her studio in Dublin, Ireland.
Atkins has published four books, three of which have been translated (French, Spanish, Catalan, and Japanese.)
Filmography
Television TitleNotesThe TudorsCamelotTitanic: Blood and SteelVikingsPenny Dreadful
Film +YearTitleNotes2014The Boxtrolls2014The Grand Budapest Hotel2015Bridge of Spies2016Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk2018Isle of Dogs2021The French Dispatch2021West Side Story
Publications
References
External links
Photo gallery of Atkins' work by The Guardian