I’m Linda Lönnqvist, and Malanga Illustrations is my illustration business – the fusion of my lifelong drawing habit with my international development career.

Malanga Illustrations is for communicators in community development, agroecology, social enterprises or action research who want to boost our written messages with images. Having been on both the commissioning and drawing end of communications, I understand what it is to be a client. My job is to read your materials and understand your message, and then to reinterpret it visually – often giving it an extra twist – to create a good-looking, snazzy image that will capture your reader’s attention and get your message across.

• I illustrate training materials,
• promotional materials like calendars,
• books (both illustrations and covers),
• conferences (both live graphic recording and visual reports),
• logos (this coffee diversification logo post shows the participatory process of designing it, too)
• posters and banners.

I’ve worked in civil society support and economic policy advocacy which means that I’ve thought hard about participation, ownership, monitoring, budgeting and project planning, learning, politics, economics, partnership, livelihoods, rights, the environment… and I have ideas on how to express these issues in images. Since I’ve lived in developing countries (UK, Cyprus, Bangladesh, Mexico, Turkey and Tanzania) and have travelled extensively, I also know what people’s everyday lives look like in these contexts.

Another specialisation of mine is facilitating drawing as a group activity: self-expression through comics, sketching sports or relaxing at an event by colouring in pictures related to your organisation’s themes. As we know, both kids and adults like to colour, and it is a great way to combine something fun with something serious. I created nine colouring-in pictures for a youth activity book, reinterpreting ancient themes for the reality of young people today – a very gratifying project.

If you’d like to get in touch about a commission, you can drop me an email on development.cartoons@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Bluesky: @agroecologylinda! I’m selling my colouring book of San Cristóbal street scenes on Gumroad: gumroad.com/colorsancris as well as in local bookshops.

My portfolio gives details about my clients and completed commissions. The blog shows sketches and other “fun” drawings.

Malanga Illustrations is registered in Mexico as a small business.