December 2025: Born in south east London and still based in the capital, Robin has basically illustrated British Christmases for years now. He has just designed a new Snowman 50 pence coin for The Royal Mint’s The Snowman advent calendar and he also illustrated the cover for the Radio Times festive double issue four times in the last 15 years.
And in addition to being the illustrator behind the likes of Channel 4’s Mog’s Christmas, which was nominated for the Best British Short Animation award at the 2025 EE BAFTA Film Awards, now, he’s created a set of hilarious and heartwarming new Christmas cards for Tesco – and they’re all for a good cause.
The charming cards feature gorgeous illustrations by Robin that show festive scenes we can all relate to rather than snow-covered picture perfect fantasies, such as a kid crying their eyes out at Santa’s lap, cats climbing up and wrecking a Christmas tree and a frustrated dad trying to untangle some fairy lights – all under the heading in festive gold lettering ‘That’s what makes it Christmas’.
The range of cards riffs on Tesco’s ‘That’s What Makes it Christmas’ theme of its 2025 festive ad campaign, created by London-based agency BBH, which includes a series of hysterical TV ads recognising the weird and wonderful things that make Christmas Christmas, showing the likes of family boardgames getting ridiculously competitive, colleagues boggling over what to buy an office worker they’re not friends with for Secret Santa and awkward Christmas chats with neighbours you barely know.
The cards are exclusively available in stores and are £1.75 each or buy three get the fourth free on Clubcard Prices. In addition, Tesco will donate £10,000 through the sale of the cards split equally between charities FareShare and Trussell.
Robin can talk about the cards and why he loves illustrating our Great British Christmases, as well as his long-standing relationship with the late and much-missing illustrator Raymond Briggs, creator of The Snowman. Robin has said that watching The Snowman as a child was one of the main reasons he wanted to become an illustrator and he went on to work with his hero many times, including on Briggs’s graphic novel Ethel & Ernest, telling the story of his parents’ lives, which has a staggering 97% approval rate on online movie review site Rotten Tomatoes.
Robin has said: “Raymond approved everything I did with The Snowman when he was still alive, so it’s not difficult to carry on his work.” Since Briggs died in 2022, Robin has been entrusted with both the animation and illustration of Briggs’s The Snowman and associated characters and to carry on his legacy.
