Kike Ibañez (San Sebastian, Spain 1980)

Designer, illustrator and painter based in Madrid. He is professionally dedicated to making illustrations for editorial publications, mostly aimed at children.

He trained as a graphic artist and graphic designer at the Islas Filipinas National School of Graphic Arts (Madrid) and as an editorial illustrator at the Escuela Superior de Dibujo Profesional, ESDIP (Madrid).

Starting in the year 2000, he began working in prepress workshops and advertising agencies, as well as a graphic designer and illustrator for the Metro newspaper and the Jaguar publishing house.

In 2012 he published his first picture book and since 2016 he has dedicated himself exclusively to illustrating from his studio in Madrid for publishers of school books and children’s and youth literature (Anaya, SM and Santillana). In 2015 he won the First Prize of the 8th International Encounter Ilustração of S. João da Madeira; in 2016 he won the Lazarillo Award for the illustrations of the book Barrios de Colores. His illustrations have been selected twice in the Ibero-American Illustration Catalog (Mexico), they have also been selected in Ilustrarte at the International Biennial of Ilustraçao for Children (Portugal) and in the Little Hakka International Picture Book (China). In 2020 his work was chosen to be part of the illustration exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (Italy) and in 2021 the Basque Government granted him a grant for creation to make the illustrations for The Secret of Gino Bartali (Bang! Editions, 2021).

In March 2021, he rented a studio in the Carabanchel neighborhood of Madrid and began the bIZI artistic project (still in progress).