Published 5/3/2026
by
Åge Peterson
We’re excited to welcome Bergen-based illustrator Åge Peterson to byHands.
Åge works across editorial illustration and identity-driven projects. His style is playful but precise, turning complex topics into clear, approachable visuals.
Each week, he creates two editorial illustrations for Aftenposten. The steady rhythm keeps his visual thinking sharp. Alongside this, he works on commissioned projects for a wide range of clients.
Åge holds a master’s degree in visual communication from Bergen Academy of Art and Design and spent several years as a graphic designer before going full-time freelance in 2017. His design background shows in his structured compositions and clear visual approach.
He has received several awards for his work and has also contributed as a guest teacher and examiner within design and illustration.
We asked Åge a few questions about his work and process.
Your work is both playful and precise. How do you approach that balance?
I’ve always been fascinated by grids. I might have been born with such an appreciation, I don’t know, but it was certainly fueled even more by working as a graphic designer for several years, nerding out over and loving smart layouts and graphic systems. It has definitely become a strong presence in the way I think.
I’ve long thought that when graphic design can be precise and playful simultaneously, no questions asked, why not illustration as well? Thinking in modules and almost like solving a puzzle while designing that puzzle at the same time.
I appreciate when an illustration I make almost reveals how it has been solved, based on my own "rules", which I have solved in a clever way. Hopefully. Choosing to go for this one line instead of several others. There is a lot of work in trying out that one line that has to do all the work of defining a certain shape.
Two illustrations every week for Aftenposten, how does that rhythm shape your work?
This forces me to be a lot more prolific than I would have been otherwise. Those two illustrations lead to an output of about a hundred illustrations each year more or less. A bit insane for me, who am quite meticulous in my approach to drawing. and creating an image. It’s more comfortable to have more time available creating an illustration. Because of the currentness of the topics and some years practicing this I usually do these illustrations within a timeframe of 7–9 hours. This includes the initial reading of the text, word-based brainstorming and sketching for about an hour, then jumping into making the finished illustration. No time for second doubts. Second doubts come afterwards. But before I know it it’s time to draw another one, and if I weren’t satisfied with last week's, I try to think the world has forgotten it and I have a new chance to shine. And since the output is so large and the client knows I have little time, I have a bit more room for a degree of failure this way. And this has made me a bit more comfortable with not always being 100% super happy with the result. I have to deliver when I have to deliver. This constant drilling has also made me more comfortable with deadlines. It has made me a wee bit more relaxed in such a state of mind. I know I will manage to make it somehow, and it has fine-tuned my visual intuition I think. The trust in myself.
You often work with complex topics. What draws you to that?
Making the complex into something visually accessible and fine-tuned, I think of as a kind of guiding force in the task at hand. An illustration will of course sometimes need to be nuanced and layered to reflect a nuanced topic, saying several things simultaneously, but other times it needs to rid itself of all questions and doubt in the text and be direct, bold (and beautiful). One of the important "functions" of illustration (especially in an editorial context) is meeting the reader before they dive into the text — often with many-layered topics — and then the reader has that illustration with them in their mind when they read. You read the illustration before the text. I love building the bridge connection between the text and the image. Sometimes I think there is a need for a grandiose Golden Gate Bridge, other times a perilous Indiana Jones hanging bridge.
You also work on comics outside of commissioned projects. What does comics give you that other formats don’t?
When working on comics I suddenly have several illustrations at my disposal for telling something. To tell a story and not just communicating something. Not based on something others have written, but something I have written. It becomes more personal. What «happens» unseen between the frames fascinates me. Playing on this inherent device of comics is one of the unique defining features of this medium, opposed to other literature or movies.
But I have to say; this is a thing where I’m not prolific at all. I'm trying to change this though. Outside of commissioned work I am working with comics again with an aim. Not for publication only in my desk drawer, but for a publication for people to read. This will take form of one-page comics, a comics format I especially love.
Do you have a dream project?
I have many dreams. Some specific and some more vague. The holy grail for me is doing a cover illustration for The New Yorker. Pretty unrealistic, but the best dreams often are. I also would very much like to do mural artwork. Working with large formats on walls in an interior or on an exterior. I love music, and also the packaging of it, so I would love to do that. An album cover for Nick Cave or Nils Frahm I would define as a sweet dream. I also love movies, and specifically it would be lovely to create illustration work used in a movie, in some capacity within a scene, caught on camera. Or on the branding and merch for it. Other things; doing illustration for festivals or fairs, and artwork for a clothing line of some sort. These are a few of my dreams.
Åge’s clients include Monocle, Dagens Næringsliv, Arkitektnytt, Psykologtidsskriftet, Gyldendal, Den Norske Turistforening, B-open, Oslo Design Fair and many more.
We’re really excited to have Åge on board!