Prop making is a very wide term that covers a great many skills to narrow this down to illustration in prop making Iro recommended I look at Annie Atkins, known for her work with Wes Anderson. From her work on The Tudors I decided to look more closely at paper prop making not just in film but in advertising as well.

Ross Macdonald is a prominent name in illustration-based prop making and has created hundreds of props for dozens of films and tv projects. His most famous prop is the Book of Secrets that was created for the National Treasure films, while other notable props include leather bound books for Shazam Fury of the Gods, a town charter for Parks and Rec and John Wick’s calling card. However, most props he makes are given far less pride of place. Creating documents and wanted posters as well as matchbooks and productions of historically accurate books and newspapers. Macdonald is a prop maker who enjoys the history of printing and as such aims and achieves great historical accuracy in his work, as such he has made a name for himself in the industry.

Paper Prop Making

Annie Atkins is a graphic designer who does some work on paper props for film and TV, she got her start in the industry straight after graduation with a job on the third series of The Tudors as a full-time graphic designer for the set. She specialises in period type work in documents and signage, particularly “creating lettering that looks like it was printed up by a layperson rather than a professional designer”, which is a difficult job as a designer to work against their own learning, and instead research how such a task would have been achieved in the period the prop is imitating and attempting to replicate this. Atkins is best known for her work with Wes Anderson on The Grand Budapest Hotel carefully curating the props for accuracy and aesthetic.