Starbucks UK and Yinka Ilori MBE launch The Starbucks Illustration Club, a competition turning coffee cups into canvases. Winners get mentorship and national outdoor ad placement.
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Starbucks UK is turning its coffee cups into a canvas. The chain has partnered with British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE to launch The Starbucks Illustration Club, a competition that invites anyone aged 18 and over to submit original artwork drawn directly on a Starbucks cup.
The winning design will get national exposure. The selected illustrator receives one-to-one mentorship from Ilori and sees their work displayed across a nationwide outdoor advertising campaign. Nine runners-up also get their designs on outdoor sites along with creative prizes to support their next step.
Entries are judged by a panel that includes Ilori, Starbucks barista and artist Aaron Gonzales, illustrator Rob Draper, and Paola Tassara Oromí, director of store design for Starbucks EMEA. The group will pick winners based on originality, bold visual thinking and imaginative design.
“Creativity doesn't have to start in a studio or with a blank canvas,” Ilori said. “It can begin with something as simple as an everyday object, a spark of inspiration or a doodle over a coffee.”
Draper said his own career started the same way. “I used to spend time sketching on cups while sitting in Starbucks coffeehouses, never imagining those early drawings would help shape my career as an illustrator,” he said. “That's what makes The Starbucks Illustration Club so exciting. It shows that creativity doesn't always begin in a studio, sometimes it starts with a pen, a coffee and an everyday moment.”
The competition builds on Starbucks' earlier Made in Starbucks campaign, which highlighted creative work happening inside its coffeehouses. The Illustration Club shifts from celebrating that creativity to actively funding it, giving winners production support and media placement.
Starbucks commissioned research that found 72% of Gen Z and Millennials in the UK consider themselves creative, a number the company said showed demand for accessible platforms that help talent gain visibility.
To enter, pick up a Starbucks hot drink in store, create an illustration directly on the cup using any material, photograph the finished design and post it on Instagram tagging @StarbucksUK. Entries open 00:01 on Aug. 3 and close Aug. 21. The winner and nine runners-up will be announced Sept. 7.
Ilori's practice explores the power of colour, storytelling and design to create moments of connection and optimism. Recent projects include his exhibition Joy Through Resistance: He Who Laughs Last, Laughs and Walk With Your Dreams with Milton Keynes Council.
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