Andrew's research interests originated out of the subject of illustration by questioning its perceived ‘place’ in visual communication as part of the global creative industries. His research aims to identify, analyse and explain the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of contemporary illustration and visualisation across multiple service and product platforms. Andrew’s research considers applications of illustration and visualisation through the prisms of service design, UX, UI and social anthropology. These interests have resulted in individual and collaborative projects with other academics, industrial partners and organisations, traversing the areas of illustration and animation through a variety of published outputs including books, academic journal papers, chapters in edited works and exhibitions. His research has been successfully submitted to the Research Assessment Exercises and Frameworks in the UK in 2001, 2008, 2014 and 2021.
Andrew has written several monographs, including Animation in Process (London: Laurence King, 2009) and Animation (London: Laurence King, 2013) which were co-editioned in Spanish, Chinese, Taiwanese and Russian. His most recent publication is Editorial Illustration: Context, Content and Creation (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). He has organised and made several invited keynote contributions to academic conferences on illustration, animation, communication and media studies in Australia, South Korea, Singapore, UK, USA, Ireland, Japan, Portugal and Canada.
Andrew has held a number of publicly funded research grants, including the AHRC Creative Economies in China project Repositioning Graphic Heritage 2018 - 2021, led by Dr Robert Harland (PI) and Professor Paul Wells (CI), in partnership with Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Andrew was Co-Director of the major international exhibition, Olympics and Culture; Tracings, Projections and Intersections, with Dr Linda Dennis (Joshibi University of Art and Design) that was exhibited in Tokyo as a precursor to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, sponsored by Nomura. These projects continue work Andrew has been involved in across East Asia over the last twenty years which draw together expertise and opportunity in the creative and cultural industries between China, Japan and Singapore and the United Kingdom. He is a reviewer for the AHRC, EPSRC and several academic publishers.
In addition, Andrew is a director of TRACEY, the web-based research portal dedicated to exploring contemporary drawing and visualisation. He is an editorial board member of The Journal of Communication and Media Studies (Melbourne: CommonGround) and the scientific committee of CONFIA, in addition to his membership of the 3x3 Illustration Advisory Board. He is a founding member of the International Association of Illustration Academics.