Curious creatures, all dazzling eyes and laid-back smiles. Peculiar plants exchanging rascally glances. Technicolour scenes remixing nature, folklore and fantasy. Illustrator and graphic designer Lisa O’Hara has made her unmistakeable mark across Sheffield and beyond. Her work has brought to life everything from street-long murals to lively gig posters to cheerful graphics for the likes of Juno Books, Skateboard GB and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

When she’s not doodling and designing, Lisa's also a regular feature in the city’s DIY music scene. Drummer in the ace Welsh-English “myth rock” band Sister Wives, she doubles up as their in-house illustrator, creating their cracking record artwork and outfit graphics.

Most recently, Lisa’s love of all things playful has seen her hiding illustrations across the city centre as part of the Urban Dwellers augmented reality trail. You’ve got until the end of June to track down the cheeky characters and bring them to life on your phone.

For now, read on to get to know Lisa better.

How would you describe your work?
Goggle-eyed and creepy. I like characters and faces that you could probably hear if you looked at them long enough. When I'm doodling it tends to be snout-based, I like to draw creatures and faces in profile mostly. I enjoy thick line and bold colour. Sometimes I struggle to get what's in my head out quickly enough so my non-digital work tends to be quite sloppy – I've been leaning into that more recently.

What inspires you?
Things that are old and weird! Getting out and about – and giving everything a really good look. Looking up as much as possible. Music, history and folklore is obviously very inspiring. Snippets of conversations that make me feel something tend to precede some kind of daft doodle, things that make me laugh or physically affect me tend to inspire me most. I love it when something is simultaneously creepy and funny, I revel in the feeling of uncanny intrigue but that can be a bit irksome when you're trying to relax.

What are you working on at the moment?
I'm just coming to the end of a collaboration with the wonderful design duo TADO, Katie and Mike. We've worked with Darren Chouings from the Children's Media Conference to produce another one of their superbly curated Playground character hunts. I've worked on seven characters to find around the city – they come to life with music and dancing and sometimes farts. There are 15 to find in total. One of which is just a big party involving all of our characters. Katie, Mike and Darren are all amazing to work with – more of that please!

What do you love about Sheffield?
Nothing is flat. I love that there's always something interesting to look at in the distance. I love Sheffield's pockets of DIY music and its ability to make them thrive and expand yet maintain an underground safeness. They don't tend to suffer fools.

And what (if anything) would you change?
Abolish trad gender constructs. I'd love a few zip-lines. More gargoyles.

Playground: Urban Dwellers character hunt is live in Sheffield city centre 3 June–30 June 2024. Aimed at ages 5–12, open to all.