This article discusses place, memory and drawing. It suggests that ‘place’ can be a key theme for illustrators and artists - a container and metaphor for social, political and historical ideas. Using personal case studies, memory is considered as a storeroom of ideas with a close connection to the imagination. Atmosphere, mood and the role of colour, light and shadow are presented as primary ways of communicating complex ideas through intuition and emotion, in addition to the language of intellect, reason and the conceptual.