Allen Crawford is an artist, illustrator, designer, and writer. He and his wife Susan founded the design and illustration studio Plankton Art Co. in 1996. Their studio's most notable project to date is the collection of 400 species identification illustrations that are on permanent display at the American Museum of Natural History's Milstein Hall of Ocean Life in New York.Allen's latest book, Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself (Tin House Books) is an illustrated, hand-lettered, 256-page edition of Walt Whitman's epic poem. It's scheduled for release on May 13, 2014. Under the pseudonym "Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy" Allen wrote, designed, and illustrated The Affected Provincial's Companion, Volume One (Bloomsbury 2006), which was soon optioned for film by Johnny Depp's production company, Infinitum Nihil.In October 2013, Metrolit Verlag in Berlin published a German edition of The Affected Provincial's Companion, Vol. One.Allen has appeared in The New York Times, Interview, Orion, Frieze, Vice, Tin House, and Art in America.