Raymond Briggs went to Rutlish School in Surrey. He left when he was 15 because he wanted to be a cartoonist. He had originally wanted to be a journalist. He went to Wimbledon Art School College where he discovered that fine art was 'good' and commercial art was 'bad'. He later went to the Slade School to train as a painter and quickly realised that he was a much better illustrator.

Raymond started by illustrating other people's books and stories, including a Mother Goose Treasury and a collection of fairytales. He then began to do his own picture books.

Raymond likes making use of a strip cartoon style that is fun for children and adults to read. His books are almost always different from other people's: in Father Christmas, he made the old man grumpy and 'ordinary'; in The Snowman he produced a picture book without words that was very unusual at the time. He is also a serious social commentator, as demonstrated in his anti-nuclear book When the Wind Blows, and in his attack on the Falklands War in The Iron Lady and the Tin Pot General.