DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
: I love Impressionism for the use of colour and Surrealism for the subjects. All the art world is the fundamental source of inspiration in the creative process, and I am referring not only to pictorial art but also to music, filmmaking, photography and fashion. Music is one of the key of my creative process. Listening to my favourite artists like Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Bjork, helps me to immerse myself in my creative world and to have a right inspiration mood to develop a new work.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
: In these work the human being melts with nature and its four elements of fire, air, water and earth, and even with a fifth esoteric element: the Aristotelian ether, that includes all the others, the essence of celestial bodies, eternal and unchangeable in comparison with the earth as a place of change.
This is my inner world, ethereal and imaginative, hanging in balance between reality, dream and fantasy, in which color and sensitivity have the predominant role. A harmony that binds man and nature in a perfect way and which unfortunately nowadays seems to be a utopia.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
: My first exhibition will be in October at the Mediolanum Art Gallery in Padova for NowArt’s exhibition circuit.
This award is a big gratification for my work and I hope this helps me to give it a greater visibility.
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
: It is the result of many years of study and research.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
: Some of these artworks has been licensed to be used for international advertising campaign.
I collaborated with the agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco to be part of the Photoshop 25th Anniversary special advertising campaign commissioned by Adobe. They licensed two of my artworks and one of them “Cosmogony Reloaded” is on the Adobe Photoshop 25th anniversary "Dream On" Oscars Spot which was featured during the Academy Award Oscars 2015 ceremony and was also used in other media as part of an international bigger campaign.
Today it has been watched over 2 million times on YouTube and recently has achieved three awards at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2015, a Graphite Pencil D&AD Award, two AICP Awards and a nomination for Outstanding Commercial at Emmy Awards 2015.
Taking part to this big event is a huge honour and representing my main working tool is a great personal satisfaction. It makes me proud to see my work on all promotional content Adobe is creating for this special 25th anniversary.
Some months ago I’ve been approachead by Wacom art studio of Washington to licensed my artworks “Mnemosine” and “Cosmogony:Origin of the Universe” for the new Wacom Intuos tablet campaign.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
: The fusion of painting, photography and digital art in one work.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
: I could name many artists, painters and digital artists that have influenced me, at first in my painting and later in my digital art. Mentioning only few of them would be reductive, because all the art world is the fundamental source of inspiration in the creative process, and I’m referring not only to pictorial art but also to music, filmmaking, photography and fashion.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
: All the people.
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
: I’ve tried to create something unique by combining the traditional tools with photography and the new digital and photo manipulation technique.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
: Ethereal, imaginative, dreamy, colorful, eternal… world.
Piles of tree branches, clouds forming hair, faces that melt with air and sky, human silhouettes that arise from expanses of earth and roots... this is my visionary world.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
: Photoshop is my main working software. I combine in a single image hundreds of Photoshop layers with many and many graphic elements and textures. Watercolor, acrylic paints and ink are some traditional tools that I combine with my digital artworks. Before working into digital art and illustration I began with drawing, painting and later graphics. I always loved the gesture and the warmth of the sign in a sketch, in stroke with acrylic or oil color, in the splashes of watercolor or ink.
I have a big collection of different brush strokes, ink marks, spray painting, acrylic paints, washes of watercolor created by hand on textured papers, which I have built up over time and scanned at a high dpi ready to be used during the digital process.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
: An art that at first glance stands out for its aesthetic beauty, given by countless graphic and natural elements, which while immersed into a deep and immense ocean of colours shape themselves around a perfect human figure.
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
: No, the entire project is been developed by myself.
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
: The technology has a primary role in my work because it stars from a photo and afterwards is processed with Photoshop.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
: I think research is something fundamental and necessary in my work.
In my opinion everything in every moment has an artistic side, the aesthetics of things, people around me... For me everything has its own importance, images, textures, sounds, fragrances, my creativity is constantly stimulated. Afterwards it is all about the stylistic research in order to translate the music into a visual interpretation.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
: The most creative part is the use of different techniques and the challenge is to combine the traditional tools with photography and the new digital and photo manipulation technique.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
: I’ve been contacted by A’ Design Award & Competition team.