Q: Originally from Bologna, Italy, what are some of your favorite things about living and working there?

A: I like Bologna because it's full of historical and artistic stuff, and has an audience for contemporary illustration and comics. It's not too big and not too small, comfortable and human-sized, with friendly people.

Q: Do you keep a sketchbook? What is the balance between the art you create on paper versus in the computer?

A: Actually I don't keep a proper sketchbook, but I enjoy making sketches when I travel. I also draw with my iPad. When I'm at work, all my primary ideas and concepts are fixed with a pencil on paper, then I use digital tools to drive the ideas into final artworks. I think the balance sways to the computer side during the last few years now.

Q: What is the most important item in your studio?

A: Both the computer and the graphic tablet for drawing. 

Q: What do you like best about your workspace?

A: It's quiet, cozy, full of books and it's at home! Also I like it because it's minimally furnished and basically white. This helps to keep my mind "clean" and pushes me to create colorful and visually impactful images.

Q: Do you think it needs improvement, if so, what would you change?

A: I would add at least one table to use as a workbench for painting and carving. Sometimes I also miss having a panoramic view out of my windows, although love living on the ground floor surrounded by a small garden.

Q: How do you know when the art is finished?

A: The upcoming deadline often makes that decision for me! In fact it's harder to know that when I do personal work. I think an artwork could be always further improved, but too much work on the same image often makes it less fresh. I try to stop shortly before it happens.

Q: What was your favorite book as a child?

A: I remember a big book of Disney's Silly Symphonies, a selection of scenes from the famous short films. Those characters looked surreal to me and sometimes quite creepy, but I was addicted to that book.

Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?

A: The Sixth Day and Other Tales, written by Italian writer Primo Levi. Although the author is best known for his literary testimony as an Auschwitz survivor during the WW2, these stories may be considered science fiction. Most of them are concerned with brilliant inventions that gradually lead to to inhuman situations. It's actually the best science fiction book I've ever read.

Q: If you had to choose one medium to work in for an entire year, eliminating all others, what medium would you choose?

A: Definitely digital: Mac + Cintiq tablet.

Q: If you could time travel to any era, any place, where would you go?

A: I'd like to visit Florence during the Renaissance era, and see Michelangelo and Leonardo at work. 

Q: What is preoccupying you at the moment?

A: Sometimes I get a bit stressed by all the bureaucratic and administrative stuff that my job involves. On a larger-scale vision, it seems I should be worried about things such as crisis, wars, climate change, racism, terrorism, finance, current affairs—the kind of issues I illustrate every week.

Q: What are some of your favorite places/books/blogs/websites for inspiration?

A: I look at many website such as Behance, Illustration Age, Motionographer. I also love to get lost in bookstores and libraries that specialize in photo/picture books and comics.

Q: What was the [Thunderbolt] painting or drawing or film or otherwise that most affected your approach to art? 

A: There are many of course. If I had to choose one, I'd say the video clip of Paranoid Android by Radiohead. I was 12 years old when I saw it for the first time. I loved the song and I couldn't imagine an animated cartoon roughly drawn and colored could be so weird, pop, provocative, melancholic, beautiful. I can't say my art is close to this style, but for some reasons it really opened my mind at that time. 

Q: What would be your last supper?

A: Pizza, beer and a chocolate dessert. 

Davide Bonazzi, born 1984, is a freelance illustrator specialized in editorial, publishing, advertising and video animations. Among his clients are: The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Penguin Random House, Paramount Pictures Channel, Gatorade, UNESCO. His style combines digital and mixed media, with textures of scanned found objects in order to give his conceptual illustrations a warm and evocative atmosphere. His work has been recognized by The Society of Illustrators of NY and LA, American Illustration, CA, 3x3 Magazine.

Behance: https://www.behance.net/dbonazzi246b32

Twitter: @Davidebonazzi2

Images, top to bottom:

1. The Cosmopolites, for Columbia University magazine

2. Back to vinyl, for The Boston Globe; Boobs and Food, for a project fighting breast cancer

3. Overcome the many crises from all over the world, for Die Zeit

4. Modern Eden, personal work; Narcissism, personal work

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