Q: Originally from [where?] what are some of your favorite things about living and working in [your current locale]?

A: I’m from Italy. I grew up in Florence, where I received my MFA in Architecture, and I’m currently living and working nearby, close to the city and to the Chianti countryside, in the studio that I cofounded in 2000. Even if I love the art in which we are immersed, living in a place with such a great history as Tuscany, and the fact that you can find traces of it almost anywhere, sometimes it’s hard not be overwhelmed.

But what I love the most about being here is when I can lose myself (walking with no destination in the streets of the historical center or running up the hills that surround Florence) recognizing the beauty in a more natural and everyday way, and being inspired by it.

Q: Do you keep a sketchbook? What is the balance between art you create on paper [or other analog medium] versus in the computer?

A: I am obsessed by sketchbooks and recently I started making them myself, enjoying the practice of binding, sewing, pasting etc. I use multiple sketchbooks for multiple purposes. The ones that I prefer are those I use traveling, rawly and quickly sketching people surrounding me, sometimes rawly and quickly watercoloring them as well. My hand-sketches are always the starting point for any illustration and I [can’t imagine] thinking creatively without having a sketchbook and pencil beside me.

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

A: I can’t name only one because there are so many items, but I guess the very essential one is the trio formed by the computer, the iPad and its digital pencil, even if my crayons, pencils, books, magazines, posters and comics are important as well.

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

A: Basically when I come out of a sort of state of fury in which I find myself when I am deep into the crucial moment of working to arrive at the end of the digital work. The central steps of the process, that is, creating the structure, for me are slower than the one in which the illustration completely reveals itself and in which I speed up the passages, aimed to complete it to see the final result—as if it were done by someone else.

So when I start slowing down again, usually means that I am satisfied with it, I can see the real illustration, and I am particularly happy when the illustration is better than the one I imagined at the beginning of the process.

Q: What was your favorite book as a child?

A: I was in love with the Richard Scarry series. I learned to read with his Storybook Dictionary and I guess that even my love for illustration began with him. Another collection of illustrated books that has been essential to me are the children’s booka by Attilio and Karen: basic and geometrical elements combined to create an entire world of animals, with unrealistic colors. New editions of books illustrated by Attilio Cassinelli (born 1923!) are now being published in Italy by Lapis Edizioni, after a long period in which his work had disappeared. 

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

A: Actually it has been a re-reading of The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino. An out-of-time story about a guy climbing up a tree and deciding never to come down again, this is a novel with multiple layers, written fifty years ago and still fresh and significant as if it were written today.

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

A: Watercolors. I love the physical act of using them with brush on paper and exploring the possibilities given by the ever-changing density of colors.

Q: What elements of daily life exert the most influence on your work practice?

A: Running out in the countryside, listening to music, reading, loving.

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

A: To me it was a sort of shock discovering, when I was around seventeen, the drawings of one of the greatest italian artists of our time, Andrea Pazienza (recently published in the US by Fantagraphics). Even though he died at an insultingly young age, his output is impressive. And he inspired artists in many other media, including literature, thanks to his creative use of language. In the same story he was able to switch his graphic style from realism to humoristic, recalling the worlds of Carl Barks and Moebius at the same time. From him I learned that it's the quality you put in what you are doing that pays back. 

Q: What was the strangest/most interesting assignment you've taken that has an important impact on your practice, and what changed through the process?

A: The work that I am currently doing for Hemispheres Magazine with the art direction of Rickard Westin are really pushing me on. I improved working with clear ideas and working in a very fast way. Usually they are multiple illustrations—not exactly infographics but a sort of—and I love when I'm able to find out a way to collect them together in a meaningful way. One I particularly liked is artwork for an article about events in the US for the recent total eclipse. The way I designed them, with an inner action and movement, pushed me to share the work with a friend of mine, an animator, to create a short animated movie out of it, here.

Q: What would be your last supper?

A: Something very Tuscan: Ribollita and a glass of red wine, with a latte alla portoghese as a dessert.

Francesco Zorzi is an italian illustrator and visual designer, currently cofounder and creative director at alias2k. His award winning illustrations are featured in numerous international annuals, including 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide by Luerzers Archive and 3X3 International Illustration Show, and he featured in magazines, newspapers, books and advertising campaigns around the world for clients including The New York Observer, The Boston Globe, Hemispheres Magazine, Penguin Random House. He is represented in the US and Canada by Purple Rain Illustrators.
Website: www.francescozorzi.it
Facebook: www.facebook.com/frazorzi
Instagram: www.instagram.com/fra_z
Shop: www.juniqe.com/francesco-zorzi