I don't usually interview groups for this site, but the charisma and talent of these two guys is undeniable. I've also elected not to edit the interview because of the language barrier. I think it loses some great flavor when I do that. Enjoy!
-Jeff
Roque Angelicchio and Raúl Robbiani are professional graphic designers and illustrators from Argentina. They work together and they have a web page: www.illustrationgroup.com, where they show their illustrations and receive work offers.
In illustrationGroup, we are, above all, two friends that decided to offer our service specialized on child illustration and design of products for children. We do what we really love and what we have been studying and preparing for: to illustrate and design specially for products aimed at children. Our works include child stories, covers, comics, educational books, pets for events, toys, and others.
When did you first decide to become a graphic designer/ illustrator? Was there a pivotal moment?
Since we were little boys, we’ve always liked reading comics, watching cartoons, making our own toys, which we designed and made with carton, papers, wood, plastic, and other materials. Our favorite hobby was doodling, drawing and coloring. We clearly knew from the beginning what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives.
Who or what inspires you?
When it comes to the illustrating for children, we’ve always been inspired by some great illustrations of the fifties and sixties, and by some really talented illustrators such as Matt Groening (specially for “Futurama”), John Kricfalusi, Friz Freleng, and Carlos Meglia. Besides, we are largely inspired by manga and anime, Mike Mignola’s fantastic illustrations, the Argentines Mandrafina, Solano López, De Piero,and Cascioli.
Where does your training come from? Self-taught? College/Art School?
We’ve always drawn, since we were able to grab a pencil and some paper. When we were studying design, we learnt many techniques that eventually helped us to improve our work. College gave us discipline, visual language, and the necessary knowledge and tools to start working on visual communication. But we’ve also learnt many things by ourselves, studying, experimenting with new things, searching on the net.
How do you keep "fresh" within your industry?
We are permanently on-line, and we are constantly searching for new sites trying to participate as much as possible in what is going on. We regularly visit IllustrationFriday.com, where we usually participate with our illustrations. This helps us to practise and create new illustrations every week. We also visit Design Inspiration, Drawn.com, DeviantArt.com and others. Besides, we are constantly watching certain channels aimed for children, such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel.
What are some of your current projects?
We are working really hard on our web site IllustrationGroup.com. We are preparing illustrations for a book on religion. It’s a very interesting job.
Which of your projects are you the most proud of? And why?
We are very proud of our illustrations on “Catalina’s life”, that were published in a book for children. They show different growing stages of this girl Catalina. http://www.illustrationgroup.com/en/illustrationcatalina.htm). We are also proud of our illustrations for IllustrationFriday.com, we really enjoyed our work on the topics “angels and devils”, “rain”, and “sacrifice”.
http://www.illustrationgroup.com/en/littleangel.htm
http://www.illustrationgroup.com/en/rain-child-illustration.htm
http://illustrationgroup.com/en/sacrifice-child-illustration.htm
http://www.illustrationgroup.com/en/cake.htm
http://www.illustrationgroup.com/en/illustrations01.htm
Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?
There are surely some areas that we would like to work on, but we haven’t had the time to do so yet. Some of these are illustrations with volume, or with other materials rather than paper.
Any advice to the novice designer/ illustrator?
Our humble piece of advice is to experiment a lot, work on the net, never to discourage yourself when something goes wrong. You always learn form clients and the work you do is always useful.
What makes a designed piece or illustration successful?
What makes an illustration successful is the ability to be flexible and the willingness to adapt to the client’s wishes. A mixture of hard work, a huge bunch of ideas at the same time and the creativity to project those ideas into a possible and effective illustration.
What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?
The reason that keeps us motivated is that we can dedicate our lives to do what we have always loved: to illustrate. Drawing is itself the greatest cause of our being happy with what we daily do.
And finally, what is the best thing on prime-time TV right now?
The best things on TV right now are “Lost”, “Invasion”, “The Simpsons”, “Star Wars: Clone Wars”, “SpongeBob Squarepants” and others.
Related Link:
http://www.illustrationgroup.com
Recent Work:
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