Roberto Blefari aka Hikimi is an illustrator and visual designer based in Turin, Italy.
With his playful and straightforward illustrations, soft shapes and fresh colours it’s easy to forget to be a grown-up. Here 8 questions with Hikimi.
1. Hello Roberto, your illustrations make people simile and in a sense bring you back to childhood. What influences do you think your style has and who are your references?
Thanks, this is exactly the kind of vibe I want to send out and to bring people in!
My style has been influenced by all the people who have succeeded before me in this intent, combining visual synthesis, lightness and irony to a distinctive use of color. My references are definitely Henri Matisse, Laura Lamm, Alexander Girard, Bruno Munari, Armando Testa, Paul Rand, Charles and Ray Eams, but also a good part of the Japanese pop culture: one only needs to put two eyes and a smile on an object in order to make it alive.
2. You also illustrated some children books. If you had the possibility to choose, which story you would like to illustrate?
If I could choose it would be The Prince Who Married a Frog by Italo Calvino. It’s one of those stories that told me more when I was a child and I’ve always enjoyed adding or inventing details to each character.
3. It’s five years since you worked as a full-time illustrator. But what was the first person who believed in you?
The first people who believed in me are those ones who simply replied to my e-mails, motivating me to continue and to give more.
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
4. From a technical point of view, do you use any external or internal softwares for drawing and manage color palette, contrasts and so on?
I’m gonna share a secret with you: I saved my first color palette only two years ago. I do not use any software except my instinct, which I apply to a scheme of color contrasts that works well for me. Each project has its own colors, which always follow the same patterns (hot / cold contrast and quantity or quality contrast).
5. Digital vs analog: a traditional and a technological tool that you couldn’t live without.
Pencil and graphic tablet. Sometimes I try to draw like that too but on the screen then nothing moves ?
Hikimi’s custom cover of Feel Magazine
6. What does creativity mean to you?
To me creativity is the simple answer to a complex problem.
7. When you do not draw, what do you like to do?
Sleeping, make late breakfast, sketching, reading, walking with no destination, listening to music, watching documentary films, travelling or planning new trips.
8. A message for Feel Desain readers.
The world is full of beautiful things thanks also to those who look at them.
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L’articolo 8 Questions With Hikimi proviene da Feel Desain.
Source: feeldesain