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Rating: Let's start the new year 2018 with an interview with one of the most talented and important illustrators in the realm of fantasy and science fiction. I'm talking about Franco Brambilla. Born in 1967, a graduate from the European Institute of Design (IED), he began working in the publishing world in the early nineties, a period of great transformation in the world of graphics due to the ever-increasing spread of computers. From that moment on, digital technology and the technological developments of software and machines became an integral part of his work, at the center of which continue to be 'ideas, the ability to build an image mastering lights, colors, perspectives that make my works unique and appreciated.'
At the end of the nineties, he founded Airstudio, which became a point of reference in graphic design and illustration for the major Italian publishing houses. Thus began, among various editorial activities starting in 2000, the collaboration with Mondadori and his special bond with Urania, where he combines his profession with his great passion for science fiction.
I contacted Franco (here is his official site: http://francobrambilla.com/home.html) to ask him some questions about his training as an artist and what his sources of inspiration and his working method are. Clearly, given the common interest in science fiction, this also constitutes one of the central themes of this chat.
On behalf of the entire Debaserian community, I can only thank him once again for his availability and courtesy and for having answered the questions posed to him exhaustively, giving rise to various points of reflection and considerations about the world of publishing, graphic art, and the world of science fiction.
Thank you, Franco, and happy new year to you and, of course, to all the friends of DeBaser.
Happy reading.
1. Hi Franco. Thank you very much for agreeing to answer these questions. For me, as a great admirer of your work, this is a great pleasure as well as an opportunity to learn more about you and your works. If you don’t mind, I would like to start from the beginning of your artistic activity. When did you decide to become an illustrator and how did your activity start? Who were your direct points of reference (I'm referring to those who could be defined as your mentors) and those who have inspired you from the beginning until today? I cannot consider myself an expert in visual arts. How crucial is the contribution of modern technologies in your work? Which, after all, are just tools like any other for a modern illustrator. Or am I wrong?
FB. Hi, thanks to you for the opportunity. I have always drawn since I was a child. After high school, at the end of the 80s, I enrolled at the IED: the European Institute of Design. It was there that I learned from sector professionals and very trained teachers the classical drawing techniques and how to build an attractive image. After finishing school, I found a job in an editorial consultancy studio that had just bought some Macs and were looking for people who wanted to learn how to use them. It was the early 90s, a time of great transformations in the world of graphics due to the increasing spread of computers, a real revolution. I started working in those years "on a computer" right away, for me, digital is just another technique, nothing more, nothing less... it has its immense advantages and also many flaws. Certainly, my whole working career is linked to the technological development of the software and machines I work with, but it's the ideas, the ability to construct an image mastering lights, colors, and perspectives that make my works unique and appreciated. It's very important to cultivate an artistic, visual culture that ranges from photography to art in all its forms. Technique is secondary, whether digital or classical. Points of reference: certainly the Urania covers of Karel Thole which I peered at on second-hand book stalls, the works of Ralph McQuarrie the artistic mind behind the visual imagination of Star Wars, but also the science fiction films of those years (which were many and innovative), and the American and British illustrators, great masters of airbrush including Tim White, Chriss Foss, Jim Burns to name a few.
2. Personally, I came to know your art thanks to your collaboration with the Urania Mondadori series. A collaboration started – correct me if I'm wrong – in 2003 and which you also celebrated with a book, 'Uraniarama', which collects all the covers of the first 121 issues of the 'Urania Collection' series and some unpublished ones with a preface by Giuseppe Lippi, art director Giacomo Callo, and graphic designer Giacomo Spazio. How did your interest in science fiction illustrations initially come about? Have you always been a great enthusiast of the genre? Consequently, could you tell us how and when the contact with the Urania world happened?
FB. The first covers for Urania I created by chance at the end of the 90s when I was a freelance passionate about science fiction but who survived by drawing for educational publishing and doing infographics for Corriere della Sera's economic insert or for other magazines like "Vera" and "Salve". Whenever I could, I went around with my portfolio full of "space" illustrations hoping to create a nice sci-fi cover. Giacomo Spazio, an external art director for Mondadori, noticed some of my covers I had done for friends at Shake Edizioni, we met and founded Airstudio with other illustrators and graphic designers. From 2000 to 2011 Airstudio handled (among many other things) all the graphics and covers of Mondadori's newsstand; 27-30 titles a month. That’s how I and other illustrator friends including Pierluigi Longo, Massimo Basili, Paolo Barbieri were involved in creating the many images they needed. In 2003 Mondadori launched a new series: Urania Collection which was entrusted to me and for which I have created all the covers to date (I delivered number 182 a few days ago), except for a couple designed by my friend Iacopo Bruno. "Uraniarama" is a collection I self-produced in which I included the first 121 covers of the collection; the ones "full page" when the graphic didn't include the circle.
3. How are Urania covers born? I mean, what process do you follow in designing and then realizing the project? Do you read the work in question first or do you rely on what may be an intuition and then develop it on the fly? Do you consider yourself more of a methodical artist, following a set scheme and carefully studying the work to be done, or do you follow what we could call the inspiration of the moment? By the way, how did you welcome the return of the 'red circle' on the cover? Did it entail a new way of working on these covers in terms of space conception, or was it indifferent to you?
FB. Being a fan of the genre, it happens that I've already read the whole book, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have read the entire text to create a beautiful and relevant cover. Many texts are not available or are only in the original language because they are still being translated, and perhaps they consist of hundreds of pages. I produce two or three covers every month just for Mondadori, it would be crazy to have to read all the texts. No professional illustrator would do that. The editorial staff, curator Giuseppe Lippi, provides me with a brief summary of the novel and also a couple of "visions", ideas from which to start or meditate on. If the information seems insufficient, we delve deeper with a phone call, but also researching online how the book has been illustrated abroad or in previous editions by other artists. Usually, I deliver two images for each cover, two proposals to choose from. I don't do sketches or drafts because they wouldn't convey as much as the final product might even mislead, it's better to propose two completely different approaches and start from there. It has never happened that one of the two proposals did not become the cover of the book for which it was made, and often the second image has become useful to me later. The circle is a challenge, it imposes rules and limitations, but it is also stimulating and then it defines the Mondadori collections.
4. May I ask you, still concerning your collaboration with Urania (but not only), how do you relate to what was undoubtedly a myth from this point of view, and I imagine an important point of reference, like Karel Thole? I'd say your art is certainly different from his. What do you generally draw inspiration from in creating your works? I think I can say that you are more oriented towards a certain realism and a culture I would define as post-modern compared to Karel Thole's more allegorical and symbolist visions. Is this a fair consideration? Are there other illustrators in the genre with whom you feel you have some affinity? I am curious to know if you are also in contact and exchange ideas, opinions, and techniques. If you perhaps mutually constitute a source of inspiration for each other.
FB. As I already mentioned, Karel Thole is an important point of reference for me, I too draw from surrealist art which I really like, visual sources and ways of interpreting them are endless anyway. My imagery might be more cinematic (I grew up in different years than the master) and the techniques I use allow for superior realism, but that’s not what’s important, the magic that some of his visions embodied will remain unchanged even in these years of hyper-definition and augmented reality. I have some dear illustrator friends with whom I often compare notes, exchanging ideas and opinions on a piece I am working on has always improved the final result, and the detachment with which another professional can see and judge your work is invaluable. Now that I work from home, I miss the daily contact with the other members of Airstudio quite a bit.
5. Naturally, the collaboration with Urania is not the only one of your activities. In this sense, I have used it instrumentally to introduce your activity as an illustrator devoted to the world of science fiction. In reality, your activity as an illustrator over the years has developed apart from producing illustrations and the consequent 'autonomous' publication of your works, also as a collaborator with other publishing realities and with other authors in the science fiction world. I think, for example, of Dario Tonani and all the beautiful illustrations made for the chronicles of 'Mondo9'. What is your relationship with the world of science fiction Made in Italy? I recently asked a very similar question to Piero Schiavo Campo: what do you think is the current state of Italian science fiction? Regarding literary production, it always seems that the attention is unjustly too little. What about your activity as an illustrator instead? Do you consider it closely linked to the literary one, or can you give us both a viewpoint on this aspect and also a different one as regards your work?
FB. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to create covers for many Italian authors, not only of science fiction and not only for Mondadori, with many I am in direct contact and with some, we have become friends. With Dario Tonani, a very deep understanding has developed over time, he is a generous author who allows his worlds to be entered and interpreted very freely, I would say with enthusiasm. I believe that if Italians read more in general, many problems faced by science fiction writers would disappear, but I do not know the writers' world in depth, so I would not know what else to add. As an illustrator, I always try to expand my collaborations to topics and uses beyond science fiction, and when I succeed, I am always surprised by the extraordinary results I achieve despite a certain initial laziness and pessimism. Experimenting, proposing, and attempting new paths are very important aspects of my profession together with self-promotion.
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