Adios
This week in CDM we didn’t have a guest speaker in to talk to us so instead we were to watch a Lynda.com video in the category of creative inspiration. I chose the video which is about an Italian designer named Simone Legno who is known for his “unique characters and colorful style”. Simone has made his work/passion into a global brand. Simone works within ‘tokidoki‘ which is an apparel production company that uses art and iconic characters like Adios, Mozzarella and Sandy. I know Adios but not the others…
Like a lot of illustrators he started drawing at a really young age and was noticed to have a talent at it. He was going to go on to study political science after high school but discovered some illustrator software from a friends brother and got really into it. He decided to go to design school instead. (Probably the right decision). He then became fascinated by the growth and popularity of the web and flash about 12 years ago and decided to make a website to showcase his work.
A lot of his work is his styled very Japanese. He really appreciated the clean and visual Japanese culture so he decided to base his work around it. Most people thought he was Japanese before they met him which is quite a compliment.
As a fan of skateboarding I really liked the designs he does for skate decks. He gives some nice tutorials on designing them on Illustrator which I might just have to come back to for some ideas.
Some chat with Simone:
- He says it always important to have a logo or brand but more important to have your own style.
- He reckons a great way to start design is on t-shirts because you can get your designs notice and I figure you could get a lot of feedback.
- He reckons his cute characters aren’t just for kids because it is pop culture for anybody.
- For the future he wants to develop his style but now he wants to get back to painting more than he has time for.
Skate
His advice to anybody that wants to become a designer is that you should never feel you are finished ,that you should have a hunger for new ideas and to never stop working because there will always be someone out there better than you 
Until next time………
