VACON Sartirani Comic artist illustrator designer And more
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RÉSUMÉ RESUME The most awesome
You’ll read today
PERSONAL INFO
Education
Work experIence
Name: Daniele Sartirani
B.A. Drama Arts and Music studies University of Bologna Bologna, Italy 2008
Illustrator & Comic Artist Various Clients (freelance) 2008 –
Date of birth: 15.09.1982 Place of birth: Bergamo (IT) Nationality: Italian Location: Berlin (Germany) Contact: vacon@vaconsartirani.com
Master of Art in Pictorial Decoration Art School “Andrea Fantoni” Bergamo, Italy 2002
(Sr.) Graphic Designer Foodora, Delivery Hero 2017-2021
SOLO Exhibitions
PublIcations
SOFTWARE SKILLS
Nella Grotta Serigraffeur Gallery, Berlin 2013
HOPE PUNK Collaborative one-shot Comic Invasion Berlin 2021
Advanced Adobe Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop); Affinity Suite (Designer, Publisher, Photo); Sketch; Clip Studio Paint
Glimpse of Ghost Avantgarden Art Gallery, Milan 2012 Vacon Sartirani One Picture gallery, Berlin 2011 Vacon Sartirani Spazio Polaresco, Bergamo 2009 HackLab Spazio Arcadia, Schio 2009 Incommestibile Galleria Estro, Bergamo 2008
DREAMS Limited edition volume Self-Published 2021 TOKI PONA DICTIONARY (illustrations) by Sonja Lang Amazon Publishing 2021 MATE Anthology Jaja Verlag 2020 SKZ PROTOMAGAZINE N. 1, N. 2 Self-Published 2020, 2021 NASIN NASA Mini-series, 5 episodes Self published 2019-2020
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Layout Artist Goldblatt Verlag (freelance) 2018 –
Intermediate HTML5, CSS, JavaScript; jQuery, GreenSock; AfterEffects
Prizes GINCO Award Best webcomic (Nomination) 2021 Artaq Awards Nomination 2012 Premio Ora Winner 2011 Combat Prize Finalist 2011 Alterazioni Visive Selected 2011, 2010
Table of
CONTENTS
Thank you for picking up my portfolio! Let me introduce myself:
Character Design &
COMICS
Hello there
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DESIGNP.24 Painting & VISUAL ART
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My name is Daniele – but everybody calls me Vacon. I’m an Italian guy, I’m graduated in Art & Cinema studies, I live in Berlin since 2010, and I’ve been creating art since 2008 (yes, that’s a long time ago). In 2018, I joined the Delivery Hero’s design team, where I later obtained a Senior role. In 2021 I left to pursue freelancing. I’m focusing on illustration, character design, and comics – fields in which I feel I can give my best – but I go strong on many other aspects of graphic design and visual art, from traditional painting techniques to technical skills like webdesign – But take a look by yourself! I hope you will enjoy browsing through my little collection, and I look forward to hear from you!
@vaconsartirani Vaconsartirani.com vacon@vaconsartirani.com
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character Design &
COM ICS
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lue & pink or black & white, silent or written in alien languages, funny or creepy, dream-like, puzzling, hilarious: my comic and illustration production always reveal my deep love for this form of art. Elaborating on the palette from my visual art research while tapping into my underground comics teenage influences (Robert Crumb, Miguel Angel Martin, Andrea Pazienza...) I developed an unique visual style that, while focusing on visual storytelling, range over character design with a wide array of expression and potential.
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SPIRIT
Illustration from Dreams Digital drawing, 2021
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DREAMS My largest project up to date, Dreams is a twisted Webcomic in crowdsourcing. Every day, I collect the dreams that my Instagram followers all over the world send me, and I turn them into episodes of the webcomic using my unique drawing style and color palette. Started in October 2020, one year later Dreams had more than 40 episodes, has been published in a limited-edition print run and nominated as Best Webcomic in the 2021 edition of the Ginco Award.
gumroad
vacon’S HANDBOOK FOR THE LUCID DREAMER The success of Dreams generated this spin-off series about lucid dreaming, which debuted on Instagram on June 2021. Mixing my signature palette and a wide array of visual styles, Vacon’s Handbook for the Lucid Dreamer is a funny and psychedelic journey into the science and art of lucid dreaming that mixes information, content creation, entertainment on a very fascinating topic. The series is still ongoing on Instagram at one-shots frequency.
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tH�� oF��n hA��eN� sP��tA��oU��y: 55% oF aD��tS cL��m tO hA�� eX��r��nC�� iT*
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(aN� iT fE��s aW��oM�)
bU� tH��e aR� aL�� tE��n��uE� tO iN��cE L��iD��y aN� aW��eN��s iN dR��mS. (*) S��nD��s, R��, S��tH, C��gG (2016).
...wH��e oT��rS aR� dE��lO��d tH��uG� sC��nT��iC rE��aR��, l��e tH� wO�� cA��iE� oN bY tH� pS��hOpH��iO��g��t S��pH�� lA��rG�.
tH��e cA� bE mA�� dI��eR��t rE��oN� tO bE wA��iN� tO lU��d dR��m: fO� sO�� iT's jU�� tH� eX��tE��nT oF sU�� eX��rI��cE, wH��e oT��rS sT��vE tO gA�� a dE��eR aC��sS tO tH��r uN��nS��oU� m��d, aN� mO��...
O��e lU��d��y iS aC��eV��, tH��e's v��tU��lY nO l��iT.
I� yO� aR� lO��iN� fO��aR� tO hA�� yO�� f��sT lU��d dR��m, oR tR��nG tO iM��oV� yO�� lU��d��y tE��n��uE�, I cA�'t wA�� tO sH��e mY fA��rI�� tR��kS aN� tI��! jO�� mE iN tH�� vO��gE!
TOKI PONA DICTIONARY Dr. Sonja Lang – the linguist known for having created the philosophical language toki pona – after having read my comic series Nasin Nasa written in such language, in 2021 contacted me to illustrate her upcoming book, a comprehensive dictionary of toki pona compiled by herself. I very gladly accepted the commission and I’ve created 42 illustrations that now enrich the book and the toki pona community.
Official site
Berliner Comic fenster Berliner Comic Fenster is a collaboration between the Berlin’s public transportation (BVG) communication and entertainment service Berliner Fenster, and Berlin’s independent comic festival Comic Invasion. Every year the two entities team up to feature comics by Berlin’s independent and emerging comic artists on the screens placed on the city’s trains, tramways and undergrounds. My contribution have been selected every year since 2019 (time of my fist application).
Official site
24-hr. comics 2021 Every year, the Literary Colloquium of Berlin organizes a 24hr comics event in which comic artists from Berlin and beyond gather to create a 24page comic in 24 hours each. This edition’s theme was “Zu Eng” (too narrow / tight / cramped), and I contributed with a quirky story, completely set in a single room, about a home invasion by a huge, funny creature. Like many of my works, it features a linguistic twist: the characters speak an international, multilingual grammelot made mixing many European languages.
Official site
NASIN NASA Nasin Nasa represented my debut in the independent comic scene after the amateur and self-produced works of my teenage years and my successive artist and design career. A mini-series of 5 episodes of 8 pages each, Nasin Nasa is a puzzling story set in a dreamlike alien world in which a mysterious and silent female rollerskater travels amongst weird creatures and surreal scenarios. A prominent feature of the series is that it is written entirely – dialogues and titles included – in toki pona: an artificial, philosophical language created by the linguist Sonja Lang in the 2000s, which has been developed in a glyphic style by designer Jonathan Gabel.
read online
COMIC COMMISSIONS Since my debut to the independent comic scene in 2019 I’ve worked on many comic commissions for magazines like SKZ Protomagazine (Italy, 2019 2021), for Comic Invasion Berlin’s events such as Hope Punk (2021) and Treasure Hunt (2020), as well as private clients.
SKZ Protomagazine, n.1 Digital drawing, 2021
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24-hr. comics 2019 The 2019 edition of the 24Stunden comic im Wannsee it’s the first one I have taken part to, and I decided to interpret the theme (“Mate” – the South American drink) with a silent story in a nasin nasa-like scenario. Due to it being my first time dealing with such time constraints, I experimented working directly with ink on paper instead of my usual digital workflow. The short story was published in the anthology volume of the same name produced by JaJa Verlag.
Official site
Character design Apart from my personal projects, I enjoy putting my character design skills at the service of clients around the world as a freelancer. Ideal for comics, illustration, and picture books, my personal style combines versatility with a highly expressive, warm and engaging appearance. I’m always very attentive to details and I always make sure to give soul to every project I collaborate with, as if it’s one of my own.
DESI GN E
asily the most pragmatic of the many branches of my skillset, graphic design is the elected field where I can apply my expertise in a day-to-day basis to the widest range of situations, clients and budgets. Through a long history of continuous training, diverse freelancing gigs, and years of career within high-level corporate design teams, I’ve built a skillset that makes me a real Jack of all trades for all the graphic design necessities, bringing my vision and my know-how to everything: from digital illustration to the more technical fields of web-design and JavaScript animation.
STELLA MAYO
Website for Artistic collective HTML, CSS, JavaScript, 2018
Digital illustration Alongside my purely artistic production, I’ve been carrying on a career in Graphic Design, taking advantage of my skills in digital drawing and painting to professionally create visual assets for a wide spectrum of scopes, including logotype and fashion design. Using software as PhotoShop, Clip Studio Paint, Affinity Photo I can create engaging raster visuals for any kind of client and budget.
vector illustration One of my most recurring tasks during my career as designer is to implement vectorial visual assets that fit the brand’s visual identity: logotypes, icons, emojis, UI elements... Vector art needs to be created in a time-sensitive environment, be highly scalable and versatile – and of course pleasant to the eye and on-brand. Using Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, Affinity Designer I’m able to quickly provide hi-quality vector assets to suit any kind of digital environment, from personal projects to full-scale corporate – and with the use of the JavaScript library GreenSock, I can animate them to the client’s request, bringing the shapes to life.
Some content of this section is ©Delivery Hero
editorial layout As freelancer in the graphic design field, one of my activities is layout implementation for Goldblatt Verlag, an independent publishing house specialized in illustrated books. I’m able to turn a brief into a full book, managing the different visual assets, texts, photos and illustrations in an harmonic way and fulfilling the client’s vision with my own expertise. Apart from the pure creative process (using software as Adobe InDesign and Affinity Publisher), I also deal with postproduction printing environment such as communication with the printing facilities, printready file optimization, etc.
Official site
UI & Webdesign During my years in Delivery Hero’s in-house design team I was, among others, assigned to their recruiting platform’s visual identity. I’ve redesigned every aspect of the recruiting process – from the website, to the mailing list, to the FAQ section, to the logistic funnel and more – but most important I was able to take care of every step of the chain: from the visual design (using Sketch), to the prototyping (InVision) and the actual front-end implementation (coded in HTML, CSS and JavaScript). My platform, originated for the foodora brand, has been scaled up and it’s now being implemented for many of the multinational’s 50+ brands worldwide (foodpanda, Talabat, Mjam etc.)
Painting &
VISU AL ART B
efore focusing on the fields of comics and graphic design, visual art has been my primary activity for over a decade, in which I have developed my very unique style through constant experimenting and reasearch around a center of conceptual themes and visual elements. Up to this day, even if not at its core anymore, visual art remains a crucial part of my visual identity, as its unchallenged possibilities provide the ideal environment where ideas can be born, develop and take off in new and exciting ways.
LA PRIGIONIERA
Acrylic on canvas, 2012
Scratchboard Scratchboard is an art technique in which a thin layer of black ink is overlaid to a substrate of white china clay. The figure emerges by patiently scratching away the ink using a precision knife. In 2014 I started working with such technique, switching away from the two-tone that otherwise characterizes my artistic production, to focus my attention on the expressive capabilities of the use of stroke, lighting, volumes and shapes. This resulted in a woefully dramatic series that I consider, up to date, one of my most striking achievement in the field of visual arts.
ACRYLIC On CANVAS Acrylic painting has been my prevalent medium in the early 2010s, as my production – that at the time consisted mainly in mural works – was gaining visibility in the art market. The resulting series comprises dozens of works that contributed to definitely consolidate my signature blue-pink style within the art community, ending up in numerous art collections. The works within this series eventually earned me a spot among the finalists at the 2011 Combat Prize and the winners of the prize Premio Ora of the same year.
pencils On paper Alongside my canvas production, in the early 2010s I also was intensively working with pencils on paper. In this series I further explored the relationship between my palette and a realistic visual approach to uncanny subjects, experimenting with portrayal and color. Most of this works have been exhibited in my 2012 solo show “Glimpse of Ghost” in AvantGarden gallery, Milan.
Printmaking In 2012 I wanted to expand my artistic production by venturing into printmaking techniques, successfully experimenting with silkscreen and linocut printing. Featuring a new, more realistic approach to my visual style and thematics, my limited-edition, hand-made prints have been featured and sold in the cult Berlin gallery Serigraffeur.
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nella grotta Between 2012 and 2013 I’ve been fusing my storytelling and printmaking experimentation in the creation of the art-book “Nella Grotta”, a limited-edition, hand-made book featuring a short story in 12 chapters (in Italian and English) accompanied by 12 linocut illustrations, that went sold-out in a very short time. With its focus on black and white, stroke-driven expressionism, and the dark themes, this book was crucial for laying the ground to the following scratchboard series.
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Wall art My relocation to Berlin from Italy was accompanied by the transition from amateur to visual art professional, which at first took the form of muralism and street art. While traveling across Europe, I had the opportunity to develop my style through commissions for social entities, including historical community centers such as La Tabacalera in Madrid and Pacì Paciana in Bergamo – but also for private clients such as skate shops and private homes.
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All content 2021 © Daniele Sartirani Except pages 28-29 and 36-37 © Delivery Hero Do not reproduce without permission. For all inquires please contact: vacon@vaconsartirani.com
Dream on & Stay weird.