Adidas launched in Italy the new model ZX 2K Boost, and to do that they chose 3 famous italian rappers: Charlie Charles, Marracash and Fabri Fibra. I have been asked to work on the pictures, adding the copy with an original lettering which recalls the softness of this particular model of shoes.

The idea of lettering around subjects come up from the art directors of We Are Social, a really cool agency from Milano.
So I chose to draw some round and sinuous lettering, with a treatment similar to the shoes' sole, integrating them with the personalities. The colors come from the shoes that the models wore.

I always start with a pencil draft. In this case I used only Photoshop both to create the lettering using a very large brush with a bit of dynamic shape to return the difference in thickness, given by calligraphic approach and to create shadows and lights that give three-dimensional realism.
You can see a little making of here: https://vimeo.com/465377500

The project liked very much in general: I think an almost graffiti approach to lettering and composition, but realistically set in a photo is an original way of drawing. Unfortunately I could only publish 4 of the 6 images made: working with famous people as subjects this kind of things can happen.
I definitely paid more attention to a calligraphic approach to this kind of letters and this taught me to pay attention to the shapes of the letters, even when not using calligraphic tools.

Davide Pagliardini

Visual & Motion Designer - Co-founder of www.uovolab.com

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