Foscarini iconic lighting: a concise orientation before we get practical.
Foscarini iconic lighting: Quick notes
Patricia Urquiola and Eliana Gerotto with Caboche, left, and Marc Sadler with Twiggy, right. Drawing by Jorge Arévalo, courtesy of Foscarini.
The latest edition of Foscarini‘s What’s in a Lamp? experiential project features works by Spanish illustrator and art director Jorge Arévalo, who uses his signature style to portray some of Foscarini’s most notable designers and the lamps they created.
Foscarini asked creative people from various disciplines – illustrators, photographers, sculptors, animators – to reinterpret its lamps from a personal and free perspective.
Arévalo, an illustrator who lives and works in Madrid, has worked for publications such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. His figures are made up of essential lines, bold colors and graphic elegance. He portrays figures who have shaped the history of design and created some of the most iconic pieces in the Foscarini collection, as well as emerging voices in contemporary design.
Illustrator Jorge Arevalo (Photo courtesy of Foscarini)
Arévalo has turned his attention to lighting after previously working on a project called Chairs & Architects.
“Lamps fascinate me,” he said in a release from Foscarini. “The light of a lamp in a home defines us more than a chair. In this series, everything is more ethereal: the object of desire is high above, almost within reach of the fingertips.”
Foscarini shared a question-and-answer style interview with Arévalo about his designs:
Can you tell us about your creative process, from the initial idea to the final illustration?
The key is to never start with a blank sheet. I always begin with a colored background that helps me set the tone of the image. My work is digital, and that allows me to move elements with a designer’s mindset – as if composing a collage of shapes and proportions.
How much did you seek coherence across the series, and how much did you want each lamp to have its own unique identity?
I tried to maintain consistent proportions between the designer and the lamp, but I wanted it all to remain human. The designers had to feel comfortable next to their own creations – that was the real challenge.
Designer Francesca Lanzavecchia with Allumette, left, and Ferruccio Laviani with Orbital, right. Drawing by Jorge Arévalo, courtesy of Foscarini.
Color plays a central role in your work. How do you choose a palette? Is it more of an aesthetic choice or a language of meaning?
It depends on the project. Sometimes a series needs a coherent palette so that the concept remains dominant; other times, the character or the scene dictates the colors. In my work, black gives strength and structure to the illustration, enhancing the other colors. The tones that appear most often are orange, magenta, and turquoise – they are the colors that bring light.
And how did you approach color specifically in this series for What’s in a Lamp??
I wanted powerful colors that would convey brightness. In this case, I gave priority to the object rather than the designer – it was the lamp that had to shine.
This series features four established designers and two emerging voices. Was it more challenging to reinterpret iconic designs already known to everyone, or to visualize new and evolving proposals?
Iconic designs already have a story, a past – it’s easier to capture their essence. New creations, on the other hand, are still evolving, changing, writing their own story, and that requires more improvisation.
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