Collection Ten - Fotolia - Takeshi

My name is Takeshi. I’m 30 years old, and I’m an illustrator. I’ve been living in New York for the past 4 years, but I’m from the city of Saint Etienne, in France. I studied management studies in University, which is the complete opposite of what I do now, but it wasn’t a waste because it helped me realize that I needed to find a career that I felt passionate about, something that would be better suited to me. That’s how I got into illustrating. I pretty much taught myself everything I know by playing around with Photoshop. I started out by creating flyers for friends, and making things like posters for parties and events. Those small projects played a huge part in helping me develop my skills. I’ve freelanced since the very beginning and have never been employed at a company. That’s why my website is called "Still on the Run". I work for quite a few different agencies… At the moment, I’m doing TV advertising in New York. I create storyboards, or “frame styles” as they call it here. I count on my agents to keep me busy. I have several of them around the world who are always finding me new projects. I love working from home, but I also love working in studios from time to time. It allows me to get out and meet people, and to be part of some pretty fun teams. The culture in New York is very open-minded, which makes working in this industry even better! Freelancing allows me to continue working on personal illustrations, which is really important to me. Without personal illustrations, it’s hard to have a style and to be recognized for it. American agencies hire a lot of freelancers, not only designers and illustrators, but also animators, producers and art directors. It makes for really dynamic teams of people who bring different experiences to the table, and who are very good at specific skill sets. I chose the alias “Takeshi” at the very beginning of my career because I was influenced heavily by Asian culture… Particularly by Japanese and samuraï cultures, and Hagakure literature. I’m a fan of Takeshi Kitano’s “Yakuzas” movies. They really helped define the beginning of my career path. Of course, I’ve since been influenced by other designers, but those movies started it all. I was part of a design group where we all knew each other. Naturally, we all got a little competitive between each other, but that only allowed us to progress even more. Over time, I distanced myself from the design group and tried to develop something more personal. New York is a city full of riches… You can walk around and get lost on a regular basis, but you can also easily come upon something you’ve never seen before. There’s a new thing to discover every day. It feeds my creativity. It may not necessarily be visible or obvious in my work, But it affects me in a much more minimalist and abstract kind of way. When I have some spare time, which doesn’t happen very often, I try to explore New York, by foot, bicycle and subway, and I spend hours exploring and trying to discover hidden gems. It’s hard to know in advance what my next project will look like. I often improvise throughout my creative process. I try to add elements that I think make sense, and try to achieve a balanced result. I aim for something clean that has a particular focus on details. I think that makes all the difference. I don’t draw. I use only photo editing, which is a signature method I’ve been using since the beginning that has helped define me in the design field. Currently, I’m trying to take my photo editing in another direction. I want to use subjects that are a bit less realistic and more abstract. My theme for Fotolia’s TEN Collection Was "Abstract". My goal wasn’t to deliver a specific message, but to let myself be guided by various shapes and colors. I browsed Fotolia’s photo library and was inspired by its very colorful elements and amazing qualities. At that point, it made perfect sense to allow the design aspects to be the essence of my creation. I started by placing the main elements into the design. I found some gems which seemed interesting to me, like the crown and this fan in the background. The second step was to add the details, while keeping the homogeneity. I built the sky by using several images of clouds, which I mixed with gradients in order to create an interesting background. After having placed the sky, and once I was satisfied by my composition, I started to work on the lights and the effects. I worked on lens flare effects, which I used to increase the contrast. I wanted to create an explosion effect so I created some particles and combined them with the addition of small details, like small wood sticks and petals. At the bottom, I created a ground on which I could place the shadow of the elements that fly in the sky. It allowed me to integrate a sense of depth to the work and to make the different elements appear more realistic. To finalize my illustration, I used adjustment layers like saturation, level and curve layers. I’ve been working on large commercial projects for several years, but now I want to concentrate and spend my time on more artistic and personal projects. The one piece of advice I have for young designers is to focus on your personal vision and on the originality of your work, to put in a lot of hours and perfect your style, and to develop good technical skills before starting a project. I’d like to say thanks to Fotolia and the entire Gang Corp team.