According to FB Ver Eversum means Springtime, so you will understand easily this is the best time for us to interview them. "It is the fascination with nature, infinite source of inspiration, with its forms and its materials" which drive Ver Eversum creativity, it is kind of obvious when you look at their work, really unique, mixing XIXth century illustrations and 70s psychedelism. Will I thank IRPA enough for this discovery ? Well, I hope so...
Just now we’re listening to Weezer’s
Pinkerton album.. kinda a big hit in the last month in our studio! Cool happy
music to draw with!
Can you tell us more about yourself,
who are you, where are you from, what do you do?
First of all, we’re two people: Ver
Eversum is the name of our project of illustration and poster art. We’re a
fellow and a lady living near Rome – Italy, coming from different educational
backgrounds, with strong passion for drawing, music and screenprint. We began
making poster for friend’s band, then we discovered an amazing world of poster
art, and decided to try to be a part of it.
When did you start drawing? Did you follow
any course or did you improve by drawing in the margins of your schoolbooks?
Today are you living from your art, or
do you do something else for a living ?
At present time, poster art is “the
dark side” of our activity; we work as freelance for brand identity, visual
communication and advertising companies. From this work as art directors and
creatives we pay bills and rent, but we’re investing a lot on the poster side
of our studio, and it’s such a pleasure seeing it growing from a small local
reality to something bigger and concrete. It’s funny that customer on the
“serious” side and from the “music” side often aren’t aware of the double face
of our studio. One day we’ll pack-up all of our works, build a nice comprehensive
website and make this two different souls converge!
Actually, work with press and
expecially fanzines is one of our target for the next future. We never did
that, maybe ‘cause we never contacted any! We were kinda shy, just lately we
developed that little bit of self confidence due to little trust in our
portfolio. We hope to expand on printed media soon. Book illustration will be,
then, the next step.
Where does your influence come from? Is
there any artists/graphists you particularly like, what are your influences?
There’s so much stuff constantly
influencing us, starting from medieval illustration arriving to present day’s
street artists and poster artists. Maybe the main source of ispiration comes
from the early 1900s book illustration, black and white and full of details.
Artists in that period were great to capture the exact mood of a novel or a
fairytale in just one illustration, and that’s exactly what we aim to do with
our posters.
How long does it take you to do a
poster?
We do 95% of all process, from idea to
printed poster, by hand. It should be seen as an outdated way to work, but we
believe that there is a strong difference, especially today, seeing a poster
drawn by hand or digitally made. We believe that computer should be considered
as a very useful tool, but should not override the artist who uses it. We respect
and admire lots of people who creates amazing art on computer.. but it’s just a
working way that doesn’t fits us. The principal steps in our work involve an
embryonal idea, then research about the topic of the poster, read stuff and see
images to refine the original idea and make it more meaningful. Then we make tons
of sketches of every possible layout, lettering etc. When we’re happy enough
(or tired enough) we draw the final version. Even if it seems an endless
process, it takes us about 3-4 days to get the complete poster, depending on
artwork’s complexity.
Be picky with commissions is something
you can only do if you’re plenty of them! But this doesn’t mean you should work
as a trained monkey doing everything the customer asks you, in the way he tells
you. We’d like to think that if someone hires you on a project, do that ‘cause
he apprecciate your particular way of working or style. So, considering that
oil painting is not our first mastery, and we’re not really into this kind of
images, we’d probably try to persuade the customer to make something more in line
with our style!
For which band have you already worked
for?
For which band would you love to work?
Probably every poster artist wish and
aim to work with the bands he usually listen and love! Our list is quite long..
‘cause we listen to lots of very
different things. If we should pick up from italian current music scene, we’ll
be glad to work with NoBraino and Zen Circus. Tool, Fleet Foxes, Black
Mountain, Red Fang, Kyuss Lives, My Morning Jacket, Electric Wizard picking up
from international band’s pool. Working for big festivals, doing poster series
for band playing there, would be also totally cool. But most of all, we’d love to continue to work
with all the bands that supported us, believed in our project and with whom
we’re walking a common path, such as Misty Morning and Godwatt Redemption.
Until now we have been chosed by bands..and
we have to say it’s such a cool way to work, because you discover a lot of
interesting underground bands and lovely people. But we’re starting to
submitting design proposal for big foreign bands. It would be cool, let’s cross
our finger!
What is the most difficult part in
designing a poster ?
Choosing the idea for the poster, what
it should portray, has always been fast for us. Music and lyrics are very
inspirational to generate images in our minds. Maybe the most difficult part is
trying not to drown in the pool of alternatives, as color patterns, lettering
and layout options. Sometimes it’s hard to stay focus on the original idea we
choose, cause while you work this idea develops and you’ll never know where it
carries you. While we work on a poster, we always try to create something worth
to be framed and hung on a wall, in a reasonable time.
Italy is actually growing the awareness
to have a poster art scene, thank to the work of the amazing guys from ItalianRock Poster Art (www.italianposterrockart.com)
A bit of self-promotion, take advantage
of it, it's free, where can we see your work , on the web or in real life?
The most complete gallery of our poster
is on Italian Poster Rock Art:
you can check them out even on
Gigposter.com:
The best praise you received lately?
We’re glad anytime someone appreciate
what we’re doing.. lately someone we admire a lot told us (speaking about our
work) “i wish i thought and made this..” . this is kinda the BEST praise!
We always hope to make more poster, to keep
working with cool bands and nice people, to live well, love much, laugh often!
We hope for us, and for the italian
poster artist movement, to grow big and strong, to make people, bands and
venues aware that there are really a lot of young, skillful clever folks you
can work with! Yes, they’re right beside you!
Thanks for answering my questions and
see you soon on the website !!
