Published by Leonardo Calcagno
Who are you: Imaginary illustrator with 20 years of experience in various fields
Your current job:
Freelance illustrator and visuality imaginative for various projects. Starting a new children’s book at this moment, super excited about that.
In which city are you located?
Prague, Czech Republic
A word to define what kind of worker you are: Persistent in imaginative fantasy and daily drawing. I am more and more happy drawing complex scenes with hundreds of characters.
What tools are essential to your life (app, software, etc..)
My sketchbook, fountain pen and aquarelle colors. All that I need. I have started my visual career with computers, but now I would like to use them less and less. If I use them, my weapon of choice is usual combination of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Cintiq.
What does your office space look like?
Usually very messy and not so tidy as on the photos, however, my wife might doom me if I would present our home studio in its usual state of chaos. So I have spent some time with organizing. I expect it to last few days and I will be back to normal
What kind of music do you listen when you are working?
Minimalistic, jazz, downtempo. I tend to have one playlist and listen to it repeatedly for more than a week. Therefore I pick albums that are deep and get better more I know them. If not music I am listening to an audio of some BBC documentaries just to listen to some interesting things, however, I don’t think I remember anything later.
Do you have a way to organize your day to maximize your work?
My usual day depends on workload which is defined by incoming projects. If there is normal time, I don’t need anything special to organize it, when time gets more stressed I can handle everything with simple task list on paper, where I organize things according to their importance and then just happily cross them out one after another.
What tips would you give to improve productivity?
Love what you do.
You’re better than your colleagues to:
I work mostly freelance so I am afraid I am not the right one to answer this question.
What is the best advice anyone has given you?
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
What is your best tip for saving time?
Organize your thoughts, have a nice walk. Build positive habits.
What is your routine start and end of the day?
A coffee at the beginning, a book or few quick chess games at the end.
Aside from your computer and your phone, what gadget can you not you go without?
My sketchbook.
facebook.com/Daniel.Spacek.Illustration/
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Video links from selected animated projects
Closing sequence for a kids channel of Czech Television. Awarded by PromaxBDA.