Interview: Luca Barcellona

Hi Luca, thanks for doing this interview! Can you give a short introduction about yourself?
I’m a 31 old calligrapher and graphic designer. I live in Milan where I have my studio and I work as a freelancer. I just try to use lettering as the main element in my artworks.

Usually calligraphy has a bit of an old fashioned flavor to it, yet your work seems very rough and up to date. What do you think makes the difference?
I think this is because of my background in graffiti; I still love that and my objective is to try and let calligraphy and writing communicate between themselves.

But I’m also interested in every aspects of lettering, I always pay close attention to signs, heads of the newspaper and magazines and much more, especially when I’m in other cities. I try to put my current visual influences into my upcoming work.

As with a lot of graphic designers and typographers now-a-days graffiti has been the starting point for their creative career. In what way do you think your work has been enriched by your graffiti background?
Definately a lot, graffiti equals creativity, freedom, anarchy and the taste for forbidden things, in every sense. Calligraphy is a study, adiscipline, the idea that you have to know the roots of what you are doing… How are you going to be able to evolve if you don’t know the basics of a letterform?

If you use these parallel disciplines without any prejudice, the result can be something like a contemporary language, sometimes amazing. Something modern but also respectful towards the traditions.

It seems that your latest work is moving more towards logo design also. Has this happened on purpose or did it just come about naturally?
I love to take books from my library to use for research and come up with ideas from that. Also I just love to draw sketches for hours just to find the right solution. Desinging logotypes is the essence of this designprocess, trying to make the form follow the function and explain this in the simplest form. So when a client ask me to design a logo I’m usually happy. The difficulty lies in not having a lot of freedom and when you can’t freely create what you would like to. That is always a killer situation for the job!

The Swide logo is a good example of a great handstyle becoming a recognizable logo. Can you tell us a bit more about that project?
I have often worked for Dolce & Gabbana creating their written invitations and stuff like that, this is just one of the assignments where they needed a calligrapher. They asked me to create the logo for the Swide, which is the new D&G blogazine.

I did a lot of sketches during this project, using brushes, nibs, ruling pens… At the end the force of the ruling pens strokes won. There was a lot of freedom and professionalism from the clients side, without too many approval reviews, but there was one with Stefano Gabbana directly (!).

Can you give us your expert view on the calligraffiti done by Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman?
I know about his calligraffiti work and I also respect his work as a graffiti artist. I have seen some videos about “Calligraffiti”, some time ago, but I don’t know Shoe very well personally so I’d like to give a more general point of view on the subject:

Honestly, It’s a good thing a lot of graffiti writers are interested in calligraphy, but they usually don’t have the patience to learn and practice the classical handwriting models. You have to know them if you want to experiment with them. Calligraphy has a long history and the letters from the past deserve respect from the users.

Taking some letters from old manuals and trying to copy them can amaze some people and it will also let you sell canvasses for some cash, but I think it’s much more important to learn from the masters, to compare your work with theirs and to be honest to yourself. It takes a huge amount of work and time to become a “real calligrapher”. I’m not even close.

How did you come to know of Don’t Believe The Type?
The people who organize DBTT found me on the web and contacted me. I immediately said YES! Power of the web I think…

A calligraphic workshop sounds like a very daunting task. Can you give us a glimpse as to what you have planned for your workshop during DBTT?
Well, ofcourse a workshop isn’t a real course. Usually they’re as much as two or three full days. So in the little time I have I will try to show some of the foundations of brushpen writing, showing some examples. The curiosity of the people will spark when they start practicing themselves, I hope they’ll like it!

And on the contrary, what do you expect to learn from giving the workshop?
This is probably the mean reason why I started teaching; having the possibility to talk with different people who love the same things, listen to their stories and see their results from my lessons. Teaching is a privileged way to learn.

What artwork that you have made lately still puts a satisfied smile on your face?
It is the one that I made for Some Type of Wonderful, it looks so 60’s psychedelic and it’s a reference to the Italian social and political situation, a real “bad trip”!