Digital Painting
Drawing
Illustration
Isabel Lauren Loewe
Dec 9, 2025
Taco first started drawing on anything he could reach, including the walls of his childhood home. But he’s come a long way since then, and he’s steadily built himself a unique style shaped by a fascination with the subconscious. It’s an intuitive mixture that defines Taco’s work, which spans graphic design, logo design, and surreal illustrations.
The Italian artist didn’t arrive at illustration through a single breakthrough moment, but instead it was a slow, natural pull. He studied design and visual communication while at university. The work of Massimo Vignelli, Hans Neuberg, and Max Bill pulled him into the precision of the Swiss Style. He took his instinct for storytelling and layered it under his surreal imagination, giving him a dual identity, switching between an illustrator led by dreams and a designer trained in discipline.
What first drew you to illustration and graphic design, and how do those two practices overlap for you?
Illustration has been the “final reach” of a quite natural process, because since I was a child, I used to draw on everything, even the walls of my house. One of the first memories I can remember is me drawing a lizard on a rock. Graphic Design, instead, came later in Design and Visual Communication studies at University, where I fell in love at first with the Swiss Style (Massimo Vignelli, Hans Neuberg, Max Bill). These studies lead me today to work in Graphic Design, Logo Design, and Illustration.
Taco
Your work feels very intentional in its use of color and composition. What’s the first thing you think about when starting a new piece?
The source of inspiration is various, and it can change from illustration to illustration. Sometimes I take inspiration from dreams I make, from music I listen to, or from articles and stories I read. For example, one of the last illustrations I posted was born after I read of the Native American legend of the Jackalope. I tell you another example: once I dreamt myself lying down and relaxing in a field close to my house, among the grass. At one point, a creature with the body of a giant prawn and the legs of a man cut across my path. I wasn’t afraid of it — on the contrary, I was fascinated! So that morning, I decided to put it down on paper immediately.
Do you see your illustrations more as storytelling or as design, or somewhere in between?
Maybe the last illustrations I did in the last months for this part are mostly close to design, even though some of them still hold bits of storytelling. But talking about illustration, I always like to insert elements able to evoke stories and unlock feelings. I love to play with surrealism and with the subconscious.
What are you trying to make people feel when they see your work?
The reality we live in is often very limiting and delusional; that’s why I try to create other different realities and worlds. I’d like to offer my public a little disposable getaway evasions, in which objects and stories we know overlap and form something new.
Your pieces often mix playfulness with something sharper beneath the surface. How do you find that balance?
I like to lure people in my drawings and illustrations with something fun or colorful — then, once they’re close enough, they realize there’s a little bite hiding underneath. Sweetness hits harder when there’s a little sting behind it. I personally can’t explain how I find that balance, but I always want to be honest with myself and my public, so it comes after this.
There’s a sense of rhythm in your linework, almost like music or motion. Do you think of your art as something that moves?
Oh, you can tell! I see them as storyboards of a movie. In my eyes, they always are in motion, not by chance, in the last times I started to do little animations of old drawings just to see them coming to life. Speaking about music, I am a musician and singer, so it comes naturally that this influences my production.
How has your style evolved, and what moments or influences pushed that evolution?
One of the most important things I understood about myself and my production is that I don’t have a precise style, because what I found out is that I love experimenting with shapes and form, even though the content remains the same. Rather, in my art, there are elements like elements like: stars, the universe, cats, stars, planets that are alone by themselves, a waving flag of my identity. What I’m trying to do is push my art to the extreme, and to bring everything I’ve ever done to its ultimate synthesis, since, throughout my life, my illustrations have always been dominated by meticulous detail and minimal color, what I’m doing now is the exact opposite, but not because one day I said to myself, “Come on, let’s synthetize my style”, instead it came evolving during the time by its own, gradually, as a natural evolution.
When you look at your older work, what stands out to you now?
What feels the most “you,” and what feels like a past version of yourself? What pops out the most is the usage of color. There has been such a great maturation, and you can see how I embraced the colors evolving myself gradually during the years. I think what feels most “me” in my whole production is the research of the surreal element, and that thing never went off, and I’m so proud of it.
What excites you most about creating right now, and where do you see your work heading next?
I think experimenting is what excites me the most. Experimenting is fun. I love to challenge myself all the times, in different styles, concepts, and techniques. As long as I’ll have fun experimenting with styles, techniques, and different supports like digital art and sketchbooks (and I buy a tremendous amount of them), I’ll go on my way. Drawing is part of me, and I wouldn’t be the same without it.
