After we found Diego’s artwork with Burger King, we fell in love with his work and we knew we had to get him in our Spotlight.
Diego: I am Diego Speroni, I am 44 years old. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I’ve moved out to Madrid 2 years ago. I’ve been interested in drawing and painting since I was very young, and in time I became more involved in graphic arts thanks to my father, who had a photochromy workshop, and to my mother who was a technical drawing teacher.
At the age of 19 I started working as a graphics producer in an editorial design studio, and eventually, I started making my first retouches and color adjustments. Then I started working in an advertising agency and the progress I achieved in the area of retouching occur naturally. At the age of 27 I decided to open my own studio where I mainly retouched fashion campaigns and, as time passed by, I started working also on publicity.
Subsign: What was your childhood like? Do you think your experiences from childhood have influenced your present creative endeavors?
Diego: It was a quiet childhood; I was a neighborhood kid in Buenos Aires. I remember spending hours drawing and building things with Lego bricks, and yes, everything I did not only in my childhood but in my entire life, influences in what I do now.
Subsign: What did you want to be as a grown up?
Diego: As an adolescent, I was a DJ and at the same time I started getting involved with retouching. I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to become but I was sure that it had to be something that allowed me to create, and also that I enjoyed doing.
Subsign: How does your workstation look like?
Diego: I am a very simple person when it comes to my equipment, I don’t spend unnecessary money. My tools currently are an iMac 21, i5, 16gb ram, SSD 500gb, and a Wacom Cintiq 22 HD.
Subsign: Do you have a work style? How would you describe it?
Diego: It changes over time but I always try for it to have something pictorial; I like to play with the color and textures, the photographic grain. A lot of people tell me that they recognize my works and that makes me feel very proud.
Subsign: Can you share with us how your creative process works?
Diego: It’s simple: I always do what I like and what I think is best depending every photo, without restrictions. That the client likes it later is the second step.
Subsign: What is your favorite work you have done so far?
Diego: There are lots I consider my favorites but if I had to choose just one it would be the last collaboration I did for a project I have with a photographer and friend (Ale Burset), which was a free intervention, however, I liked of one of his photos.
Subsign: Who do you follow for inspiration?
Diego: Honestly, I don’t follow anyone in particular, it all inspires me: a work I see on the website, walking in a museum, a shadow on the street, the colors of a landscape… I’m very observant of the daily life and the ordinary things, and from that one can get a lot of ideas.
Subsign: What advice would you give to someone starting out in the creative field of work?
Diego: Patience and dedication, a lot of both. If you feel that what you do makes you feel complete, then keep doing it, the rest will just work out.
Subsign: If you would have a superpower, what would it be?
Diego: Convincing the client that it doesn’t make any sense to give so many laps over something; in the end, no one cares.
Subsign: Can you recommend for our readers a book, a song, and a movie?
Diego: “STEVE JOBS” from Walter Isaacson. That book shows everything that’s good to do about passion and work, and everything that’s wrong to do as a person and human being.
I dare to say I am a music lover, so it’s impossible for me to recommend just one song.
The visual beauty of the movie “300” was pretty inspiring to me.
Subsign: If you could throw any kind of party, what would it be like and what would it be for?
Diego: Nothing has so little to do with me than parties.
Thank you, Diego, for being a part of it!
If you know an artist that should be in the spotlight, contact us at jojo@subsign.co .
For more of Diego’s work, you can follow him on the links: Diego’s Portfolio, Diego on Instagram.
