alessandro paglia pens photorealistic drawings of design icons

alessandro paglia photorealistic pen drawings design objects

through the highly-detailed duplication of tiny circles, artist alessandro paglia creates photorealistic representations of industrial design icons. the milan-based creative’s process is simple, yet meticulous: paglia chooses the subject, shoots several dozen photographs of it, picks the best — in terms of composition, shadow, and contrast — then minutely reproduces it on paper using 0.1mm black ink fine liners. the hyper-realistic illustrations are rendered in fine detail, with careful attention paid to depth and shadow, taking up to 250 hours each to create.

campari bottle, designed by fortunato depero in 1932

the illustrations express the qualities of the product based on their black and white palette, strong sense of contrast, large format, and vibrant effect produced by the pointillist-like technique. the subjects of paglia‘s pen drawings predominantly depict famous objects from industrial design history, owed to his background as a product designer. paglia fuels his activity as an artist with his passion for design, turning these pieces into illustrations as a tribute to the personality of each object and to the ingenuity of their creators.

detail of the campari bottle

the glass campari bottle, first designed in 1932, is still in use today 

‘splugen brau’ lamp, designed by achille & pier giacomo castiglioni for flos 

detail of the ‘splugen brau’ lamp

‘nearco’ lamp by karim rashid for artemide

detail of the ‘nearco’ lamp

‘caboche’ lamp by patricia urquiola for foscarini

work in progress on the ‘caboche’ lamp

a drawing of the classic coffee ‘moka’ pot

detail of the ‘moka’ pot

‘bao bao’ bag by issey miyake 

work in progress on the ‘bao bao’ bag

converse sneakers are carefully drawn in pen 

detail of the converse sneaker drawing 

sneaker by philipp plein

detail of the sneaker pen drawing

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions  feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: nina azzarello | designboom