STRETCH YOURSELF READER INTERVIEW
As Marinelli points out, to
work in advertising, you
have to know Photoshop
inside out. But that’s not the
only thing that’ll determine
whether you succeed. His
advice is to “Try to create at
least one new image per
month. A good job is the
result of many hours of
practice. It’s always
necessary to learn more to
develop your technique.”
“Work hard, but don’t
forget to relax,” he adds.
“Your brain is not a machine
and tiredness is the worst
enemy of creativity.” But
most importantly, Marinelli
stresses you must always
be open to “learning more,
because this is the only way
to power up your creativity.”DESIGN TIPS
WHAT’S A TYPICAL WORK DAY FOR YOU?
I start at the agency at 9:00 AM. Whenever I can, I
reserve at least 30 minutes of my morning to read the
news, sports and see design references. After that I put
my headphones on and get to work.
Usually the day before, I will have checked my job list
for the next day, so when I start my day job I already
know exactly what to do. During the day, I try to be very
focused on the job that I’m developing. I stop just a few
moments to rest. This is very important because when I
go back, I can have a better view of details and improve
the work that I was doing.
I like to work in an advertising agency because every
day I need to be creative and this reflects directly in my
work. An ad agency has several specialities; mine is the
art direction, when the idea is approved my job is to
build the image that was imagined by the creative.
WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
SO FAR?
In my ten years of experience I won three awards. One
of the them is called Top Rac, I won the silver prize in
the car advertising category. The other award is called
Media Fest and in this I won two golds, one in the
category of integrated campaign and another in the
category of brand design.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE OR MOSTUSED
PHOTOSHOP FEATURES?
There are several tools that I like to use, but my
favorite is the mask, because I can edit and
manipulate photos without losing any information. I
use the Feather tool a lot; it’s perfect to make
compositions. It’s the first step to make a
composition in a harmonic way. I also like the
Gaussian blur a lot, I use this tool for everything, to
make shadows and lights, or dissemble little defects
of the image. My trick is to always use the Unsharp
Mask, this tool brings more detail and reality to your
image. But you must be very careful because if you
exaggerate you will give an artificial style.
WHO OR WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
My biggest inspiration in my personal life is my family
and my wife, who always encourages and supports
me in my decisions. Professionally my inspiration
comes from the big photomanipulation and 3D studios
around the world, every day I try to see their work to
learn more. Another factor that inspires me is the
challenge of always doing a better job than the last
one; the challenge to overcome is the key to
professional success.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT DIGITAL ART AND
PHOTOMANIPULATION THAT YOU FIND
MOST EXCITING?
For me what makes an exciting piece of art is when
you have a great idea that mixes fantasy with reality. It’s
great when you are surprised by an unusual image; it
always expands your creative potential.
PinballWater Guitar: Water guitar is an early image of
Marinelli’s. He created it for a contest and “learned a lot about lighting and image manipulation”