| Italian Pizza Illustrations of 12 Iconic Pizzas, an Italian Food Illustration by Illustrator and Artist Yaansoon |

In January 2019, I was commissioned by the Italian Trade Agency – ITA (Agenzia ICE) to create an art print depicting 12 Italian Pizza illustrations on occasion of Pizza Day, coinciding on February 9 2019.
The Brief
The client requested that the illustration style of the pizza art print be consistent with a previous illustration project I had completed for them late 2018. The project consisted of creating a number of Italian food illustrations depicting staple Italian dishes and agri-food products and ingredients – namely cheese, pasta, and desserts.
I worked with ITA/ICE staff to identify the most iconic and authentic Italian pizzas known to Italians locally. The selected pizzas ranged from Pizza Margherita to Focaccia, and demonstrated a number of diverse Italian ingredients, such as mozzarella di bufala, frutti di mare (sea food), fiori di zucca (zucchini/courgette flowers), and other staple Italian ingredients.
The 12 Italian pizzas in this illustration are: Margherita, Fiori di Zucca, Napoletan, Funghi, Calzone, Caprese, Ortolana, Quattro formaggi, Mare e monti, Romana, Marinara, and Focaccia.



The Deliverables
ITA/ICE requested the following deliverables: 1 illustrated art print depicting 12 iconic Italian pizzas, with hand-lettering in Italian and Arabic.
This art print was created in CMYK colour mode (aka process colour or four colour printing) and was printed at a commercial printer as an A2 poster print. The Italian Trade Agency’s official logo was positioned at the bottom of the poster (not included here).
The Target Audience
The art prints were distributed at a relationship-building and social media event with special focus on restaurants that served Italian pizza, or had Italian chefs at their helm.
The restaurants placed the Italian pizza illustrations on display at their entryways, and selected one of the pizzas portrayed in the art print as their “special dish of the day.” They also celebrated Pizza Day on social media by taking part in an ITA/ICE hashtag designated for the day.

Client: The Italian Trade Agency – ITA (Agenzia ICE).
About Client: ITA is a governmental agency under the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (Ministero degli affari esteri e della cooperazione internazionale – MAECI). At the time of this project, the agency was administratively under the mandate of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (Ministero dello sviluppo economico – MISE). The agency’s full name in Italian is: Agenzia per la promozione all’estero e l’internazionalizzazione delle imprese italiane. ITA/ICE has offices in 70 countries worldwide.
Year: Jan – Feb 2019
Illustration Technique: I created this Italian Pizza illustration with a Wacom Cintiq Pro 16 pen display tablet using Adobe Photoshop’s digital brushes. I also created initial sketches on a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 smart tablet, using the ArtFlow app. Scanned analogue watercolour washes using professional-grade watercolours were then incorporated into the illustrations digitally. The lettering was created using custom digital ink brushes on Adobe Photoshop.

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