The Art of What Could Be | Francesco Ciccolella

The future is how. Have you asked yourself today, what's next for me? You're not alone. We've all felt that way at some point. My name is Frederik Pferdt, and for years I've helped the brightest minds at Google and Stanford and people around the world shape their futures. Now I want to help you to do the same. Because the future isn't just something that happens. It's something you can create. Starting right now. From within. Instead of waiting to see what happens next, let's explore how you can make it happen. Each episode dives into one key area. Like sleep, nutrition, relationships, creativity, storytelling, mindfulness, beauty, movement, or purpose, and brings you real stories and practical tools you can use to shape a better future for yourself. So what's one step you can take today to create what's next? Let's dive in and explore how to build a better tomorrow, starting right now. Welcome to The Future Is How, where we talk to people shaping tomorrow with creativity, courage, and curiosity, and explore how we can all create a better future. I'm your host, Frederik Pferdt, and today we're entering the world of art and visual storytelling. My guest today is someone whose illustrations don't just decorate the page, they challenge how we see the world. Francesco Ciccolella is a Vienna-based artist, illustrator, and designer whose work has been appearing in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, MIT Technology Review, Spiegel, Welt, and many, many other covers of books and ideas that have shaped our thinking. And I'm personally very thrilled to say that he has also brought my ideas to life through the incredible sketches, including the one-line illustrations in my book, What's Next Is Now. So I believe that his illustrations for me hold really a mirror up to our culture, showing us not only what is, but what could be. And that's exactly why I wanted to talk to him today. Francesco, welcome to the show, and I'm super thrilled that we can spend time together.

Thank you so much, Frederic. I'm very glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

I'd love to begin with a question and ask all my guests. So I want you to imagine yourself 5 years from now. Can you share who you are in that future? Where are you and what's your future bio or your future resume?

So let me maybe say a few words about what I do to get to an answer to your question. I'm a visual storyteller. I'm a conceptual illustrator, meaning I distill editorial narratives or brands' messages or communication goals into imagery that is both clear and legible as well as hopefully thoughtful. And I do this by using visual metaphors, by basically being in the space between words and images. And I've been, since I've been doing this, cultivating a practice between doing this in commercial projects using this visual language, the language of illustration and the power of visual storytelling within this more commercial or editorial setting, as well as in projects that are of a more personal nature where I use this language to explore explore themes and tell stories that I'm interested in beyond the other projects I'm working on. And that's maybe where we get to the future aspect, as I think I've been going through a shift the last 2 years, more or less, where I again put more focus on this personal part of my practice. And I would say in 5 years, that's where I'm heading. So I think keeping this balance between the two is what interests me and where I see myself going forward.

As you said, your work often distills complex topics like identity, technology, anxiety, connection, all of these big words into a single powerful image. How do you do that?

So I think basically the secret behind it is that the image completes itself in you as the viewer, because I basically use the visual vocabulary you can also read. So I try to show basically empathy with the viewer of an image to kind of understand what this person might read in an image. And I try to understand this as much as possible. So I use visual metaphors, I use symbols. I basically think about, maybe let me use an example to maybe make it even clearer, right? Let's say I try to illustrate something like longevity or an aging society, and I try to come up with images that basically suggest this passing of time. So there's of course the obvious, like an hourglass with the sand running through, or maybe sunrise and sunset, or winter, summer, spring, fall, things that suggest the passage of time. But then there's also maybe the growing of a beard or the tide or a spider web somewhere in the corner that suggests that a lot of time has passed. So there's a lot of images that I can think of to basically communicate an idea visually.

Thanks for sharing that example. And I think everybody can already hear like the many ideas that you have to really bring an idea to life. One of the things that I notice is the word empathy that you use, right? You empathize with the viewer, trying to put yourself into the viewer's shoes, literally, to really try to understand how would that image be perceived, right? So how do you practice empathy? How do you train yourself in empathy to try to really take a different perspective?

I think it's basically, you know, seeing myself as much as possible, seeing different angles, getting different perspectives, traveling, realizing that people look at the world from totally different angles. And I think this is what helps me or helped me kind of build some sort of repertoire that I can go back to. Yeah, I would say that's maybe how I go about this. Yeah.

So your illustrations often reduce things to their essence, as this is really like, I think, one of the most interesting skills to have, right? Like bringing a really complex idea to life in a way that reduces it to their essence. How do you choose what to leave out? And maybe I can share an example from my life. So my kids and myself, we just started summer break and I'm a big fan of Zen gardens, right? So I always wanted to create one myself. So we started to create one in front of our house where we had like a sandpit and a couple of natural stones. And so we gathered some materials like some stones from a local river and some plants we have been growing in the garden and so forth. As we were setting this environment, I already felt that it's too much, right? It's overwhelming. And so forth. So I was not able to reduce it to the essence to really bring out the, the beauty of its parts as well. So how do you choose what to leave out in your images?

Thanks for sharing this story. It's great. And I think it's maybe also a very contemporary problem and exercise because we're completely flooded all the time with images, with noise. And yeah, the question is, how do you filter this? And how do you focus and stay focused on what actually matters to you? And it's super difficult, right? Sometimes. And I would say, to get back to your questions, how to do this in the illustrations, I think it's trying to keep in mind what the message or what the essence is. And then I think I personally, I just find beauty in this also, in this reduction and keeping everything else out that doesn't contribute to the story being told through the image. I think there's this level of communication where it helps to communicate clearly, but there's also this aesthetic level and a level of beauty to it. And I think it was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who said that real beauty or something like this, real beauty is not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing left to take away, right? It sums it up and this thinking just resonates with me very much.

Absolutely. That's a, a beautiful quote. Yes. Thanks for sharing that. If you would look back throughout your incredible portfolio, you've illustrated for probably every magazine that is out there in the world, and every time I see your work, it immediately catches my attention and I know it's Francesco, right, who did that, which is really unique. So you really made a difference in the art world as well, I think. So if you would look back into your portfolio, was there any piece of work that you find probably most challenging where you maybe sat there like for hours, weeks, or even months where you really couldn't find the essence?

I think what's sometimes challenging is the pace at which especially editorial projects are created and produced. So sometimes it's really, you know, a day or two days that you have to create a cover and an illustration or two. I remember this one cover, for example, for It was created for Der Spiegel in Germany, a German magazine after it was in 2017, I think it was after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke and the whole MeToo movement started to come up in the news and more and more actors and women started to come out. With their stories. So this was, everything happened very, very quickly. And basically the magazine shifted from something they had planned for that release date to this story. So there was need for a cover image very, very quickly. So I did the COVID overnight and sometimes when things go this fast, it's really, I'm in sort of a flow mode that I just work and then I don't really maybe have time to evaluate. And it's, it's always also a collaboration, right? With an art director, a creative director. And then it takes a while to slow down and assess and realize what I have done during this very, very fast pace. That's always a challenge within the editorial illustration sphere.

So what I hear you say is that sometimes creativity needs constraints, and time could be one of those constraints that really help you to bring out an idea or like a concept or something that we don't overthink, but we tap maybe in our subconscious and just get into a flow mode where, you know, maybe that essence is communicated very quickly. Thanks for sharing that. You also wrote your own book, Between the Lines, where I was very glad to receive a copy. So thank you very much for, for sending that over. Can you talk a little bit more about what inspired you to create this book and what's the question you were trying to answer by writing it?

Absolutely. So Between the Lines is one of the projects that falls into the, you know, self-initiated personal category I was mentioning in the beginning. And it's basically a book I worked on for about a year that is an autobiographical visual essay that consists of both drawings as well as a written essay that explores what it's like to be close to someone who is locked in despair and struggling with mental health issues. And it's basically, it explores how I, as a family member, experienced a mental health crisis that happened many, many years ago in my family. And it explores it through both drawings and this essay. And I think the way I worked on it is I didn't really have a question I was trying to find an answer for. It grew out of this series of drawings that basically I've been working on since this crisis happened. And it's a motive that it's, it's always a person drawing, creating a positive reality. And I think this is maybe also something that was very interesting when you and I worked together on the illustrations for your book, because it's a motive that was used there too.

Thanks for sharing that deeply personal story around how you really used illustrations, how you used words to really deal with that mental health crisis in your family, right? I think that is one of the ways that we can probably use to really face the challenges that are presented in our lives. So when you look at art, you know, sometimes we think that art is something really only for a few, right? And a few can do. But your work makes really complex ideas feel accessible, right? What would you say to someone who thinks, I'm not creative? And maybe continue that question while you're thinking. Do you believe everyone has an inner artist? And what's one way someone could start discovering it?

I think it boils down to the moment of losing the fear, of losing the fear of going somewhere you shouldn't go, of making mistakes, of, you know, the fear of the blank page. And I think start doing a sketchbook, do it just for your eyes, and the fear will vanish. And I think Yeah, eventually to just draw in a sketchbook is a way of connecting also to the surrounding and to the world around us and to make sense of it also, to comprehend it. And I think eventually doing this, it will lead to also, you know, imagining a different world, maybe to come up with ideas, to come up with An utopia, a better reality, kind of. It starts with this curiosity, with this taking away the fear of something and taking away the fear of failure and see failure as something that can lead somewhere where you wouldn't have thought you could end up. And this can be a very positive place and a place you really want to go to.

That brings up a memory in my family when I took my kids to a calligraphy experience. We spent a couple of days with a Zen master here in the Santa Cruz Mountains who really helped us to explore calligraphy as a way of exploring patience, which was really interesting because if you draw like just a straight line, a horizontal line for hours or even days. And every time you draw that and you think like, oh, I can draw a line, you know, from left to right, your master looks over your shoulder and says like, oh, you know, you can try it again because you can improve every time you give it a try, right? You really learn to have patience with yourself, right? And to see that there's always a better line that you can draw. And at the same time, what you're saying is that we should remove that fear of failure, right? That line is not perfect and be okay with it, right? Because we can always draw another line or another line or another line, right? And if we are stuck in that fear of like, I don't want to give that a try, we will never get our first line on the page, right? And I think that's a very interesting and helpful thought that Drawing is also like not just a practice to get your ideas on a page, but it's also something that goes deeper, right? Where you can practice patience, where you can try empathy, right? As you described, where you can try to really tap into your creativity or your subconsciousness and so forth. So fascinating. Absolutely. Maybe we take the time now to do a quick Mindstate moment to Just imagine how we would fill a page with our own future. Next, let's take a moment to pause and reconnect. This is your mindstate moment. A chance to reset and come back to yourself, wherever you are right now. These moments of presence are powerful. They remind us that the future starts from within by shifting how we show up in this very moment. So I'm going to invite you now to maybe just close your eyes if you're in a safe place. If you're in your car or on a bicycle or you're running, obviously don't close your eyes, but just maybe find a way to change your posture, take a deep breath in, And just if you're listening, take a moment to try this exercise with us, a short practice in drawing your own future. So take another deep breath, and I want you to imagine a blank page in front of you. And on this page, start drawing your future. Not literally, but symbolically. What's one shape that represents the life you want to live in? And add something that represents connection. What's a symbol for you that stands for connection? And now something that represents energy. And something that stands for your next bold idea. What color is your future? So imagine that color and start coloring that page. What's the emotional tone? Is it calm? Excited? Playful, bright. Take a step back and just look at that page in front of you with those symbols representing connection, energy. A bold idea, and that shape that really represents the life you want to live. And let that visual stay with you. You don't need to sketch it for real, obviously, but you can. And the image in your mind can act as a compass Let it guide your next step. This is how we move from passively waiting to actively creating. By drawing our future line by line, symbol by symbol. Let's take one deep breath in. And breathing out. Wonderful. Thank you. So, Francesco, while I have you here, I want to use this opportunity to just tap into your creativity. So what I want to do is a little experiment. I want to give you 3 words, and I want you to tell me what image or symbol comes to mind Immediately. So the first word that I think is on a lot of people's mind nowadays, that really is something that I think everybody needs more of, is optimism. So what's a symbol or an image that comes to mind that brings optimism to life?

So The first thing I thought of was a silver lining, a cloudy sky where you basically have the sun coming through. The weather is always a very helpful metaphor when it comes to those things.

Perfect. Thank you for sharing that. The second word that is probably also on a lot of people's mind because it's something that happens naturally, and that is change.

So maybe change in a sense of positive change, of a kind of a positive evolution from a cocoon to a, in the end, butterfly.

Thank you. And the last one I want you to share with us is Home.

Home as a place that feels safe, which is, I would say, other people, humans one feels close to. So being surrounded by loved ones.

Wonderful. So Francesco, this has been, um, a wonderful conversation as you shared with me kind of like your of summer plans, right? And what you have planned to do in the next few weeks, months. Would you please share with us, like, how do you find inspiration? How do you look about, like, what's next for you as well? As you shared that you're gonna go on an exhibit, you're gonna visit friends in different countries. You're also gonna listen to some music and attend some concerts and so forth. So what is the way you are looking for inspiration in your life?

I think going through different perspectives on reality is something that's very helpful and that gives me inspiration, like going different places, traveling, seeing how people look at the world from different angles is something that has always fascinated me and that I've feel is very enriching and that I find inspiration in seeing places I haven't been to, being curious, going through the world with open eyes and ideally go a different route every time and see things that I haven't seen before that maybe I can learn from. I think that is something that I, I find in traveling actually. So because we were talking about summer plans and I think that's very, very helpful.

So as a closing question I want to pose to you is around emotions. And so if people come across your work in the future, which they for sure will, right? There's going to be a magazine that people are gonna pick up and they're gonna see an image that you have created, an illustration, a story. So is there one emotion you hope people carry with them after seeing your work? And what would that be?

I would say it's a range of emotions. It's very much to go back to the empathy idea we talked about. It's being an illustrator is I think an exercise in provoking a range of emotions. So sometimes you wanna be funny, you wanna make people smile. Sometimes you wanna make them think. Sometimes you wanna make them feel scared maybe, or whatnot. I think it's a range of emotions that ideally, I hope my work manages to convey to fit the specific context.

I like that. Yes. So Francesco, this has been, uh, incredible. Thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for being the person you are, and thank you as well for the wonderful illustrations you have contributed to my book. I still get a lot of incredible feedback from people, and everybody wants to know who that Francesco is, and I hope that we could give now people a little bit of an insight into how you think and the incredible person you are. So thank you so much. And Francesco really reminds us that the future isn't just something we think about, it's something we can see. And once we see it, we can create it and shape it. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and share it with someone who loves art, design, or is simply searching for a new way to imagine what's next. And if you're curious about more, maybe mind-expanding exercises and future-ready ideas, check out my book about What's Next Is Now, or the latest episode of this show. Until next time, keep sharing your future from the inside out. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for the invitation, Frederik.

That's a wrap for today's episode of The Future Is How. Remember, the future isn't something we wait for. It's something we create with every choice, every breath, and every step we take. If this episode sparked something in you, share it with someone who's ready to shape what's next. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your next chapter begins now. So what will you create today? I'll see you in your future.