Marcos Zerene is a 35 year old Argentinean Graphic Designer. He is also the person behind formatbrain. He was born in Mendoza and studied in the Faculty of Arts and Design of Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. At the moment Marcos is living in Mendoza and starting a new design studio. www.ailoviu.com.ar

In addition to the advantages that digital illustration can offer, formatbrain emphasizes on the importance of hand drawing. The freshness of the outline and the texture of paper, are some of the reasons he prefers to use a notebook and a pencil to give life to his characters. Most of them are inspired by daily life, with a combination of urban streets, internet, TV, cinema and the author’s imagination.

formatbrain is the change of mind that allowed him to discover, in character design, a different world inside illustration. Its work has spread on Internet thanks to the enormous Flickr community. Amongst his work, you can find 2 paper toys for 100% Loading, exposed in the Pixie Gallery in Japan and in PP@ART Taipei 2007. Formatbrain has also made collaborations to cutmilkmagazine and LeToy blog. In addition, formatbrain´s characters appear on street paste ups and graffitties in cities like Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam and Budapest.

Its sources, styles and influences are mainly illustration books and Internet. All of these create a technique that combines hand drawing with digitalization. Although some characters are worked vectorially, the majority only display digital adjustments using a graphic tablet, or programs like Photoshop or Illustrator.