Over the last year, illustrator Simone Massoni has been partnering with The New Yorker in creating fun works for their magazine. When art director Chris Curry called Simone to ask him if he was available to explore the theme Love (and Old Flames) for their June 9th & 16th issue, he jumped at the chance. “I guess she maybe thought my style was a good fit for the occasion,” he humbly states.
These works are spot illustrations, meaning they're very small and they don't refer to any specific article in the magazine. Therefore, Simone couldn't tell a cohesive story through them, rather, they would live by themselves anywhere throughout all the articles. “So,” he says, “I somehow imagined myself, and the reader, as an invisible witness to the tiny moments of everyday life. Sort of like an intimate spectator who was not supposed to be there.” Part of the commission guideline was that the illustrations had to be as natural as possible, as if they'd been written instead of drawn. Therefore, Simone kept all of his works in black and white, adding red only when he felt as though it called for it.
