Magdiel Lopez is a virtual designer currently based in Dallas, Texas where he runs his own creative agency, Belmont Creative. Born in Havana, Cuba he was inspired by the colorful culture that surrounded him growing up. He moved to The United States at the age of fifteen, looking for a better life where he continued to work on his skills for the next 10 years. After doing it privately, Lopez decided to reveal his work in a series called “A Poster A Day” – where he released one piece of artwork on his Instagram every day for 365 days. Thanks to this , the artist started to get attention from global audience and was featured in the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Entrepreneur and Awwwards. Lopez has worked with several popular brands such as Apple, Nike, Absolute Vodka, MTV, Warner Brothers, etc., and currently has a partnership with Adobe as a design mentor and creative.
The Visual Artist classifies his style as surrealist, a mixture of design and ART focused on keeping it alive, using current media. He describes his design process in a few steps where he defines the concept or feelings into a visual image in his mind, collecting information and reviewing his previous work to develop the idea, using different software, which combined achieve the final design. Lastly he shares and gets feedback on his work, focusing primarily on emotional response and the process of creation. Everything works together to tell a story, not just to show an individual design. Lopez proceeds to do it all over again. Using programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and in some occasions, Cinema 4D. It takes him a day to set in motion his idea and approximately one to two hours to craft what the public gets to see, a beautiful work of art.
As usual, artists always find inspiration and are influenced by other artists. For Lopez, legends like Salvador Dali, Henry Matisse and designers like Shane Griffin (@grif), @beeple_crap and Christian Orrillo have been big influences in both design and virtual reality. Plus, like us, he loves going through pinterest and designspiration.com to find interesting content.
In terms of the value of Virtual Design in the modern design scene, Lopez Expressed: “I think we are slowly shifting to a digital world and the way people consume content or even interact with others it’s digitally. Digital design and Art is at the forefront of this important step forward in the development of our civilizations”-. That said, he believes that the next trend in virtual design for the upcoming years will be of 3D Virtual Experiences, including anything that crosses the digital and real world.
