TOP LEFT: COMMUTE #13, 2003 drawn in pencil and part of a promotional series on commuting. BOTTOM LEFT: COWBOYS VS. COPS (MOOVSOINK), 2005. This large-scale composition was created using pencil, ink, wash, and the computer. RIGHT: Getting a NY bagel noting how impossible it is not to get wax paper, tinfoil, 10 napkins, paper and plastic bag along with your bagel, Parsons created this image using pencil and the computer.

Leif Parsons Latin Name: Tryificus 'to not be' Negativeicus Age: 30 718.349.0302 | www.leifparsons.com

Dancing between disciplines while studying at New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA), Leif Parsons discovered the power of the pencil for communicating his ideas, but never strayed too far from his design curriculum. Thus he graduated with a design degree, an illustration portfolio, and hearty endorsements from two of his world-famous professors. “I sense he’s more artist than illustrator. You see how he’s filtered the outside world through his drawings. His scope is very wide, and there is a real poetry to some of his work,” says Nicholas Blechman of his former student, while Christoph Niemann observes, “He has managed to create an instantly recognizable, fully equipped visual universe in which he moves around with stunning ease.”

In addition to the illustration work he does for a variety of clients, both commercial and editorial, Parsons has also landed a weekly contribution to the “Consumed” section of The New York Times Magazine, where he gets to riff on a different product every seven days. The challenge of conveying a world of wit with quick strokes appeals to Parsons: “Illustration takes a minute to get, two minutes tops. It has to be recognizable and have complexity and beautiful drawing—it’s incredibly difficult. If you don’t get it, it’s not illustration.”

Densely etched with information, his disarmingly beautiful jumbles of bodies, machinery, and buildings exhibit highly developed thought processes—one section of his website is filled with Rube Goldberg-esque “innovations”—but Parsons’ mellow humor lends stirring emotional depth. The secret, he says, is taking it easy. “Drawing in its pure form is the line between being relaxed and being focused,” he says. “Not thinking too much while still concentrating.” Parsons—who operates from the arty hood of Williamsburg, in Brooklyn—seems to apply these same principles to his life: He smiles a lot, evidence of an exceptional demeanor both complex and genuine; serious and warm.
Alissa Walker