Arriva Tazio: Watch our cover come alive

This is what makes Tazio really special. Argentinian artist Rafael Varela shows us how he created the cover for Tazio’s first issue. We stand in awe.

Just a little over one week to go before we release Tazio Magazine to the public. We wanted it to be special, like no other magazine. So, we asked Rafael Varela, a man whose work we admire, if he would like to design a cover for Tazio. ‘Yes’, he said. Easy, now isn’t it?

As the sketches came along, we were simply more stunned. At each part in the process, we were telling Rafael: ‘don’t touch anything anymore, it is perfect as it is now.’ And with each improvement, Rafael made it clear that we should simply shut up, and watch an artist at work until he’s done.

Splash

What you are seeing, is Rafael’s representation of Tazio winning the 1935 German Grand Prix. This is our lead story for issue 1. At the beginning of the race, the track was still wet, inspiring Rafael to paint this magnificent portrait of Tazio in his Alfa Romeo P3 ‘Tipo B’, with two Silver Arrows in hot pursuit. On the one side, we see Hans Stuck in the Auto Union Type B and appearing on the other side is Manfred von Brauchitsch in a Mercedes W25. The 1935 German Grand Prix is simply one of the most epic motor races ever.

In this other video, you see Rafael applying the final ‘splash’ for effect on the painting. “If this would have failed, the whole painting would have been ruined”, he told us. No stress there then Rafael, it’s just our cover design that’s at stake. Thank God it all worked out perfectly.

Fangio

Rafael Varela is a designer, with a degree in industrial design at the University of Buenos Aires. Not just that, he is also a professor in morphology. He also took courses in automotive design and served internships at Alfa Romeo in Arese and Fiat in Turin. Rafael holds a master degree in transport design (Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin).

Rafael moved to drawing cars and people almost 20 years ago, preferably with Juan Manuel Fangio in a starring role. Rafael has a studio/gallery together with his father Angel, also a painter of automotive subjects, and tries to exhibit regularly all over the world.