There are places you pass through frequently, perhaps without ever really stopping to look at them. For many, Monteceneri is just that: a crossing point between the north and south of Ticino. It is merely a boundary between the regions north and south of the Ceneri Mountain. Yet, all it takes is a change of perspective to realise that it is so much more.
When Lisa Gyongy asked me to design the April cover for The Ticineser, I immediately thought of the iconic features of this place, the region where I live. The project, launched in August 2025, draws inspiration from the format of large illustrated magazines, but with a distinctly local perspective: each cover is a personal, visual interpretation of Ticino, requiring no words.
Where did the Ticineser project come from?
The Ticineser follows in a specific tradition, one that traces its roots back to The New Yorker, the famous American magazine founded in 1925, which has become iconic in part thanks to its illustrated covers: images without captions that tell stories, comment on current affairs or capture the spirit of a city at a single glance.
More recently, this approach has been reinterpreted on a local scale by The Milaneser, a project launched in 2020 that envisions a “magazine” consisting solely of covers dedicated to Milan. Here, a variety of illustrators offer their vision of the city, transforming places, customs and atmospheres into evocative images. It is not a real magazine... it exists solely through its illustrated covers.
The Ticineser follows precisely this approach: it takes a familiar format and reinterprets it through the lens of the Ticino region, building, cover by cover, a collective narrative made up of personal perspectives. Each Ticino-based illustrator offers their own perspective on this beautiful region.
One place, many stories
When thinking about the cover, I didn’t simply want to ‘draw a landscape’. I wanted to convey what Monteceneri represents, at least as I see it.
On the one hand, there is its architectural identity, with the church designed by Mario Botta: a strong, geometric, almost silent presence. You may like it or not, but it remains impossible to ignore. It is truly distinctive.
Then there are the new Monte Tamaro cable cars, refurbished in 2025, which take you to the top of the mountain, making it accessible even to those who aren’t used to walking. They are an invitation to move, to explore, to change your perspective.
And finally, the sky. An element we often forget when looking at a landscape, but one I wanted to make the protagonist: paragliders suspended in the air, gentle trajectories, freedom.
A personal touch
Among these elements, there is one that is more subtle: a small glider, depicted as a paper aeroplane.
It is not there by chance. It is a way of introducing a personal dimension into the image. Indeed, it is not uncommon for me, during my glider flights, to find myself flying past Monte Tamaro, observing the iconic church and its hiking visitors from above.
With that little paper aeroplane, I wanted to place myself within the scene, as if to say, ‘this illustration is truly mine’.
Note: there’s a ninja too, of course! Right at the centre of the scene, inside the cable car as if he were a tourist taking in the view, there’s a ninja along with a few other little characters. My recurring character simply couldn’t be left out...
Composition of the illustration
There’s one thing I really appreciated about the process that led to the creation of this cover, and that’s the collaboration and the constructive feedback I received.
First of all, I produced two sketches for the illustration: one is the one that eventually became the final cover, whilst the other depicts a slightly more distant viewpoint. This is also an aerial view, but it shows the mountain in its entirety, as if it were a living character surrounded by all its attractions.
As I was torn between both illustrations, I asked my followers to decide which sketch to go with, but without receiving any help: the poll ended up 50-50. A dead heat between the two drawings. It was fun, even if it wasn’t much help!
Secondly, I showed the sketch-in-progress to my friends at the Collettivo Illustrazione Ticino, and received valuable advice on how to improve the image: lowering the horizon would have allowed me to better convey the sense of majesty that the mountain exudes in relation to the surrounding landscape (it’s incredible how a few centimetres can make such a difference to how it’s perceived!). Working on the shadows and highlights, on the other hand, would have allowed me to give the scene greater impact (a step that seems obvious and obvious, but which I unfortunately very often overlook!).
The end result was certainly better than what I could have achieved without sharing the preliminary sketches and gathering feedback from professionals.
See better
Monteceneri is still there. It hasn’t changed.
But perhaps, having drawn it, it’s clearer to me why it’s worth looking at it a little more closely. Not just looking at it myself, but encouraging others to look at it too.
And perhaps that is precisely the point of The Ticineser: taking something familiar and presenting it from a different perspective.
What will my fellow illustrators be creating over the coming months? I can’t wait to find out!
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