Damijan Stepančič was born on 22 May 1969 in Ljubljana. After completing the secondary school for design and photography in Ljubljana, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, in the field of design. With the recognition that a classical approach suited him better in confronting fundamental artistic problems, he decided in 1991, after completing two years of design, to study at the Department of Painting, from which he graduated in 1996 with a cycle of paintings of the four elements and with a theoretical philosophical work, Alchemists and Painters. Since then, he has devoted himself particularly actively to illustrating books for young people. He also cooperates increasingly with the periodical press, both for the young (PIL, PILplus) and adult readers (Albert, Playboy, Nova, Literatura). In addition to painting, he cultivates other related art forms: comics, cartoons, and puppets. The expressiveness of his illustrations is clearly influenced by painting skills, from the underlying colors and composition to the size of formats, which is in line with the author’s conviction that painting and illustration go hand in hand.
He has so far illustrated almost a hundred books, co-created many comic books and had several independent exhibitions in the field of illustration.
He has illustrated around a hundred textbooks, exercise books, handbooks for teachers, and other educational material, as well as more than 120 articles in children’s magazines (e.g. Ciciban, Cicido, Firbec, Kekec, Moj planet, PIL).