We started an art contest in the mid-1980s and have continued the tradition every few years or so since then. We now have over 300 pieces of Zachary’s pizza art from the past three decades! The winning artwork decorates the walls in all five of our restaurants. We love the art and the artists and are excited and honored to be able to share some of the art on our website!

Pizza Butterfly
Emma Ruth, age 6
2012
“When I first mentioned the art contest to Emma (she was six at the time) her immediate response was “C’mon, let’s get started!” She then began producing sketches. One of these had a couple of butterfly’s, but originally with more normal butterfly wings with pizza slices as the wing pattern. I made the suggestion the design could be strengthened by having the wings BE pizza slices, and the final composition was arrived at!”

Emma Jones, age 10
Hey, thanks for scrolling over my artwork! Waiting around for your food to come isn’t fun unless you’re at Zachary’s Pizza and gawking at all of the colorful, original artwork. So when I saw my shot to bring some joy to the casual diners, rolled up in this huge blank piece of paper for a contest, I couldn’t wait to get going. The paper really is huge, so one of the tile hallways in our house was promptly converted into an art studio (my Mom is legendary)! Over time I lost interest in finishing my piece, despite walking past it every day, however I was encouraged to finish it and now I’m so glad I did. Thank you again to Zach’s for this honor, and for bringing the taste of sweet home Chicago to the Joneses on their California detour.

Zoe Boston
2017
“Walking on Sunshine” was inspired by my passion for food, visual art, and fashion. I love the challenge of combining the three to make tasty looking masterpieces. I believe Great food, great art and, great fashion have the power to uplift your spirits and truly make you feel like you’re walking on sunshine! I’m so pleased in knowing that my art was chosen to grace the walls of one of the best pizza places in the Bay Area.

Ian Ransley
2012
Ian Ransley is a single of father of two Zachary’s-loving boys. Ian is a Berkeley native and a professional graphic designer. He splits is time designing Zachary’s posters and designing for professional sports teams and events including the NHL Winter Classic and the NFL Super Bowl among many other events. He is a dual-citizen of the U.S. And Great Britain. Growing up in a British home he never had pizza so Ian can’t get enough of it now. Ian annoys his two sons using them time and again in many of his art projects.

Eva Jaeger, 4 years old
2005
When I created this piece my family had moved from Berkeley to Manhattan for a year. When I look at this piece now it conjures up all the emotions of those moments: a longing for home and familiar things like Zachary’s, the excitement and adventure of being somewhere unknown and the joy of knowing that I’d be back to have some pizza soon. And of course, I was 4 and loved Princesses!
My inspiration for this piece was all the things I loved. Princesses, pink, big art and pizza. I actually didn’t really like Pepperoni (truth be known) but the alliteration was too good to pass up! The process I used for this piece was to draw it on a smaller piece of paper and then spread out on the floor, with all my markers tossed around, and the paper taped down. Shoes off and spread across the whole thing I sketched by pencil and then dried out just about every marker pen filling in the spaces. My brother, who was in 1st grade at the time, was also drawing next to me. His poster actually was awarded an Honorable Mention and I was happy to be creating our pieces together.
This may be the peak of my artistic recognition. Since that time the pieces I’ve created are much smaller and much more private, rarely venturing into public space. I like to express my creativity in crafts, writing, on the stage and on the soccer field. And my love for Princesses and pizza have also become a bit more subdued as I pursue higher ambitions than just being royalty. The thing I haven’t changed since then is a love for Zachary’s pizza. Just finished one a minute ago!

Ian Ransley
2015
Berkeley-born and raised designer Ian Ransley loves Zachary’s Pizza!! Who in Berkeley doesn’t? But Ian has found a way to graphically express his admiration for the famous deep-dish, Chicago-style pies — not once, but a dozen times.
Ian grew up in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood (near the Solano Zachary’s). His mom still lives in the neighborhood house he grew up. Ian did spend some time away from his beloved Berkeley getting a design degree from UC Davis. In the years since he has designed for Chevron, HP, Cisco and of course, Zachary’s! For the past decade Ian has designed the stadium graphics for the Super Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and currently for the NHL Winter Classic in Foxboro.
Even though Ian has designed the stadium graphics for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos he is known as the guy who won the Zachary’s Pizza poster contest. Ian is a single Dad with two Zachary’s-loving boys, Dylan and Fabien.
SOLD in our 2018 Art Sale and Fundraiser!


