Jon Contino...

On Wednesday evening a few of us from work went along to hear Jon Contino give a talk at the Museum of Art and Design...

The talk was called 'Escaping Hell' - how to escape the 7-layers of creative hell!

Jon Contino is an amazing illustrator/typographer from Brooklyn who's work's been cropping up more and more over the past year or so. His style is very distinctive, distressed hand-drawn type executed with an amazing level of craft... we've actually been trying to use him on some projects recently at work.

The talk was great - as all the AIGA talks tend to be, we've still not properly been to the Museum of Art and Design, but the little room we were in was very impressive - I especially liked the ceiling...

It was great to hear about Jon's career so far, and how he's managed to escape the 7-layers of hell, which start from when you're at school and don't even know that you can do design and drawing as a career, and go on until you've set up you're own studio and are working independently.

What was really interesting was seeing all of his early work, when he worked for boring little agencies churning out brochures and websites for financial advisers... nothing even remotely close to the style of work he's become famous for.

I think the talk came at a very good time for us, and hearing someone you admire saying that they felt or feel the same way as you do about certain aspects of the design industry is always very reassuring and inspiring.

Leaving the talk was pretty special too as the museum is right on Columbus Circle and the trees looked all Christmassy...

To finish the night off Abi and I went for a delicious curry - our first ever sit-down restaurant curry together since moving to New York... America doesn't seem to do curry quite as well (or as frequently at least) as they do back at home, but this particular curry was mighty fine (especially the onion bahjis!).

All in all, it was a blummin' brilliant Wednesday night.