This is a post in Braintalk

Braintalk with Antonio Carusone - aisleone.net

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Antonio Carusone and I’m a Senior Art Director at an advertising agency in New York City. I also author aisleone.net, a graphic design blog and am obsessed with grid systems and sneakers. Here are some examples of my work:

Some Wallpapers I created:

2. Describe a typical day at work?
I always need to ease into a day. I know certain people that jump right in the second they walk into work. I can’t do that. I have to surf around the internet for a little and catch up on my tech, design, cycling and any other type of news I have in my RSS reader. This is a great way for me to get inspired. After that, if I have the time, I try to post something on AisleOne. The rest of my day is filled with meetings and managing accounts. I cherish the moments when I can sit down and actually design.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
The opportunity to create something.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Account people and deadlines. One of the unfortunate aspects of working in the ad industry is having to deal with account people who think they’re creative people. It’s very frustrating.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
A client who doesn’t understand the value of good ideas and great design. Oh and account people!

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I first try to get inspired in anyway I can. Surf the web, listen to music, watch a movie. If that doesn’t work then I just step away for a little and try not to think about the project. That usually works.

7. What inspires you the most?
Everything, but most of my inspiration comes from other great designers.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
Sometimes I do. I go through phases. It matters what mood I’m in but when I do listen to music my taste is pretty broad from Nirvana and Radiohead to Andrea Bocelli and Buena Vista Social Club.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
If it’s constructive criticism, I totally welcome it. I love it. If you can’t deal with that type of criticism then you shouldn’t be designing.

10. What does your workspace look like?
I share an office at work with my partner who is a copy writer and we’ve made the place our second home. Very welcoming, tons of posters and inspirational material everywhere and a nice red couch from Target that looks nice but is very uncomfortable. A few of the walls are covered in very large type that I set and printed out based on some lines written by my partner. The letter-spacing sucks since it was rushed but it’s a nice visual.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Yes and it’s a terrible memory. I worked at a small start up right out of High School and we were working on this gem site that looked horrible and was terribly built.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Don’t work too hard, live your life. There are a lot of people in the design world that take this stuff way too seriously. We’re not curing Cancer, we’re just making things look pretty.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
I recently did an invitation for my sons baptism. (http://www.yearofthesheep.com/paper/baptism-invitation/) The entire project was so much fun and I worked with an amazing printer. Probably the most satisfying project I’ve ever worked on:

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Running my own design studio or fashion boutique.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
The following people are super talented.

Duane King of BBDK and Thinking for a Living.
David Corti of September Industry
Xavier Encinas of Swiss Legacy

Antonio … thank you very much for answering our questions
So if you want to visit Antonio and his graphic design blog you should do that now: http://aisleone.net. You find his personal website here: www.yearofthesheep.com