This is a post in Braintalk

Braintalk with David Corti

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is David Corti and I am a designer, student and author/creator of SeptemberIndustry, an online graphic design journal/resource. I was born and raised in Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain, although my ethnicity is a hybrid combination of English & Korean blood. I am currently based in Bangkok, Thailand (very long story) and I plan to return to “The Big Smoke” in a few years time. Here are some examples of my work:

2. Describe a typical day at work?
1. Adding new posts to the SeptemberIndustry Archives
2. Deciphering scribbles, notes and diagrams that eventually form the foundations of current/future projects.
3. Reading/Skimming through design books from the likes of Laurence King, Die Gestalten, Lars Muller, and Victionary to name a few.
4. Going through emails
5. Meetings with Clients and Printers
6. Eating Muesli
7. Feeling inspired
8. Designing/Kerning/Typesetting/Artworking

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
The fact that I’m really passionate about what I do.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Dealing with the financial side.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
A client that cannot distinguish good design from the bad.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
The world is so visually rich that I never seem to struggle for ideas. I usually record everything in my Moleskine for future reference, although there have been occasions where I’ve had to resort to jotting my ideas down on train tickets, receipts, pieces of tissue and even condensation on my bathroom mirror if I don’t have immediate access to pen and paper.

7. What inspires you the most?
Im really inspired by the exceptional standard of design coming out of the UK.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
I do tend do listen to music when I work, but there are times when I’m so engaged in a project that I forget to put any music on. Im currently listening to:
1. Punk from the 1970’s Oi! period.
2. Electronic music that was coming out of the UK in the 90’s.
3. Whitelabel Drum N’ Bass & Jungle
I used to make mixtapes in my friend’s garage back in the day and I now have over 50 tapes that I still listen to on my rather dusty Technics Hi-Fi.
4. Nujabes, a Japanese composer whose music is a fusion of Jazz, Hip-Hop & Ambient
5. Mutemath, a band whose music is a mixture of rock, new wave, electro, psychedelia, jazz and ambient (cheers for that Wikipedia)

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I have no problem with constructive criticism. If it does happen to be negative, then I go with the Sticks and Stones “policy.”

10. What does your workspace look like?
Clean.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
I believe it was a site for an independent Type shop.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
1. Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
2. Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
3. Only undertake what you can do in an excellent fashion. There are no prizes for average performance.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
Every project is a fun project although I tend to favour the latest piece of work I have done, which in this case was a poster that combines the names of typefaces with the names of films. On this particular project, I was very fortunate to collaborate with the minds behind studios such as Build, KentLyons, This Studio, Departures and SampsonMay to name a few.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Working as a designer at an amazing studio in London.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
1. David Bennett from This Studio - This guy has a heart of gold and I’m pretty sure he knows why I chose him

2. Bob Sakoui of Original Linkage - Another top bloke who doesn’t need an explanation as to why I chose him.

3. Glenn Garriock - Yet another top bloke who helped me out during the infant days of SI. He also runs FormFiftyFive.