Simple as ABCD
Andy Bly, Art Director at DiMassimo Goldstein
Even though I was raised in a small town hidden in Northwestern Pennsylvania, I was fortunate enough to visit New York City a few times early in my life. My dad would come out once a year for the International Toy Fair and from the very first time he brought our entire family out for a long weekend, I knew this was the place for me. There’s no grey area with New York and I think you figure out fairly early whether you can handle it or not. It would take another two decades of living to make that a reality.
Early last June I had planned a trip to the city from Cleveland to see a few friends, one of them being Cait DeAngelis, who I first met in 2002 while attending architecture school at Kent State. (And yes it took us almost 12 years of friendship to realize our initials are ABCD). Within hours of being in New York and only minutes after meeting Cait at her office here at DiMassimo Goldstein, I was filling out a W-9 and signing up for a freelance gig that started in 10 days. So, after years of struggling to find my place in northeastern Ohio, I had a job and apartment in the best city in the world after only a few minutes. It’s never that easy. Luckily, a few people took a chance on a bearded guy moving from Cleveland with no direct advertising experience. It’s been almost a year and I am comfortably freaked out on a daily basis in my role as junior art director. It’s never that easy, but when it is, I’ve learned to make the most of it.