Here’s a cool photo of Matt Berninger of The National, sporting a vintage 97X t-shirt:
The story behind the shot is even cooler. Next to Matt is my good friend Dale Doyle, with whom I worked at Landor in Cincinnati for five years. Dale and I share similar musical tastes (“impeccable” you might say), and we’ve been concert roll dawgs for decades.
Dale’s an extremely talented designer/creative director. After 23 years of dedicated, faithful service to Landor, he was unceremoniously laid off about 18 months ago. So he started a small design studio called Holotype with two other Landor refugees.
Dale’s also a native of the West Side of Cincinnati, as is Matt Berninger. Several months ago, Dale made a “typical West Side move” comment on one of Matt’s Instagram posts. Intrigued, Matt checked out Dale’s personal Insta profile, which was linked to the Holotype account. Amazingly, Matt reached out to Dale and asked him to design some icons… then invited Dale to The National’s concert in Mexico City, with a photo and backstage pass.
That’s where Dale finally got to meet Matt in person after working with him via email/text for months. Their bromance blossomed, and Matt asked Dale to do the artwork for his first solo album.
The morals of the story:
- Instagram stalking can pay off.
- Getting laid off by a corporate behemoth can be the best career move ever.
- You can check out of the West Side any time you want, but you can never leave.