The Striking Right Note

Johnny Ganta might have made a career in music if he hadn’t chosen to work at being a master visual storyteller instead

How were you drawn to the visual arts?

JG: I was always a performer! From a young age I had an interest in fashion. I loved how we could shape shift and express a different persona just based on the types of clothing we chose to wear. Visual communication is a meta-language of symbols and meaning, which if used in the right way is a powerful way of expressing your story. Pictures after all speak a thousand words. The same principals can be applied to the brand and the brand persona. In terms of my esthetics, I was highly influenced by the filmmaker Wes Anderson. I loved how each frame in his movies could be taken as a snapshot and upon closer inspection we’d find hidden visual delights in the details from set design, to costume to character placements. I wanted to be a master visual storyteller.

How did your time in New York and Dubai influence you?

JG: I did my BA at a liberal arts school called Hope College in Michigan, USA. My focus was communications and filmmaking. Much later I transitioned from 24 frames in a second to single frames - singular images that spoke a story. It was easier to manage. New York was great - it was my first corporate job. I was a content manager for an On Demand content distributor called InDemand Network - our rival at the time was Netfiix. The job gave me stability. As soon as I got off the clock I would go back to my apartment in Astoria and work on music. I was prolific. Having a background in music theory and the fact that I was a multi-instrumentalist made it easy for me to start producing my own beats. I would do this every day after work - had I stayed on in New York I would have likely taken the path of a musical performer.