Gestalten

Chris Rubino wears many hats, but perhaps the biggest project the New York City-based designer tackled was Manhattan's Distrikt Hotel, which opened in February 2010. Sourcing from more than 10,000 photographs, the artist created bold digital collages – 31 of them, one for each elevator lobby – that also revealed a conceptual brilliance.

Guests can whiz 30 floors "uptown" in a lift that springs from the Financial District to Harlem in a matter of seconds; from the Wall Street Bull to the Apollo Theater.

It's one project of many for the 2006 ADC Young Gun winner, whose enviable list of clients includes The New York Times, Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters. We swing by Rubino's Brooklyn studio for a chat about digital layering, comic books and how screen-printing is just an approximation of life.


Subscribe to Gestalten.tv to download this film and all Gestalten.tv Podcasts for free via iTunes.