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The only thing standing in his way? No computer.
No problem. Stumpo simply dug out some art from his student days and, thanks to a friend, managed to get a showing of his work in Rome. Three paintings were sold, and he used the proceeds to buy a PC. Then he took off for Milan, where he joined the microscopic Web department of an ad agency called Quam. Soon, he was quite busy.
Although Stumpo didn't mind commercial work, he found the projects didn't offer much creative freedom. Compared to the U.S. and Britain, Italy was still a bit behind in Web design, and Stumpo longed to build the kind of sites he saw around the Net. And so, he spent his nights working on his own experimental project called ABC.
"ABC was built from midnight to 5 in the morning," he says. "It's what I'm really interested in."
Through ABC and the many letters he wrote to other designers, Stumpo soon found himself contributing to The Remedi Project and entertaining big job offers from the U.S. Even so, he's stayed in Milan, noting that the times have improved - and so has the quality of his client work.
"I don't think of myself as a designer," he says, "more like an Amy Franceschini type. My background is art, not design."
Stumpo has just finished MTV's Italian-language site, in addition to work for Peugeot, Nike, and RAI, a popular television channel. "My ambition is just to do small little animations and projects for other sites around the world," he says, noting that he's also getting into motion graphics and broadcast design.
And so, at 24, Stumpo has already been a pro skater, a top designer, and a successful artist. And he's still a nice guy. If he adds anything more to that resumé, we might just have to kill him.
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