The Ink Link-Jono Bruton

The Ink Link is an ongoing project at CN&CO that showcases tattoos in the workplace. If you or anyone you know would like to be featured, please get in contact with us.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Jono Bruton is one of our close associates at CN&CO. He’s the founder of the Dead Reckoning clothing brand, as well as the Salty Hour surfing initiative in East London.

Dead Reck kit, tattoos and no t-shirt=Jono

I actually don’t know why I have tats. If I think back, initially I hated swimming in galas at high school because any surfer would agree that a speedo is definitely NOT something they want to be seen in. I went through a bit of a rebellious stage when I was younger, so at the age of 16 I decided to get my first little sneaky tat. The guys in East London are pretty chilled so provided you rock up with the cash they aren’t going to turn down a 16 year old who wants to get a tattoo. It cost about R200 and (it is embarrassing to say now) and was an ace of spades design on my shoulder with my surname “Bruton” in it. I had initially gone into the studio wanting a lion on my chest but they insisted that I start with something a bit smaller since I had never had a tattoo before. Probably some good advice but I had a kak ace of spades on my shoulder. At least it got me out of having to do swimming galas at school. Since then I have gotten quite a few more tats in various places on my body, lost count of them really.

The detail of the steampunk clock on the chest

The tattoos I have now aren’t visible unless I wear a t-shirt. In a place like East London, where people are still catching on to the changing of the times it was important to be able to conceal them if I wanted to. East London is very old school and if you speak to anyone in their 50s or 60s they associate tattoos with convicts or “Quigney Locals”. If you are a “Quigney” you would get your own needle and thread and ink yourself. Not my vibe. Thankfully the perception of ink is changing rapidly in my hometown. I worked for a firm of attorneys for 6 years and they never said anything about my tattoos. As long as they were covered they didn’t care.

As much as I hate to say it though, if someone tried to sell me a service and their tattoos were visible I would judge them. Even if it were acceptable from a company’s HR viewpoint, I don’t think I would get tattoos that are visible as I am in a sales environment. From a professional image clients expect you to look the part, even though ink doesn’t affect your ability to do the actual work. The contrary view is that of a tattooed client wanting to do business with a company. Most companies will gladly do business with an inked person because their money is just as good as anyone else. I think South African society has yet to catch onto that perspective but would dig for it to happen personally.

Bottom line for me; tattoos do not have to have concrete meaning if you don’t want them to. I just wanted to have some cool tattoos. Even though I have quite a few, I don’t think they are addictive as it is probably the worst pain I have ever experienced. For me, my ink represents different stages of my life and tell stories in a bigger concept, one that I am happy to share with no one and everyone at the same time.