As soon as we arrived at the Tate, James from Thoughtful gave us a brief outline for the day and then told us he had managed to get hold of 5 free tickets for Uniform's 10th Year Anniversary and Symposium Afterparty. Me along with Ed, James and Martin jumped at the opportunity and then proceeded to book ourselves into a hotel for the night.
We weren't sure what it would be like but we got there and there was a live band and it was ful of people. We noticed that Matt Pyke and Bruno Maag were in the next room. It looked like a VIP room and quite intimidating for lowly students like us but after a while I plucked up the courage to go and speak to someone. I spoke to the D&AD President, Garrick Hamm, all about the day and asked Matt Pyke if he could spare a few minutes to come and speak to me and my friends in the next room. As we hadn't expected to be doing this we had to come up with some questions quickly, He said that we should involve ourselves in lots of different areas of design to become useful in not just one subject of it. We wanted to know why he doesn't want to build his company into a big money making machine and he said he is scared of overheads and wouldn't like to do average jobs just to pay the bills.
Communication is predominant to Matt as he doesn't see many people face to face and uses the internet to its maximum advantage with its email messaging services.
We weren't sure what it would be like but we got there and there was a live band and it was ful of people. We noticed that Matt Pyke and Bruno Maag were in the next room. It looked like a VIP room and quite intimidating for lowly students like us but after a while I plucked up the courage to go and speak to someone. I spoke to the D&AD President, Garrick Hamm, all about the day and asked Matt Pyke if he could spare a few minutes to come and speak to me and my friends in the next room. As we hadn't expected to be doing this we had to come up with some questions quickly, He said that we should involve ourselves in lots of different areas of design to become useful in not just one subject of it. We wanted to know why he doesn't want to build his company into a big money making machine and he said he is scared of overheads and wouldn't like to do average jobs just to pay the bills.
Communication is predominant to Matt as he doesn't see many people face to face and uses the internet to its maximum advantage with its email messaging services.
The way he told us he works is that he gets the work, comes up with a concept and then commissions the best people to do 'the impossible stuff' i.e. the animation and effects. Whenever he gets a mental block he likes to get away from the work and come back the next day with fresh ideas. Initially I had only planned for him to speak to us for a couple of minutes but it ended up being around an hour and then we all got our photo with him.
After speaking to Matt I then went and asked Bruno Maag if he would come speak to us. He was very happy to and came over straight away.
We asked a bit about his background and how he got into Graphic Design and he explained that,coming from a family of engineers, he ended up engineering for work experience. He said he did not want to file metal for a living and ended up at the Basel School of Design after doing more work experience at a printers where he loved the process of design to finished print and the sounds and smells of it.
We talked about our own course and briefs and something he didn't agree with is the way we are made to write essays as part of the course when we should be taught to be better designers. This is made worse with the fact that around 50% of designers are dyslexic.
He said "It's all in the detail, punctuation has to be perfect, and where everything is spaced, is very important." and that students aren't taught this enough.
James asked him whether he gets bored of his own brand identity and he said, yes, eventually. After seven years of his current Brand Identity, he has slowly started to change it through letter heads etc. He said how the hardest thing to do is your own Brand Identity, also the fact that ideas can be the best ever, but if its not executed correctly, its a waste of time.
One thing I had wanted to ask from his lecture earlier was how he commands an audience with such confidence and can talk for so long without stuttering or forgetting bits. His ethos was practice practice practice. He said that it doesn't matter if you get things wrong because you will learn from your mistakes and get better from it.
After speaking to Matt I then went and asked Bruno Maag if he would come speak to us. He was very happy to and came over straight away.
We asked a bit about his background and how he got into Graphic Design and he explained that,coming from a family of engineers, he ended up engineering for work experience. He said he did not want to file metal for a living and ended up at the Basel School of Design after doing more work experience at a printers where he loved the process of design to finished print and the sounds and smells of it.We talked about our own course and briefs and something he didn't agree with is the way we are made to write essays as part of the course when we should be taught to be better designers. This is made worse with the fact that around 50% of designers are dyslexic.
He said "It's all in the detail, punctuation has to be perfect, and where everything is spaced, is very important." and that students aren't taught this enough.
James asked him whether he gets bored of his own brand identity and he said, yes, eventually. After seven years of his current Brand Identity, he has slowly started to change it through letter heads etc. He said how the hardest thing to do is your own Brand Identity, also the fact that ideas can be the best ever, but if its not executed correctly, its a waste of time.
One thing I had wanted to ask from his lecture earlier was how he commands an audience with such confidence and can talk for so long without stuttering or forgetting bits. His ethos was practice practice practice. He said that it doesn't matter if you get things wrong because you will learn from your mistakes and get better from it.
We talked about the way type could be animated and other animation but Bruno didn't like it as when they are turned to still image they lack any subtlety and appear crude. Someone asked about what Macs he uses and he says he doesn't he went as far as sayin 'I hope Apple die!' He only works with 2 Macs and evrything else is all run by Windows which he says is far superior. This realy surprised me as I find Macs to be much better.
We asked if he does any of the actual design work anymore but he tends to do the lectures, promotion and general running of the business, however he does take 4 weeks out of year to get involved in designs.
He went onto add that these days it is not about brilliant concepts, but more about classic clean cut basic design.
He believes the D&AD is a money making machines that he has no interest in being a member of although they do a lot for students and promotion of their work
In contrast to what a number of people have told me he said to keep your ideas to yourself and copyright them if you can because money makers will take your idea and produce it making money off your work.
After chatting together for what was almost 2 hours I said I know we have kept you for a long time but can we have a picture with you but he actually asked if he could stay with us for a while so we had the photo taken and then chatted even more. About more general issues aswell as design. I bought Bruno a drink to say thanks for the time he had spent talking to us. We then said Bye to everyone at the party and went out making the most of our night in Liverpool by going out in the town centre.
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