Meeting Bruno Maag and Matt Pyke

On Thursday 23rd October (2008) we was lucky enough to gain tickets to Uniform's 10th anniversary party and the after party for the Symposium. On the way to the party we was thinking about what to expect when arrived, do we come across people dressed in suits? Do we arrive and everyone looks at us and thinks who are they? Thankfully that was not the case. It was held at a venue called 3345 which was like a big warehouse/factory place. When entering we went upstairs and found the party, it was a nice chilled setting with live bands playing music and everyone chatting away.

After a few minutes we noticed that there was another room which looked like a big meeting room/V.I.P room, through there we noticed that Bruno Maag, Matt Pyke and the D&AD president Garrick Hamm was sat in there talking to people. When we noticed this me, Nick, James and Ed (the other students who was lucky enough to get this opportunity) started talking about how one of us should go in there and see if its possible to talk to either Bruno or Matt. After a while Nick got the courage and went in and spoke to Garrick about the day overall, and then asked him if it was possible for us to talk to Bruno and Matt . . . thankfully we was able to do so.

As this wasn't expected we had to quickly think of questions that we wanted to ask Matt and see what his response would be. Matt came along sat down with us and must of thought what has he let himself in for. The first question one of the members of the group asked was "what tips would you give to a student for him to become successful?"His response was that, we should "dibble-dabble" in all software available, get to know how each programme works and don't stick to one way of producing work, for example use photography, print making, typography, animation, the more the merrier. After he went through this another question got asked, "How come you don't want to expand your company?" His response was was scared of the overheads mainly. To do that you would have to do the not so appealing jobs, when he only wants to do the good jobs. With this question we ended up moving onto how he communicates with his clients and co-workers. Matt said that he tends to use the internet (ichat skype) and his web cam a lot to communicate a lot more then face to face because its a lot easier, quicker and not time consuming. Another question asked was "How are the clients brief usually processed?" He responded with saying, he will receive the brief, comes up with concepts for the company and then will commission the best people to the not so easy things i.e animation, effects and photography. He mentioned that its best to work with other people, because doing so will only make you stronger.

(Left to Right: Me, Nick Matt, James & Ed)

So after we finished talking with Matt we was able to talk to Bruno Maag. We started talking to Bruno about his lecture a couple of hours before in the day, but the first question we asked him was "Whats was your background like and what got you interested in Graphic Design?" He responded that his family is a family of engineers. After doing his work experience he realized that he didn't want to spend his career filing metal. For his work experience he worked in a printers where he came across a 10m printer. He explained to us how he loved the smell, the sounds, how the paper ran through the printer, the mass size of it and the finished print. After realising what he wanted to do in his career he then went to Basel School of Design from there he worked his way to where he his today. After this we started talking about the our course and the briefs we get given to do. When we spoke about this Bruno wasn't impressed how we have to write essays this is due to that 50% of Graphic Designers are dyslexic. He said that we should learn typography better, how to make successful body copy, the spacing, the punctuation all this was important to him and thinks we are not taught this enough. Another question what got asked was "Do you ever get bored of your own identity?" His response was yes, eventually. After seven years of his own current brand identity he has started to change it through his letter heads etc. A question I asked him was "I'm currently producing a typographic magazine, what would you recommend to make this successful. What would your tips be?" He answered this by saying, that we should ALWAYS use a Serif font for the body copy "Don't fuck with the body copy!!"""It's all in the detail, punctuation has to be perfect, where everything is spaced, is very important."

(Left to Right: James, Nick, Me, Bruno & Ed)