Design and Art Direction

Yeah.

Well, so Matt, you, you've won at Cannes, you've won one show, you've won D&AD, like, you know, now you're winning awards and you've been at agencies that a lot of like traditional agencies, a lot of creatives would just kill to work for.

So what led you to, to go from places like, you know, Burnett and Crispin and kind of that trajectory to taking your first in-house role?

You know, I got really bored with the grind.

And for me it's also access.

Like, there's not many people who might be able to hear from a Debbie Millman or from a Pennybridge or from a Lincoln or from a Hay Studio or from a Lisa Smith, president of D&AD, and like all of these things.

So to be able to give people a, a little bit of access to these people is massive and it also celebrates them and like- I mean, that's the main thing for me is like perspective.

We talked about it a little bit earlier about having many dots to connect, and I've always suggested that I don't know everything, and there are many, many cleverer people than me.

You've got Vero, Hey Studio, like one of the most ...

One, one of my favorite designers based out of Barcelona.

And then you got, like I said, Lisa Smith, who wrote the forward for it, president of the D&AD, and I think she's like the global chief brand officer at Uncommon, which is again, one of the most brilliant studios doing one of the best work.

And then you've got Debbie Millman, who everybody should know.

And it was like when everyone else is going down, you know, you find a way to go up, right? And I think it's like in the scenario that we are now, doing something that's tangible and real and vulnerable and human is worth so much more than it was 10 years ago.

And, you know, I just came off of the D&AD.

I had a last-minute invite to do some D&AD judging at the New Blood portfolio critiques.

That's what I was saying to people there.

A lot of that, like...

yeah

soul destroying because it's not enough and i think My view is, and I'm no expert on this, but I think if you spent, you know, 40% less time applying for those jobs to compete with hundreds of other people, just thought about something a bit more interesting and tangible.

You know, so there were guys at the D&AD stuff that they had some fantastic work.

I've been asked it about a hundred times.

We do work with D&AD with their shift program because I think that they do amazing work there.

And we've tried to integrate their shifters into our community so that we are getting a great caliber of up and coming, if you like.

But I also think two things about the generation of creatives out there who are using AI, right? People who already understand craft are naturally, eminently brilliant with a new tool.

Mm.

And there's an organization called D&AD who basically, I don't know what they are.

I think they give out awards to people for, like, making adverts or what have you.

But they, they have an annual every year, and in it they have all of, like, the sort of notable ads from that year, which is quite interesting.

She's absolute legend.

She was the first female president of D&AD.

And that's where I met my business partner, Alex.

And Alex, I read and heard about the year before I graduated, 'cause he graduated a year before me, because he's this total wunderkind.

Everyone does look a bit like that, doesn't it? You've been busy this year.

You've already been president of the D&AD jury.

What did you learn? What surprised you? Was everything AI? Yeah, was everything AI?

A fair bit of AI.

Substack is free.

Like, if it's something that appeals to you, I mean, if you want to just, like... go go and make stuff in a studio and stay quiet that's absolutely like a valid career option too but I think visibility is a big thing nowadays so and it's it's free to become visible um so I think that's a big one uh and going to industry events oh my god I could I can't believe I wasted so many years like going Northern Design Festival uh D&AD uh I take advantage of programs like that as well like Can Young Lions and School of Thought and like all of those exist to give you a leg up like it's not a weakness to go go take advantage of them because they're there for you and they're really fun and they're brilliant experience so yeah I think those are the kind of things I'd probably do I was really sad I never got to do a D&AD

No, well, I am thinking I think we got the opportunity to kind of enter those student competitions.

I don't think I think I worked on a different project at that time in university, but a thousand percent agree, like get involved.

Romans' lawyers claimed Paramount decided to punish him because it was mad at Rihanna.

Separately, a new report from DNAD on AI's workplace impact warns that creative industries may have lost the entry-level tasks that teach newer staff.

At UK creative agencies, staffers aged twenty-five and under fell nearly twenty percent year over year, raising concerns for music's A&R, marketing, and booking pipelines as those roles increasingly automate.

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