Q: So how did you get to be so prolific with your designs?
A: Well from very early on in what I must call my career (it is hardly that), I was drawn to magazines – just collecting them and looking at the pictures and the photos, studying what I imagined to be the underlying grid and the layouts of the pages, the selection of typeface and the decisions around colour and the flow of the material – I noted the things that I liked and quickly launched Indesign to try out the designs that I had noticed within the pages I studied. I studied posters too from snapshots I had taken on my digicam in between tube stations on The Underground. So that from one day to the next, I was so into doing my drills and completing so many finished designs (all be it-copied) that someone would have thought I was getting paid but I was basically training myself. Such activity ensured that I had a huge storehouse of inspiration that never ran out and so when the time came to embarking on real projects, I never lacked the zeal to finish and start again on the next project for the next client – so I am always working on something. [Gestures] Wasn’t it Pablo Picasso that holds the record on the most number of completed art works? Well I plan to do something about that. Just kidding!
A: Basically, it’s a little concept company that I created to have a little fun with myself and ultimately to share that fun with everyone else. I am drawn to design and the presentation of information (anything that qualifies) in a way that appeals and arrests. I am drawn to the challenges of media and completely suckered by beauty – so I essentially sought a little forum to explore the sharpening of my focus around the objects of beauty and wonder around me, a forum to better develop my perspectives and my own unique ‘way of seeing’ and to communicate the benefits of my viewpoints to my peers etcetera – Popartrazzi is it – the forum. Of course I wanted at the same time to be able to profit monetarily from all this so the forum became a company with the necessary structures in place - structures that would allow us to take on a project and charge for its delivery. I say ‘us’ because Popartrazzi really refers to a loose association of artists, designers etcetera.
Q: Why Popartrazzi?
A: It is a funny name, isn’t it? Well the world is familiar with the ignoble paparazzi. I wanted something that was funny from the start but with a cute spin on it – everyone recognizes what popart is or at least might have heard of the term. I have a little explanation I use when asked about Popartrazzi. If you think of pop art as art that is immediately accessible to an audience and can be instantly appreciated or disapproved of, then you essentially get popart ... The ‘razzi’ part of the name suggests that aspect of art that steals the spotlight for itself ... also for that part of art that can sometimes be shocking and stuff … and ignoble, but in the work we would seek to do, we will aspire to that part of art that inspires, uplifts and seduces. Or maybe it’s just a name. What’s in a name … eh? (Laughter) We have logotype plus a logo that works too. Have you seen it? Look at it at our domain name space at Popartrazzi.com. It will be interesting to see how all the names, logotype and stuff, all the branding and intellectual property… how all that affects our marketing. We hope Popartrazzi creates the right buzz. We want the trends upwards. (Gestures upwards) Does this answer your question?
