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Focal Point: Bold colours and cheeky images with Pâté

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Pâté's strong, simple images and quick wit have served him well during his thirteen-year career with two of London's largest advertising agencies, earning him numerous industry awards including the coveted D&AD Yellow Pencil. We chatted with the London-based Graphic Artist about avoiding mantras and his tips for upcoming designers.  

Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do for a living

My name’s Paul Pateman but I use the pseudonym Pâté. I’m a Graphic Artist, it sounds grander than illustrator but I think it more accurately describes the way my work straddles the space between illustration, graphic design and art.

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How did you get started in the industry?

After leaving university, I started out as an Art Director at AMV BBDO. I learnt a great deal there, but the industry gradually became more research obsessed and over the years I got frustrated. I also really missed drawing - something I had done everyday as a kid - so my partner and I (Mike Nicholson) took matters into our own hands and found a client outside of the agency that would give us complete creative freedom. That client was V&A Museum of Childhood.

We wrote the ads, I illustrated them in secret and we built a team. In the end we sold the museum a complete strategy and campaign of posters including free media. Our work was entered into lots of awards and it did pretty well. After a while we told our Creative Director what we were doing and luckily he loved it! From then on I parallel tracked two careers, until a bout of pneumonia made me come to my senses; so I left Adland to become a full time Graphic Artist.

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What’s your creative process after receiving a brief? Do you have any specific rituals or ways of working?

The first thing I do is worry about it! This manifests in a restless night’s sleep and annoying my wife. Usually, I continue to worry until I have a good idea - it’s always been like this and I can’t afford enough therapy to correct it! Once I have an idea I get excited and could literally spend all day every day drawing up good ideas - sometimes I forget to eat. If I can see the image in my mind’s eye I’ll go straight to the computer. If not I’ll use pencil and paper.

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Happiness Is Having A Scratch for Every Itch

Bold colours play a key role in your work, what’s your relationship to colour and how does it affect your ideas?

I love bold, flat colour. As a kid I used to hate the overlapping lines you got from colouring with felt-tipped pens so I’d go over and over them, trying to replicate the flat colour I’d seen in comic books. I was always interested in achieving ‘a professional finish’, so when I found Adobe Illustrator I fell in love instantly! For me, it’s not about ambiguity, subtlety or seeing the artist’s hand in the work. I like to communicate ideas clearly and immediately and punchy flat colours help with this. They also add a sense of fun, which is important to me and my work.

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Alphabet of Sex

Yes! We love the cheeky, playful thread that runs through a lot of your work, especially in your Cock A Doodle alphabet - tell us more about it 

Well, I hate mantras - I’ve always thought the day your boss puts a mantra on the wall is the day you should hand your notice in. But if I have any rules for my work, it’s that it should be simple, relevant, beautiful and fun. I love that an image can make people smile or even laugh out loud, and humour can also bring people on side; it grabs their attention and makes them more open to your message.

As for the Cock A Doodle alphabet, well, I like making work about sex. I heard a great quote the other day: “The difference between humans and chimpanzees is that when a chimp looks in the mirror it sees an ape.” I love that sex can still shock, and I love it even more when people get offended. I like to prick at their pomposity.

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Cock a Doodle alphabet

Any advice you’d give to aspiring designers/artists?

Anthony Burrill’s, Work Hard and Be Nice to People, is a good piece of advice. Which probably could be described as a mantra - so I should hate it - but then it’s perfectly possible for humans to hold two contradictory ideas in their head at the same time! Also, try and have the emotional intelligence to identify what it is that excites you and chase it. As Confucius said: “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”. Which is another mantra...

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Play on Worlds

Your Play on Worlds prints are super fun. How did the idea for these evolve?

From my London Puns collaboration with Ed Povey at Place In Print. We’d been exploring areas outside of London and for some reason we got talking about fantasy places. I thought it was a great idea and I love movies - within a few minutes I had a good eight puns that worked well. These are an ongoing project, whenever I have down time I try to think of more.

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London Puns

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