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ME COMPANY “LUMINOUS”

THINGSText: Sachiko Kurashina

Me Company, based in London since 1985, has constantly been keeping its stable position at the top of art scene by actively designing. Creating Bjork’s record sleeves and promotion videos are widely well know. They are now capable of holding their own exhibition all over the world and have just released the first design book, called “Luminous.” How does this group of art elites produce these creative works and what sort of process do they take? Interviewed with Alistair Beattie, a producer and concept developer for Me Company.

Please introduce yourself as well as your background.

Alistair Beattie: I’ve been working for Me Company for 8 years, I’m a partner in the firm. I’m a producer and concept developer for Me Company and Chromasoma. I was educated at Oxford University where I did a degree in English Literature/The History of the English Language.

You are working as the multidisciplinary team consists of designers, directors, writers, animators, illustrators, sculptors and Internet developers. How many staff are in Me Company? What are the advantages of working as a team?

There are 12 people working full time at Me Company. Teams are good as they allow a dynamic creative atmosphere with everybody able to contribute and to add their skills to a project.

How are you dealing with the web jobs? Please tell us the current project.

We don’t have any active web clients, it’s not a big part of the studio’s work right now. The web is very quiet for us right now, we’ve been concentrating on our Fashion Industry work.

What is the most impressive project so far?

I still really like our project for NTT Data Mind the Banner.

You are based in London and have started to work as Me Company since 1985. Compared to that time when you start your work (80s), how the design scene has changed? Also, how do you feel about the city London?

The 80’s were so very different that’s it’s difficult to compare them with 2002. I think one of the main differences is that much of the good design was more subversive and political than we see in peoples work today. I think many people are too safe and too limited in their influences and inspirations.

London is a grand old city. Sometimes it seems buried in it’s own history, but there’s always new green shoots of growth and development to be seen. It’s dynamic, exciting but somehow a bit sleepy as well. I like London, but not as much as I like Tokyo. I have an ambition to live in Tokyo at some point in my life. Everytime I visit I fall more in love with it.

You have got many chances to work with Japanese clients, such as KENZO, Vogue Japan or an exhibition in Tokyo. What is your impression to Japan? Are there any differences between Japanese and British clients when you work together?

Yes, there are differences but it’s impossible to generalise. I think that Japanese clients have more trust in our creative skills and allow us more freedom to be different and original.

What is the most important thing when you do a client work?

Keep ourselves happy. Keep the client happy.

Please tell us your first design book that has recently been released.

Luminous is a collection of work from the last 2 years, it was published to coincide with our exhibition last year in Tokyo. The exhibition is going to New York next and then finally back to London later this year.

Please leave a message to the readers.

Take more risks.

Luminous
A design book that gathered the selected works of the past two years and was coincided with the first solo exhibition in Tokyo in last year. The book is full of their works with the interview article in Japanese. The best book to get to know their world.

ME COMPANY
Address: 14 Apollo Studios, Charlton Kings Road, London NW5 2SA
Tel: +44 (0)20 7482 4262
alistair@mecompany.com
http://www.mecompany.com

Text: Sachiko Kurashina

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