Greg Quinton, the co-chief creative officer of Design Bridge & Partners

0:08Claire:Welcome to My Life in Design, brought to you by the DBA and design-focused PR agency, Red Setter. I'm Claire Blythe, co-founder of Red Setter. In this series, I'll be speaking to more people who are shaping the world of design, finding out how they discovered that design was a thing you could base a career around, and how they got to where they are today. This week, I'm joined by Greg Quinton, Co-Chief Creative Officer at Design Bridge and Partners. The team has won over 2 ,000 awards at the highest level in design, over 300 D &AD pencils, including two black and over 20 yellow. They've also won 30 Candleions, including the Grand Prix, lots of golds.

0:49Claire:This year, Greg was jury president there. He served two terms as D &AD trustee and Chair of Education. He's a coach at Imperial College London. He's co-author of the updated A Smile in the Mind, which is a graphic design university course favourite that analyses the role of design, advertising and branding. He's worked on brands such as HSBC, the Connacht, London Symphony Orchestra, the National Gallery, Aston Martin. Greg, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Love to be here. Yeah, thanks so much for joining me. Your career has been, it's amazing. You've done so much stuff. Let's start right at the beginning.

1:23Claire:At what point did you realise you could base a career around design? Design is one of those wonderful things. I've been incredibly lucky in my life and career. It's just so lucky. It's ridiculous. You know, I think if I... It's always luck to a certain extent, but talent obviously as well. No, I think it's all luck. Genuinely, genuinely, I think it's all about luck. I mean, I've been so lucky. If I step back and think about it, you know, I think I've been incredibly lucky to be born in London. I think that's, you know, I genuinely think it's the best city in the world. Sorry, everybody else, but I do think that's the case.

2:01I think I've been incredibly lucky with my family and DNA of that family. You couldn't get a more right-brained family if you tried. I mean, I was trying to kind of think of what do we do? and you know my family is just full of you know architects textile designers film prosthetic people uh fashion photographers musicians florists just makers of all types i mean it's just mad i mean what do your parents do well my dad uh was so i think he's i think he's retired now i'm never quite sure architects go on forever and ever and ever they don't kind of ever stop i I would consider him like a friendly modernist.

2:43He designed our house. We lived in a building site for about 15 years. Did he? Yes, he designed your house.

2:47Claire:That's so cool. Yeah. That's what architects want to do. They want to design their own house. Or live in a Georgian house, one of the two. My mum's an interior designer. I mean, she was so much more than that. I mean, she was kind of a crazy person who believed in helping everybody else. She still does, but she's getting on now. Yeah. Yeah, she kind of found the church that was redundant, turned that into a community centre. She's helped save one of the best modernist gardens in the UK called Gibbard Garden for everybody else to enjoy. I mean, it's stunning. I mean, you just wander around it and come across.

3:25Each vista has been designed so you get this kind of wonderful modern piece of sculpture at the end of an avenue or trees or whatever. It's wonderful. And it's great for kids as well. It's got a concrete castle with a moat. Fantastic.

3:40Claire:Oh, amazing. Whereabouts is that I want to visit? Oh, it's just on the borders of Essex and Hertfordshire. Oh, okay. I'll check that out. As a DNA, we always kind of joked about the fact that we should really kind of make a company called Quinton Inc. Spelt I-N-K. Yeah. It was always a joke, but we knew that we were all right-brained. We had no left brains in the family. We had nobody any good at maths. We had nobody any good at accountancy. content. So we were going to fail in the misery. So we just kind of thought, let's just not go there. So we've never gone there. But, you know, I think if I look back, it was an incredibly creative upbringing.

4:15You know, parents very chilled and laid back. You know, we used to go travelling around Europe. We had a convertible triumph herald and it was, or both, we went and we had two. We had lots of amazing Hondas in Italy, etc. Brothers and sisters? Yeah, I mean, initially just the elder sister and then later two further brothers but uh yeah it's kind of yeah but i mean you know we would we would be taken to you know galleries and ballets you name it every anything cultural and it that's what you know i got all my grounding from there i didn't realize it but that's what we got and that's what i continued with my children so yeah we just you we believe that it's really important to experience everything and you know it doesn't matter if it's rubbish you find out if it's rubbish and you make a decision whether it's rubbish or not you've got to experience it so that was kind of really important i tell my kids that even going to see something that i don't

5:14Claire:particularly enjoy i still love the experience of going to see it totally totally i mean how else do you know because you're just going to blinker and you're just going to go from this kind of myopic whole world yeah you've got to kind of experience definitely yeah i mean probably one One of my earliest memories is because my mum was doing interior design stuff, we'd have to go and get samples from the newest shops, like the new shop called Laura Ashley and pick up samples from there. Wow. But I remember lounging around with my sister on this huge ornate bed in Beaver. And Beaver was just an incredible place.

5:54When I was like five or six years old, I still remember this sense of gold, black and ostrich feathers everywhere.

6:02Claire:It was just this kind of wonderful place. But, you know, and we still talk about it. We brought my sister the Bieber book when it came out. It's like, do you remember all this? And we're like, yeah, oh, God, yeah. That's brilliant. But, you know, so lucky, right? I just think incredibly lucky. Yeah, definitely. I spent a lot of time in Marks and Spencers in Warrington. So that was my point. You don't realise when you're younger what an incredible kind of opportunity I've had and experiences. But I just took it as this is what everybody does. Yeah, of course. I remember going to, taking one of the designers to a theatre thing that we got tickets for, and it was the first theatre proper production he'd been to.

6:50He was 32. Wow, really? And I just thought, how can you go through life and not have any of those experiences? That's amazing. But you realise this is the thing. It's like I'm coming at it from a position of privilege, right? I'm fully aware of that. But that privilege is all about being open to experience as opposed to it's not about money necessarily. I don't think it's about money. I think it's about if you really want to experience it. No, it's true.

7:19Claire:My mum really loved the theatre, so we used to go to the theatre all the time. So we used to just go to all the musicals and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, she was really into it. So I think that opened my eyes a lot on that kind of stuff. I met my now wife when we were 19. We had three boys under five by the time we were 30. Oh, 19. That's amazing. I mean, you know, we've been together so long. I told you I was crap at maths. I cannot tell you how long it's been. She'll tell me, but no. And then we had a fourth. Finally, we had a girl 10 years later. Yeah. But we've been together forever, it seems, forever.

7:55But she's wonderful. You know, she's a musician and she's put up with me for decades.

8:00Claire:So she's still a musician. That's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, you know, she's patient and she likes, she wants to pass on the enthusiasm in music to kids. Can you play anything? I can do gibbet F. So that's grade one mute piano. It's far as I got. but it's basically left hand, middle C, middle C, left hand, right hand, middle C. That's it. Two thumbs. That's it. I've been trying to play the guitar for about 20 old years now, so that's my one day. I had 10 lessons on the guitar, and the guy said, okay, Greg, you've had 10 lessons. You've turned up for six. You've learned two chords. It's time you're part of company.

8:42And I burst into tears. I was like 16.

8:45Claire:That's harsh. yeah but he was right he was absolutely right when did you hear about design graphic design that kind of side of things design would not have been a word that was a particularly new different word for me within the family context yeah i think the family would have talked about art and design and everything else constantly so to me it probably wouldn't have been a new thing What I found really strange was when you go to school and, you know, I think career starts to kind of be discussed as a word. I mean, I hate the word career because I think career is irrelevant. I think what you have to do is find your passion.

9:27And, you know, I'd say this to anybody who will listen and I say it constantly, find your passion. It doesn't matter what it is, just find the passion.

9:37Claire:Yeah. And the passion can be anything. Yeah, it can be art and design, of course, but it could also be football. It could be dance, writing, driving, influencing, gardening, literally anything, even accountancy. You just have to find your passion. If you're super, super passionate about it, if you enjoy doing it every day, then that's wonderful. That's what you need. You need to be enjoying that. The worst thing, the thing I would please, please avoid anybody is chasing the money. just that is the route to sadness yeah completely agree i think you know i think you can sometimes you can you can it just takes time to find that passion so sometimes you have to go back and really think about what you want to do i mean both of my younger brothers they retrained effectively the that what they do now isn't what they studied for example yeah okay you know one does animatronics and one does music but they didn't train in those things so sometimes it just takes a little while yeah to find that passion but you've got to find that passion yeah totally yeah and go for it yeah i did my degree in biology oh see so yeah i realized that wasn't for me and you found a moment you found how did you find how did you find that god through a friend of a friend that was just i was looking for a job in london and a friend of a friend I bumped into and he told me about his girlfriend was looking for someone to do new business and account exec sort of role at an ad agency on Great Porton Street and I went in to see her the next day and this is my friend Lily that now lives over in Barcelona and we're still friends this was 30 odd years ago and just built it from there really sort of did that as a job not expecting that much of it and then just got to realize what brand was and what design was and what advertising was in the comms part and sort of worked it all out and realized that the brand design side's where i love and kind of focused in on that so it's kind of fairly convoluted to get there totally but for me it combines love of art with love of science that's a scientific approach yeah sort of yeah when you get into affecting people's behavior through the semiotics and all that kind of stuff it's quite scientific approach but you bring all the art stuff as well I love it.

11:55I mean, I think sometimes if you, you know, that was sort of fortuitous, right? Yeah. Sometimes you have to almost kind of explore it. So, you know, I think things like the shift, D &AD shift program.

12:09Claire:Yes. Kind of really, really important to get other people who would have that kind of inkling that there's something I want to get out, but need to try it. And that, you know, giving people an opportunity who wouldn't ordinarily get those chances, they're not coming from a privileged background, etc., I think is so, so valuable and so important. We've got to get that happening more. Yeah, completely agree. So where did you study? Where did you apply for first? Where did you do your foundation course? I mean, school was shit. I hated it. Did you? Just not for me. Yeah, I hated school. Why? I just hated anything that was left-brained.

12:50It was just too boring. I don't see the point in memorising. What's the point in memorising? Just experience, build, do, but just don't become a... Yeah, what's the point of memorising numbers and dates?

13:05Claire:And did you think that at the time? Because I think it's really easy to be that age and just think that school's not for you, but then the world of academia isn't, therefore the world of work isn't, and it's just not true at all. It's just school happens to be on that super academic side focus. I have a big issue about intellectualising that happens and that there is a snobbery to people with what is deemed to be academics. Yeah. Because to a large degree, that's about knowledge of the past. It's not about how you progress in the world or society or life. Completely. So, you know, sometimes I do get a little bit niggled that there is a snobbery of the creative world.

13:53Completely.

13:54Claire:Of course there is. Massively. The contribution, financial contribution to the country, the quality of the work that we produce as a country. It's the third largest employment sector. The creative industry is the third largest employment in the UK. So it's huge, the amount of money it brings in. And we're so good at it. Definitely. And it's not supported and it's being even undermined now as well. Yeah, completely. A thousand years ago when I was at school, the careers of vice people would kind of come along and say, so Greg, you know, you're completely crap at everything. You could maybe if you scraped your maths, which is a joke, you could become an architect.

14:33And, you know, I look at my father and I go, yeah, I don't want to be an architect, thanks very much. I can see how much maths is involved in that. But, you know, buildings, yes, love it. but no or the other one was a librarian great yeah fantastic i was like what about design they don't know what you're talking about so you know i knew what i was talking about that wasn't on their radar at all yeah but luckily i had a an art teacher uh mr richards who was more graphically sort of minded than most art teachers and actually looking back he gave me this thing I would now call a brief to do a book cover for forgery in art and I came up with this idea of basically like a Mondrian painting in a frame but because you know on the wall but because it was a fake and freshly painted the the lines kind of dripped from the painting over the frame and onto the wall really really simple idea I like that and then yes a bit of type in the corner and that was it you know i didn't think that was graphic design necessarily but i knew that this was an idea that's what i was enjoying and then i had this kind of weird thing i can't remember if it was end of school or beginning of foundation but i had this weird bit where i think it was in the summer my mom asked for my help so there was a exhibition of local artwork at the community center that was running it said no one's turning up no you know but she's kind of worried about this and no one's turning up no one's looking come to see it so he said could you do us a poster please ASAP like like tomorrow type thing and I said well you're sure but you know I'm gonna have to fly post it is that okay if you get into trouble fine we'll take the hit if that becomes a problem and also you know can I have carte blanche do what I want she said yeah of course do you do what you want anyway so I started thinking about it right well I haven't got any time I've got one color because that's all I could do I knew it had to be a poster and I knew it can go no bigger than A3.

16:32So I thought, well, what can I do? And I thought, well, it's going to have to be type-based. So I started thinking what kind of things existed previously and I started thinking about all the kind of Victorian village posters, you know, circus, theatre, public events that were happening. And I thought, well, you know, what I'd do is really, really big, bold type. It just says, public, hanging. and just big, big kind of bold type.

17:01Claire:Yeah, I love it. And then in small type underneath said, of local artists work at the information of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's such a good idea. Really, really, really simple. But what I did was that, so I managed to get that. I mean, it probably looked terrible. I haven't got a copy of it. The idea is fantastic. It was simple. But the thing that was for me was that I fly posted it and then sat on a bench and then watched people's reaction. so they would walk past you know yeah having a lovely day and shopping or whatever and then you'd see them kind of their eye would catch it and then they go what and then they stop have another look and then go and read it and then you see the reaction so then they quite often you see them go and you see a smile yes i fucking love that i love that moment where they were engaged by something that's so simple because it made their brains work.

17:57That's what I absolutely adored. So for me, I thought, right, that's what I want to do as a job, basically. So then I went to Foundation. So Foundation was brilliant in terms of you get to try everything out. I had this mad tutor called Kay. I can't remember his surname. Black dungarees, yellow feathers and pins and stuff all over dungarees, crazy hair really super direct she would just she basically gave me the kick out the back side adult kick and so it's like yeah you're no longer a kid stop expecting everything to be done for you get a bloody move on but she would swear she had a worse potty mouth than me she kind of basically kind of trained me to having a potty mouth basically so it's all her fault oh basically i'm blaming her i'm blaming her you know she said you're shit at drawing you could do sculpture but I'm afraid design might be your only option.

18:49I was like, brilliant. I said, brilliant. That's great. That's what I want to do. But I think foundations are so valuable for that. Definitely. I think we've got to support them more.

19:01Claire:Yeah. I think, you know, everybody should frankly do a foundation. I know, I wish I had. Just explore them. Yeah. You know, you get a year where you can try different things. Yeah. And if you don't like it, fine. But then at least you've tried it. And I think, you know, everybody should do one. but we've got to stop these things getting closed down because otherwise how are people going to find their passion? Absolutely. Yeah, I went to have a look around the Brighton Met University one about a year or so ago and all the cheaters there are amazing. It's run by an amazing woman called Mary and it's just, again, it's just blowing my mind about all the different things that they were studying and it's so creative and out there.

19:40I wish I could do that. I think maybe it's that thing, They say you should change your career after 10 years. I've laxed on that terribly.

19:48Claire:Yeah, me too. But, you know, maybe that's what everybody should do, have an intense creative expression time. That would be fun. You did the foundation course? Yeah. You thought graphic design's your thing? Yeah. So where did you go? What's the next step? So I went to Maidstone, which in the late 80s was kind of cool. We had Tracey Emin as our head of student union. Did you? Yeah, yeah. That's super cool. It was cool. It was cool. Yeah, I knew a few of the people who were on her tent. I wasn't. Yeah, I think, you know, college is all about your peers. So, you know, I was lucky again, I think I had a great year of mates there.

20:30So that was wonderful. And I think probably that was a realisation that I was in the right place, finally. So school, no, foundation was too art, design was my place. I knew I was sort of in my place. But when I was there, you go to all the shows and things. We went to this small exhibition in Covent Garden. There was this lovely work and they were handing out free posters. So, you know, being a student, you go, yeah, I'll have that free poster.

20:55Claire:Yeah, absolutely. Put it on the wall, cover up the mould patch. Yeah. And it was, you know, this great poster. It had these three, like, postcards on this poster. and the first postcard was a P and then it had a picture of an illustration of a tart and then it had the word tart underneath but it had the T crossed out, which was a bit weird. And then a nurse, right? And it was on my wall for bloody ages, right? And I just liked it for being a nice visual thing. It looked cool. It looked cool. And then I finally sort of thought, hang on, that T crossed out is annoying. I think this is a puzzle. and I'm embarrassed to say it took me months to finally come dawn on me that it said partners right so I was like oh my god you idiot Greg so I thought right I want to work there this is this is now the place I want to work you know that was that was my did you know much about the partners beforehand only what I saw on the exhibition which was great stuff but it was fairly early days for them yeah you know so I thought right that's my target I mean I'm not sure I knew I wasn't good enough to get there but i thought that's my target so i did a rsa which is royal society of arts competition and did this brief which was design museum so i did a science museum did a logo and the packaging and all the packaging were pieces of experiment so you had like you could boil water in a paper bag paper bag that you can't fold more than seven times because it's impossible yeah it comes like wood yeah the poster tube was a periscope and then uh there was one that's like a hot air balloon and that got some publicity for me yeah and did well so many people have that's how they've got noticed and got their breaks and stuff like that by just entering these competitions and yeah you can win i mean it's how else you can do it yeah you can post but if you i think it's that thing if you get additional credibility it's like mine dna d new blood is so important if you get that cred then you it can help literally help you yeah so the partners became a dream job but i've just never bothered applying because i thought there's no way i'm ever going to get in there probably if i'm honest probably too scared of rejection so i had a interview at fine white line which is a great little agency yeah and found uh creative director there and said you need to go and talk to my partner who's at the partners i said no i Oh, so her partner in life was the partners.

23:27Claire:Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is weird. There's too many partners, right? And so Steve at the partners. And I ended up actually seeing Nick Werr. He was wonderful. He got on really well. And he said, come work here, which was fantastic. See, I told you I was lucky. See? Honestly, it's like serendipity. And you end up getting a job at the place that you never thought you'd get a job at. Yeah. It's weird. So you went for an interview and then that's… That was it. That was it. I mean, I came out at a really good time. I mean, it was mental. Design was the key word at that point. So it's wonderful. So what was it like at the Partners?

24:06Claire:Tell me about, because obviously that's rolled on to your current job in various forms, hasn't it? I never left, basically. Yeah, basically. Well, I mean, when I first joined, I realised very quickly that there were designers and then there was me. Other people could design far better than me, and I realised that I was better at ideas and art directions. So that's what I tended to do more of. And Nikwa was wonderful. He was super, super smart. Really sadly, he died of AIDS not too late and too much, sort of fairly early on and all that. It was that time. I kind of got taken under the wing of Aziz Nshami, who basically was one of the founder partners and he trusted me in particular.

24:51So, you know, I'm eternally grateful to him for that. And weirdly, one of the first jobs we did together was the Science Museum.

24:59Claire:See, luck, luck, luck. Are you telling me I'm not lucky? I mean, he's just crazy. So the Science Museum gave us a brief to do a stationary range. But Aziz said, yeah, let's ignore the brief. Let's just take them a whole load of ideas. So what we did, just did all these sketched ideas of you could do space food and you can do helium UFOs and all this kind of stuff. Just loads and loads and loads and loads and loads, literally books of ideas, hundreds of pages of ideas, just black and white, marker, and that was it. So this is looking at more the retail side of what they can sell there. Yes, the shop is so important.