The Spark: Matt Baxter on Mistakes, Motörhead and the Magic of Play-Doh

0:03Matt Baxter:Well, we're back with the wonderful Matt Baxter of Baxter & Bailey and the very recently famous The Design Laundry, which was rebranded. You can hear all about it on our Monday episode. Hi, Matt. Hi, Katie. What day is it now? Oh, God, it's Thursday now. Is it okay? We're not pre-recording at all, are we? No, it's live and direct into the listeners' ear. The Sparkmat is where we have some fun. I'll do my jazz hands just to sort of emphasize the point. You do your jazz hands and I'll put my fun times hat on. I love the orange. I love the orange. So I just bought myself a bright orange rucksack.

0:41Matt Baxter:I feel really cool. You've got to get some color, especially in this time of year. Absolutely. I thought, oh, it's October. I'm buying myself an orange bag. Sod it. They go with my new Flower Mountain Trainers. Oh, they go. Yeah. Yeah. Bringing some color into the world. You're bringing a bit of Japanese vibes. Yes. To create a boom. Now that I'm on video, I have to make an effort, so. Right, yeah. Well, I'm very rarely on video, which is. Well, what's your excuse? Just as well. No, I mean, you look good. Well, I think I look like a potato with a pair of glasses drawn on it, but with an orange hat on top, all is forgiven.

1:24For goodness sake.

1:25Matt Baxter:Yeah. Come on. One of your upcoming guests is also famous for an orange hat, Brian Collins. Oh, really? Oh, yes, yes, he was on about it, yeah. He loves the colour orange, oh, yes. Yes, we bumped into each other and briefly swapped hats off in Barcelona, I think, in order to try and get past the fashion faux pas of both wearing an orange hat. Is he good fun, Brian? Does he like a drink? We had a good chat. He was, he's sort of always on, I think is the best way to describe him. Always on. A character. Yeah. I love a character. Yeah. And brilliant work as well, of course. Yes, of course. Yes. So listen out for that.

2:06Matt Baxter:Well, you'll be, your episode will be following Brian. So unfortunately you're not following after Brian because what we do is a nice chain reaction for our, so you've got to have a question for the next guest. okay and then you we sort of take the question from the previous guest if that makes sense yeah right but first of all you've chosen some of these questions which were you know put out there you picked them out the hat you did and then we're going to start off with a creative and reflective question okay what's a project you thought would flop but turned out great which what did i think would turn out a flop well funnily enough we've been talking about it in tuesday's podcast monday monday's podcast monday what day is it today again thursday smoke and mirrors um it is uh the design what became the design laundry so there were various points at which we thought have we even got anything here is this good will people be interested what should it actually be called let's put it back in on the shelf for several years so the various points in which we thought dom and i both thought i'm not quite sure about this one but we persevered and got there in the end that's good that's good i mean sometimes the best things are unexpected aren't they yeah i think self-initiated things also that kind of self-doubt can creep in can't it If you are the designer and the client, and in this case, the performer, the writer, everything, you can kind of question yourself and second guess.

3:49And it begins to crumble a little bit if you're not careful. So, yeah, we did worry about that one, the design laundry. But we got there in the end.

3:58Matt Baxter:Good. Speaking of figuring it out as you go along, I just realized I didn't have the previous week's guest's question ready. So I was furiously looking at my notes whilst you were chatting away. Okay. And I found it. And it's a good one. It's a good one. But we'll come to that in a minute. Okay. Do I get to know who it's from as well? Oh, you do, yeah. It's from Pum Lefebvre from Design Army. Yes. A formidable woman. Absolutely incredible. She did some amazing campaigns for Hong Kong ballet. Yes. To, what was it, the, oh, I can't remember the classical, the menopause Matt I just keep forgetting things that are just so simple Torval and Dean dance to it for their gold Ravel's Bolero it'll come to me Ravel's Bolero there you go honestly you men don't know how lucky you've got it for fuck's sake three in the morning waking up and staring at the ceiling and sweating that's my life at the moment But anyway, enough about that.

5:02Matt Baxter:Now, what's a medium or a discipline you secretly wish you were good at? I've got a design orientated answer and a non-design orientated answer for that. I would love to be a great photographer and specifically, I would like to be able to retain in my brain the technical knowledge and expertise one needs in order to be a great photographer. I love taking pictures. I love the resulting photographs. There was actually a photography module when I went to university many, many years ago. So I've learned this stuff, but it just doesn't modge my brain. So I wish I somehow could retain the technical expertise in order to take, understand how cameras work in order to take great pictures.

5:53That's the design one.

5:54Matt Baxter:Yeah. Non-design one is I'd love to be able to sing really well. Because I, some people will know this. I love a little trip to karaoke now and again. I love singing whilst I'm pottering around at home. But I would not describe myself as in any way successful at singing. I'm from the Marquis Smith School of Singing. I'm from the Sean Ryder Singers Academy. Okay, okay. There's, you know, there's talent there. But to be able to do it well would be amazing, wouldn't it? and be a good singer. I know. It'd be incredible. I always have a bit of a dream. Wouldn't it be great to be a good pianist? You could just rock up to any piano and just impress people.

6:38Yeah, bang out a tune. Yeah.

6:40Matt Baxter:Yeah. Unfortunately, that requires how many thousands of hours of practice? Well, Malcolm Gladwell would have it that it's 10 ,000 hours. He would, yes. That's what it takes. It's probably more. Good book, that. Yeah. Probably more. Probably. And you have to start early, I think. You have to start early when your brain is, what's the word? Plastic. You can retain stuff and your brain's still forming. It's too late for me, for sure. Too late for us, Matt. It's too late. Our impromptu Jules Holland style boogie woogie piano, the opportunity for that is long gone. Tell you what, I'll get a really good keyboard.

7:22Matt Baxter:I'll come down to the next event you have on and you and I'll just get up on stage and we'll just completely improvise we'll roll out the barrel we've been practicing and then we'll just do it for comedy effect no one will know what we're doing there they'll think that you're about to do a haunting rendition of something they'll think that i've been playing piano since you know i was seven years old it's not the case you've probably got a very nice voice but i can't play the piano so i think together we will you know entertain which you know kind of goes halfway way to fulfilling your dream which i presume is you enjoy making people laugh you enjoy being on a stage and entertaining people i guess yeah although yeah well maybe i don't know maybe yeah it would be nice to sing join a choir you'll get better yeah that's a that's a good idea yeah join a choir they always find a place for you even if it's at the back it's true yes yeah okay i will definitely consider that katie yeah okay all right now speaking of skills and talents have you ever been creatively jealous of someone and how did you handle it there's a short answer to that and that is all the time i'm creatively jealous all the time and it's a good thing and a bad thing i think a little bit of creative jealousy is quite a motivating force however it is also quite destructive and problematic and it's usually creative jealousy is usually triggered by social media and people's perfect instagram presentations of their amazing work and the way to deal with it is to not look at instagram yes i have the same thing but with people's outfits ah right okay because i'm shallow and vacuous i mean the the algorithms are successful for a reason they know what we they know what yeah pushes our buttons and yeah the answer is just not to look at this stuff i i by way of an experiment this weekend we've just come through i decided i would not open instagram at any point through Saturday and Sunday.

9:42And as a result, I didn't feel jealous of anybody else's brilliant work. I didn't feel I needed to buy that T-shirt or that hat.

9:50Matt Baxter:Or that orange bag. Or that orange bag. And I got some stuff done as well. It was a good and successful experiment. Yeah, it's mad, isn't it? We're all sort of, I'm 47 and even I get these sort of silly emotions and it's just a damn app. Flipping egg. Yeah, but designed very cleverly to do exactly that, I think. Make us feel inadequate, that we're not enough, that we're not dressed smart enough, that our houses are shit, that we need to buy this, that we need to consume, consume, consume. Yeah, yeah. I had this conversation about, specifically about interiors, that interiors aspect of Instagram.

10:28And somebody told me, and it may not be a thing anymore, I don't know. Somebody told me that there is a website called There Is Nothing Wrong With Your Home to try and counter this.

10:39Matt Baxter:I love that there is nothing wrong with your home yeah or your house or something I've got this weird desire to buy striped coloured candles and completely swap my sofa for something more mid-century modern it's just, I don't know where it's coming from, it's probably coming from Instagram probably, yeah, it's clever but invasive stuff isn't it Don Bailey, my business partner to hear it back from Bailey he's much better at kind of separating himself from the influences and the kind of the insidiousness of social media in that way I'm I'm more of a sucker for it myself I mean it is a good way to see brilliant work and and probably the fastest way to see brilliant stuff that that other agencies and creatives are doing but yeah it is a for me a sure fire route to huge creative jealousy.

11:38Surely everybody feels like that, don't they?

11:40Matt Baxter:Oh, of course they do. But we are entering an era, or have been for the last couple of years, of de-influencing. Oh yeah, go on. What does that mean? Well, it's kind of doing the opposite of influencing, although it's still kind of influencing. It's just basically saying, don't buy this, don't use this face cream, don't buy the orange hat, do this instead. Or, you know, no, I love the orange hat. It wasn't being mean. I love the orange hat. Do you want to see my orange bag? Yeah, go for it. Okay, hang on. I have to go and get it. All right. Hang on. I'll go and get the orange bag. While Katie's away, please may I draw your attention to our agency website, baxterandbailey.co.uk.

12:26That's baxterandbailey.co.uk, where you'll see all of our work, meet the team, find out what we're up to. I hope she won't mind that brief advert. Ah, there you go.

12:39Matt Baxter:It's by a brand called Beams. Isn't it lovely? Ah, it's good that, yes. It's the most impractical thing. It's only got a drawstring at the top. The straps are really flimsy. Yeah. It was an insane amount of money, but I got it in the sale. And it's like a rare sort of collaboration with somebody called... Oh, I haven't got my glasses on. Ha, ha, ha.

13:06iMock oh yeah beautiful it's great yeah perfect love it beams beams that they're japanese aren't

13:13Matt Baxter:they is that right yes japanese does this mean i'm in there with the cool kids now i think it probably does yeah i think you're definitely with the cool god i've been trying all my life there's a there's a swanky um men's clothes shop here in brighton called pegs and son oh i know it yes they're lovely people i include them in our christmas gift list sometimes right well they sell amazing things but they've definitely got me clocked uh as one of their you know the kind of classic creative industry 50 plus uh shopper they always say two things to me when i go in there they tell me they usually tell me that something's made on a one-of-a-kind Japanese loom that doesn't exist anywhere, this denim or whatever it happens to be.

14:02They tell me that.

14:03Matt Baxter:They know how to get you. Yeah. But they also, and what does this say about what they think of me? They also say this to me, it washes really well.

14:16Matt Baxter:That's brilliant. It washes really well, sir. I'm in. Where do I sign? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Here's my checkbook. Yeah. god there's there's a sign of my age checkbook when it was last time we had a checkbook bloody hell yeah yeah i did a big clear out of our office at home uh the weekend and i found a checkbook last used about 15 years ago i think good grief i wouldn't even dare to think when we last used one but it was probably around the same time i remember having a lesson at school telling you how to how to write a check and how important it was to write a check properly same yeah and how to do our signatures and yeah all that yeah yeah are you front of the of an era where you also had to fill in a form with the things that you liked doing and they sent it to a big computer in edinburgh yes the jig cal which was about the size of a house apparently this computer yeah and then a few weeks later you get a piece of paper telling you what what job you you could do yeah it was a journalist somebody who works in public relations or um what was the other a lawyer there you go it was they obviously honed it a little bit but by the time you used it told me that i should think about being a butcher how did it come to that did you say i like sausages I think it may have admitted to a fondness for pies, perhaps.

15:45I don't know.

15:47Matt Baxter:We've got a butcher in our family and a carpenter and lots of miners. My parents are teachers. We definitely had some journalists in our family as well. It's interesting, isn't it? I like looking back and seeing what people did. I like a good family tree. Right, now we're moving on to personal and playful. I like how I've categorised these questions. um let me think you've picked quite a few here so i'm going to pick one oh um what's a scent or a smell that instantly takes you back to a memory does this particular scent takes me back just to the the general idea of childhood and play rather than a very specific thing but it is the one smell that's absolutely surefire guaranteed to transport me as soon as I pop the lid off and have a smell, and that is Play-Doh.

16:47Matt Baxter:Yes! Holy Christmas, that's some special magic going on there. Do you know... Instant transportation. Absolutely. That is, yeah, same, same. It was just magical, wasn't it? Yeah, plasticine doesn't have the same effect. Crayons, they're the sort of things that come close. But pop the plazzy lid on a pot of Play-Doh, it's 1976, instantly. It's quite amazing. They came in the little tubs, didn't they? But they also came in the strips. I think plasticine came in strips. Oh, is it a different thing? Play-Doh was definitely in a branded little tub. Yeah, and it's kind of for the younger, it's for a younger audience.

17:30play-doh is like the the duplo to plasticine's lego kind of do you remember that magic sand we

17:38Matt Baxter:got as well that was around the same time yes magic sand in water and you could like build towers in water and then when you took the sand out it was dry we thought that was the future it was the future that and shrinky dinks yes and um oh what else did we always want for for Christmas Mr. Frosty, obviously. Yeah. Which was shit, let's be honest. Yeah, an August classic. Yes. Oh, gosh. The Book of Dreams. Do you remember? Yeah, of course. Much excitement when the pre-Christmas August catalogue came out. Yeah. I think there's smells for different times of year as well, isn't there? If I smell tinsel, that takes me back to the mid-80s mum in the kitchen.

18:24Matt Baxter:What does tinsel smell of? It's like, it's like, do you know that, you know, back in the 80s when it was all naff swirly carpets and your mum and dad had a green, forest green swirly sofa from Ikea, which was all the rage and the Christmas tree would be covered in coloured lights and just loads of kind of that. It was like tinsel, but it was made to look like hanging snow and icicles. And it had a kind of plasticky smell that might have been offset a little by being close to the sort of coloured fairy lights. And the whole house just smelt of this kind of plasticky tinsel. That, to me, takes me back to being a kid again, seven, eight years old.

19:07Matt Baxter:Yeah, yeah. At Christmas. Yeah, that's good. I did read somewhere that of all of the senses, the sense of smell is the one that has the most transportative, is that the right word? Yes. Yeah. It has the most sort of nostalgic superpower. You can just remember so much, can't you? It's so bonkers. And who did you play Play-Doh with? Did you have any brothers and sisters? Yeah, probably my sister, Beck, probably. and you know this says a lot about um some of the qualities that make for good designers is i was very particular about not mixing up the colors you end up with sort of gray sludge don't you you do with plasticine in particular but i think playdoh had the same issue it becomes this sort of gray non-color if you mix them together i was very very particular about that don't cross that oh don't cross the streams no brilliant film it's it's almost time as well october it's almost time to watch it again nearly not quite not quite not quite maybe the night before oh what's something you'd love to believe in speaking of you know superstitions and all the rest even if it's not real i was gonna say i've got a boring answer for this one but hopefully not boring but it's quite worky it's quite a sort of worky related so lots of people will have this model in their minds when it comes to new projects and it's the three r's have you come across the three r's yes yeah and then so so given that you know just remind us what they are well i'll i'll try and remind you and if i can't remember you remind me so i think it's remuneration recognition and reward right right so that means i thought there were different r's but never mind carry on these are my r's remuneration recognition and reward so remuneration will you get paid well for this thing this project recognition is it the kind of project that will you'll be proud of you can show to people and will generate interest and more work and reward will it be uh enjoyable to work on will it will it feel good to the studio and it's generally said that you need to pick two for any new project um you're only gonna you're only ever gonna get two of those out of three so you might be paid well and it'll feel good but nobody will be interested or however that works so pick two remuneration recognition and reward and i think they're rare they're unicorns but i want to believe in projects that have all three they're out there they come across you come across them now and again and they're a delight but i believe in those three our projects we believe in them they're going to come to you exactly yeah might not might have to stop sharing all your mistakes in the design laundry though you know just to sort of up your chances yeah yeah I'm only joking.

22:15Yeah, maybe.

22:17Matt Baxter:Well, you're in the age of de-influence and it's fine. The honesty and the credibility. You know, what is it? Trust is authenticity now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not quite sure what that means. Neither do I. I think you've just got to be real. There's a song in it, you know. Actually, that's a question I didn't ask you. if you're going to get up and do karaoke what's your song of choice okay so i have a like number one absolute go-to i'm going to be really careful about which point in the evening i deploy this because it's a total throat shredder and it can mean that any subsequent songs are quite difficult to perform because the impact of this song but i do very much enjoy and some of my friends and family will confirm this.

23:13I do very much enjoy singing Ace of Spades by Motorhead.

23:17Matt Baxter:Oh, my God. Because it's short, it's fast, it's loud, and if you lift the microphone up, you even look like Lemmy a little bit, even if you haven't got massive mutton chops. And it's good fun, but to the non-trained vocalist, it takes its toll on the throat. But like the previous answer to the previous question, you've hit two things out of three there. You might not have the voice that you hoped for, but you've entertained and you've made people laugh. There you go. Good value for money. There you go. Yes. Yeah, that's good. All right, so you've set the table. You've got a chance to have a dream dinner guest.

24:02Matt Baxter:Dead or alive, who will it be? i've actually got got a bit of a blank on this i've got a question yeah it is a tough one um yes i've got so many creative heroes well how about you just don't have a creative hero on this occasion and it's somebody who's not related to creativity well is it a single person or can it be multiple people are there any rules people if they're a collective i'll allow it all right well i've got some listeners may find this i'll answer slightly schmaltzy but it's the absolute truth so i've given you know it's a classic question isn't it and so inevitably i've given it thought over the years and thought about lots of amazing inspiring creative people from all walks of life that i'd like to sit down and chat and eat dinner with but then you think god the egos would be ridiculous it would be you'd never get a word in and then I thought I'm uh as we've established in our previous conversation a son of the north now long exiled in the south and I see my family not often enough so my ideal dinner party would be my mum and her husband Ken and my dad and his wife Iris and my sisters Bec and Kate and their husbands and kids and my wife Katie and our boy George and whoever else would like to come along because we don't get nearly enough time to sit down and eat dinner together I would also like to make it a lunch rather than a dinner because lunches are better than dinners yes absolutely because then you can go home afterwards and put your pajamas on and watch go to bed all the absolutely oh that's so cute and just in time for christmas as well so oh oh merry christmas everyone merry christmas everyone and god bless us all and i i'm kind of like intrigued now to know what emoji you overuse on your uh on your devices well i um i'm a 51 no i'm about to be 52 congratulations I'm 52.

26:20Well, with the mysteries of time and podcasting, who knows when I'm going to be 52. I'm probably 52 already, listener. Anyway, all of that means that I'm a chronically incorrect user of emojis. I'm sure that the emojis that I use aren't correctly intended for the uses that I make use of them for. however the one that i like to use a lot and we i use a lot a lot in the in the word chat here in the backstrom bailey studio we've got a in into office chat and whenever somebody shares something brilliant or a project win or a bit of good news i share that robot arm it's the kind of arm but it's a robot one and it always feels a bit more arnie-esque a little bit more terminator right

27:10Matt Baxter:Right at the end. Don't give away any spoilers. Yeah, exactly. And that's the one I probably use the most frequently. Intriguing. OK, brilliant. Now, finally, what's the most recent photo on your phone? Oh, can I go and get it? Oh, by all means. I went and got me orange bag. Yeah, you did. All right. Talk amongst yourselves for a moment. We will. We'll talk amongst ourselves. and I'll just show you my orange bag again available from End Clothings.com Oh, he's back! I was just talking about my orange bag.