Mauro Gatti. Funny guy. Great artist.

Yes. We were in Florence. But we were hard at work. The first afternoon Mark & Daniele even stashed us  in a cellar while it was 30°C outside. That’s where we met Mauro Gatti. In 2004, Gatti co-founded Mutado, a creative studio with offices in London and Milan. He began his career as an interactive designer in the mid-90’s and became highly influential through his personal space thebrainbox.com. His main passion is illustration. And here’s where it gets interesting. You see, if I’m honest, I’m not often surprised by the work of illustrators. Especially when we talk about illustration in advertising. Sure, there is some great work out there, and some of it is done by real craftsmen. But in the end you should not be overwhelmed by the technique, but by the message they try to pass, not? And that’s where I often miss a wow-feeling. 

 But Mauro’s work stands out. He has his own style(s), but manages most of the times to add humour to his work. And that makes a world of difference. Because by doing that, suddenly an illustration becomes a message that can touch you, provoke a laugh or at least a smile. 

 

Here’s a series of clips he did for MTV (10 years of).

MTV ’10 years of’-compilation

What I also liked about Mauro was that although he does commercial work, he succeeds in giving his work an artistic edge that makes it sharp, original and pure (although that might also be because a lot of times they work directly for the client, as they do for MTV). In fact it made me think about another subject we came across in one of the round tables: the fact that because of blurring lines between entertainment and advertising, in the next coming years we will probably more and more commission work to screenwriters and storytellers. More collaboration to find ‘the idea’ or at least in the early conceptual stage also means we will need to be able to give enough room to artists to do their thing.  It’s true agency creatives tend to over-direct commissioned designers or artists. We ask them to create what we have in our mind. But sometimes it’s probably better and at least wellworth to offer the artist the opportunity to come up with an own solution. A lot of times your idea might come out even stronger than the thing you came up with yourself. Mauro showed us a great example of a piece that ended-up in the ‘ouch-zone’. This is the drawing he created to explain what it feels like when you drink Knorr Vie, a sort of healthy vegetable juice that gives you energy and makes you feel good.

 

This is how it came out on the agency side:

I understand the idea they had, but I think it’s a pity they did not have the courage to acknowledge the fact that what Mauro did was powerful in itself and everything that they have put on top kind of killed the idea. 

 Mauro more or less showcased his work. Here are a few of my favourites. You can see more on http://www.mutado.com/ or on his website thebrainbox.com