In this interview, founder of AGIdeas and Cato Purnell Partners, Ken Cato chats with Design Droplets about AGIdeas. Ken is an award winning graphic designers, having won numerous awards including the Victorian Premier’s Award for Design Leadership. Ken is a hall of fame inductee of the inaugural Victorian Design Awards and the Design Institute of Australia. In 2009 Ken was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Executive Board of ICOGRADA.
1. Ken, welcome to Design Droplets, thank you for taking the time to talk. Many of our readers will know you and your work, but for those who don’t could you please give a quick overview on yourself?
I am a graphic designer whose work encompasses all facets of corporate and brand management and design. I am the Chairman of Cato Purnell Partners. Cato Purnell Partners was established in Melbourne in 1970 and we now have offices in Sydney, Wellington, Singapore, Madrid, Guadalajara and Dubai and representative offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Lahore, Mumbai, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City and Guangzhou.
I have won numerous design awards for my work and I am a past AGI President (1997 – 2000).
2. You are the founder of agIdeas, which is now in its 20th year, can you tell us a bit about where agIdeas came from and what your early goals were for it?
It all started on the back of a bus somewhere in France. AGI was holding their annual congress in Blois. It was agreed at the congress that the next AGI meeting would be held in Australia, the first time AGI had travelled outside the northern hemisphere. The job to organize this was not only exciting but full of potential.
I remember speaking to Jim Cross and asking him what AGI did for education. His answer, “not much”. When I suggested that it was a unique opportunity to have so many of the World’s finest designers ‘down under’ and what a great opportunity it would be for the younger designers of the country to experience the presence of this talent from all over the World. Jim’s simple answer was, “you’re running it, do what you want”.
On returning to Australia I was quite excited and called six of the major universities. When I put forward the idea of running a two day congress with seven or eight AGI speakers and that we would charge the students a token sum of money to attend, in unison they said, “no-one would attend, no-one would pay”.
Out of a little frustration, I went back to the universities and asked for them to nominate two students each; not the best two designers in each case, but two students who were motivated and who might want to do something. With this group of twelve students and the help of my Personal Assistant, Juliet Tootell, the first educational event was born. It had no title; it was just simply an opportunity for people to meet international designers.
550 people attended this event and, at the conclusion, the excitement level was such that the committee suggested to me that we should do it again. Realizing of course that we didn’t have the advantage of airfares already paid, we knew that fundraising would be involved. It was with a degree of trepidation that we set out on a journey. So much for the one-off event.
It was at the second meeting that Heather Wellard, one of the committee members and ultimately one of the people to go on to manage the conference for five or six years, suggested that we should name the event. The idea was to call it ‘Ideas’. At the time I recall saying that I thought the name was rather boring. But when she explained to me that the acronym stood for International Design Education for Australian Students, the name seemed quite appropriate. Later this name was to be endorsed by Alliance Graphic International and the event became known as ‘AGIdeas’.
The evolution of AGIdeas has been steady. With input from a number of people, the event has grown to a scale that none of us would have ever dared dream. On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the event, we will also record our fifth consecutive year of over 2,000 delegates, and for the third successive years, in excess of 30 speakers over a three-day period.
No longer is this simply a congress. It has a number of components that make up the event of sufficient scale that we have now, yet again, changed the name of the event. From this moment onwards it will know as ‘AGIdeas International Design Week’. The week includes :
• AGIdeas International Design Forum – a 3 day conference
• AGIdeas ‘Advantage’ – a design for Business Breakfast
• AGIdeas ‘Extend’ – the Design Master’s Workshops
• The establishment of an alumni of all those committee members who have helped in running the event each year
• AGIdeas ‘New Star’ – a time-honoured and continued tradition of sending three students overseas to international conferences and our continued relationship with Fabrica in Italy where one of the students will work for the next twelve months
• AGIdeas ‘disCourse’ – the Designer Dinner
• AGIdeas ‘uNite’ – a final night party to end all final night parties.To broaden the event, we also have AGIdeas ‘Interact’ – an evening where designers are able to visit 30 studios around Melbourne and have dinner with a designer. This is something that has been embraced fondly by the local design community as they may run their own event, their own evening, their own content and contribute in their own unique way.
For some time, I have always held the notion that graphic designers don’t have all the answers. To this end, the conference has sought to go outside of the graphic design profession. It’s tapped into all areas of the arts. It’s embraced business ideas. It’s embraced performance and fine artists, sculptors and even impersonators who have sent strong messages back to the design profession.
It’s also embraced all the design disciplines, from graphics to film, to interactive, to product design, fashion design, environmental design, to sound, to music, and all the areas of artistic endeavour that seem to work more collaboratively every day.
The conference seeks to provide inspiration. It seeks to put designers in contact with other designers and other creative professions. It seeks the interaction of young designers with the more established members of the profession. It seeks to offer opportunity to those with special talent. It seeks to bring designers from all over the World just a little bit closer together.
I’m intensely proud of all members of every committee who have helped us do something very special. In a profession that often doesn’t collaborate in the way one would hope, this event sees a group of students from different universities and colleges and universities come together for the first time. To watch the friendship and the bonding and the efforts culminate in what seem to have become life-long friendships and to trust and believe in others. Collectively they might do something that none of them could do on their own and this is a very special reward for those who organize.
Kristin McCourtie, Heather Wellard, Kate Delves and Juliet Tootell have been the absolute backbone of the day-to-day organizing and to them I owe enormous thanks. To the 200 or so students who have undertaken an enormous task, with demanding task masters, when they already have a full schedule of education and often a part-time job, hopefully this brings them rewards and satisfaction from their efforts.
This event is not interested in people who want to show portfolios. It’s about people who have something to say who have done good work, and through that work might lead others into new arenas.
The hand to mouth existence has passed us by. AGIdeas is now well grounded and is ensured of a bright future. As I get older, the events seem closer together. As the same time, the anticipation of what we will create has not lessened.
I should also hope that in this article, my appreciation and thanks to all the designers who give their time, their expertise, their passion, finds a place amongst the words. It should also be noted that the audience for AGIdeas comes from the design industry as well as every university, institution, private school and educational area where design is taught in Australia, as well as the major institutions from New Zealand and those of Asia and, on a less frequent basis, from all other parts of the World. As the reputation for the conference grows, so does the attendance from overseas.
What started out as being an event for young people, is now an event for anyone interested in design or, more broadly, in any area of the arts. I think one of the benchmarks for success is often a quote that I hear from the speakers, and that is that they came to speak but actually learnt more than they were able to give. Today the event is the sum of many small efforts. When put together, we have an industry event that is second to none.
3. The team behind agIdeas has hosted and put on an amazing set of talks and activities over the last 20 years, can you share some of your favourite highlights from the 20 years of agIdeas?
It’s very hard to pick a favourite. Each of the past 19 years has always had a highlight or two. But there have now been over 400 speakers and out of those speakers the highlight has probably been the diversity of topics that have been covered and the different design disciplines that have been represented. The fact is we are great believers that inspiration comes from speakers with passion – not just another graphic designer. The words we use “Design is Difference” and that means that we should celebrate those differences between the design areas of work that design embraces, i.e. fashion, electronic, graphic, advertising, industrial, and the list goes on.
The difference of results even from the same brief will be diverse. None are necessarily right or wrong, but often there are many ways to approach a project or problem and rather than trying to defend the right or wrong solution, it’s more about embracing the idea that these different solutions are of enormous value in their own right. These may provide the inspiration and difference for the way we view the world and that design is different in the way it affects everyone’s lives. Products help define who we are and design provides a choice for each of us to determine what we inevitably like and dislike so it’s also about recognising and celebrating that fact.
4. What can we expect to see this year at agIdeas? And what can we expect in future years?
The thing you can expect is a three day event full of surprises. Expect the unexpected. Through 40 speakers, there will be a full spectrum of design disciplines and we normally manage to find at least one surprise. If we told you what that was, it wouldn’t be a surprise. The consistent by-product of agIdeas is that everyone who attends tends to go away enthused, inspired and motivated to pursue their endeavours as designers.
5. As well as agIdeas you have run an extremely successful graphic design studio. What advice would you give young designers on making their ideas reality?
Develop your skills. Pursue your dream or passion. Never stop learning. Work hard and love your mother.
If you are a designer that wants to stay in touch, be inspired and be part of 2,500 people sharing the same passion, book a ticket for agIdeas.
