This is a post in Braintalk

Braintalk with Bob Sakoui from Original Linkage

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Bob Sakoui and currently I am head of art direction at a large interactive advertising agency in central London.
Outside of the agency I work on different projects and author the ironically named, ‘Original-Linkage‘, a blog that celebrates quality creative from around the globe.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
Arrive at work on my motorbike (Triumph).
High-five team. Start up. Coffee (very important). Go through emails. Check industry/ news feeds. Have a meeting. Work out a plan for the day. Think of something. Storyboard something. Have another meeting. Design something. Eat. Surf. Check emails. Answer the phone. Talk with project team about something. Design something else. Have a client meeting. Amend something. Send a few emails. Finish something. Ride home. Eat. Work on something else. Update blog. Sleep. Dream of a something.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I enjoy many aspects of my work, I enjoy the arts, but in terms of design itself, I enjoy the impact that good design can have. I love good typography and clever graphic design, and like all designers, I will get a lot of pleasure when I design or illustrate something that is aesthetically pleasing.
I particularly enjoy creating logos, they are, for me, a pure form of communication, you can see immediately the strength of thinking as well as graphic astuteness when you look at a logo. To communicate in such a distilled yet impactful fashion is not easy, so when I do create a good, distinctive logo, it is extremely satisfying, and ticks a big box in my head.
But I think the root of what I really enjoy is the problem solving side. When someone comes to me with a situation, my mind involuntary goes racing for a solution, and when that solution has a real positive impact, it gives me a real buzz.
That part of it is quite addictive.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Generally, I think dealing with any of the usual ‘boring stuff’, that takes you away from what you enjoy doing, is always going to be unpopular.

Working in an agency, of course, can have it’s bad aspects as well as it’s good, and I’m sure some of my observations will be fairly universal, such as, office and agency politics, the design by committee syndrome and the general agency bureaucracy that slows everything down. Larger agencies can also become much more mercenary. You are closer to more people who are there simply for a quick turn around.
Of course, ultimately we are here to make money and do great work, but keeping that balance is important.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
Negativity. Censorship. Stagnation. Tiredness.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I very rarely find myself with NO ideas, but there may times when I find myself lacking in strikingly good ideas.

On these rare occasions ;-), I will do my research and I will try making things clear, ordering aspects of the brief and my thoughts etc. so that I have a clear head and can see the bigger picture, almost as if I am setting up the pieces of a puzzle.
If it is inspiration I need, there are always many reference points of course; the net, books, magazines and so on, but then looking at other solutions for similar problems never really becomes the catalyst for an idea that is appropriately strong. I tend to be struck by better ideas when looking at totally unrelated materials or scenery.

7. What inspires you the most?
I can be inspired by many things, I guess simply seeing a stunning piece of work in what ever field has always been a good source of inspiration for me to do the same.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
YES. I love music and my tastes are eclectic.
It would take too a long to list to cover – but here are a few names in that musical spectrum.

Flying Lotus / Bowie / Tycho / Boards of Canada / Sufjan Stevens / Holst / Nouvelle Vague / The Police / Wagon Christ / Portishead / Kate Bush / Unkle / Erlend Oye / Baxter Dury / Nitin Sawhney / Sasha/ Frou Frou / Brian Eno / The Smiths / The Chemical Brothers / Esbjörn Svensson Trio / Metro Area / Radiohead /Mylo / Nina Simone / Prefuse 73 / Princess Superstar / Radiohead / Hans Zimmer / The Strokes / Ulrich Schnauss / Vangelis / Gustavo Santaolalla / Toots and the Maytals / One Eskimo / Goldfrapp / Vitalic / MF Doom / Aqua Lung >>>

9. How do you deal with criticism?
If it’s given, I’ll welcome it. I find that as you get older, with experience you become more open and you get better at knowing what to listen to and what to ignore. It’s good to question yourself, and it’s also good to be confident in your gut instinct too.

10. What does your workspace look like?
As you would expect a normal desk set up you might find in an agency in London; Mac Pro, 2 monitors, Hermann Miller Aeron chair, speakers, phone, pens, pencils, paper, books, a Tron lightcycle, crumbs…

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Unfortunately yes.

In medieval times, when the web design industry was in it’s infancy in the UK, I was starting my second year on my degree course at LCP (what is now LCC), and to give you some idea, it was at a time when I was first getting to grips with Mac Quadras and Photoshop 1.0.
A friend of mine, (who I still work with today) introduced me to a company called Good Technologies, and they asked me to come up with a concept and design for the TOPSHOP website. I came up with the idea of doing a top down plan of the shop floor for the homepage, sections of the shop floor would act as navigation - radical stuff, I know.
Of course, I was embarrassingly low on web knowledge, and hence produced files that were pretty much unusable for a web design. But it was good to be thrown into the deep end; I guess you learn a lot quickly when you’re drowning.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Eat well. Sleep well. Strive for something better. If it’s not working, start somewhere else.
Be good to people. Have a sense of humour. Being serious 24/7 doesn’t impress anyone, and you’ll give yourself a headache.
Be positive. Be realistic. Always have perspective.
Love your work. Don’t be precious with your work. There is more to life than work.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
Not sure I could name just one, most of my projects are fun, but in different ways.

I remember working on the Peperami site many years ago, a lot of nutty ideas and silly people, and for the last few months actually, I have been enjoying creating a sim game at my agency, hard work, but fun.

Also, just recently, I had a lot of fun creating designs for the Sky+HD Designer Box event this year in London.
My wife was commissioned to creatively direct Sky’s event, and working with her is always fun as she is not only a super cool person, she is also extraordinarily talented, so you know you’re going to be part of something beautiful.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
I imagine myself being happy, working with talented people, running something successful.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
Pete Harrison @ Aeiko - Actually I used to work with Pete, a really nice guy who has been featured on quite a few graphic magazines for his photoshop trickery, as well as being a bit of an entrepreneur with his t-shirt company, Funkrush.http://www.aeiko.net/

Folkert Gorter @ SuperFamous - I always liked the high quality of work he produces, super design and super art direction. http://www.superfamous.com

Scott Hansen @ ISO50 - He has oodles of talent. He runs a really interesting blog, and I love his music.
http://www.iso50.com.

Bob… thank you very much for answering our questions
So if you want to visit Bob you should do that now: Original-Linkage