 Welcome, Sir Eric Kessels, one of the most creative people in the world, I think. I know we were just saying, last saw you in 2016 in Design and Dabble, and you did an absolutely incredible talk. And I think it was about failure. At the time, I think it was when, probably soon after you had launched this book, I imagine. But yeah, how are you doing? Hope all is going well. Yeah, very well. Yeah, thanks. And I heard you just got back from Italy, from doing an incredible talk. And that's sort of, I think this is a fascinating thing. And why I really wanted to chat is you've, unlike a lot of people who, you know, when we interview in the creative world and normally just doing advertising, you do so much more. I know you've recorded music tracks, you've done art exhibitions with photography, written multiple books, and run an incredibly successful advertising agency that's made tons of fantastic brands and great work. So congratulations. How do you do it? Well, do you wake up in the morning and just go, oh, I wonder what I can do today? Is he just naturally a curious person? No, no, I can be also very lazy also. I think to be lazy and a bit bored at sometimes is very good to load the battery. And I don't know, but I mean, I think you need to, I mean, when you really sit down and you have to come up with an idea, it really doesn't work, but it's more that you need to have an antenna for these things. And whenever something passes by, you pick it up and you do something with it. When you are feeling sort of uninspired, are there particular places that you normally go for inspiration? Yeah, I mean, a lot of people say that, for instance, when you take a shower or you're in the toilet or you're in an airplane, that they have the best ideas. But that's also true, I think, because it has more to do with the isolation. So if we literally look at how many minutes a day we are actually very effective in coming up with ideas, it's in a way very little. So you really need to isolate yourself at one point and concentrate and be really on your own with your mind to come up with ideas. And yeah, like for instance, when I'm in an airplane and yeah, to me, it's quite inspiring because there's no phone, there's no internet connection. So you are just down to the basics. And of course, later when you have the spark of an idea, you can use, yeah, you're going online to find materials to find other materials that might help this. But yeah, in basis, you really need to be very isolated. Yeah, I mean, I thought that was interesting looking at a lot of your work. It's often finding these these amazing sort of insights or lateral thinking that perhaps people wouldn't have seen. I remember hearing one of your stories about finding a selection of photos and was it in can of like a lady who like someone who had 400 photographs of one person? Yeah, that was in Barcelona. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, my my interest in general is in, I mean, I, to be honest, I'm not really into perfection or perfect ideas or perfect executions. So I always look a little bit for things in the French. And that's also where, you know, in advertising, as an art director, you know, I never used the typical directions or the typical sources to work with, you know, they are when I started, there was a, yeah, really, like, if you worked in advertising, you also worked with advertising photographers or advertising illustrators or and I think since I worked in London for several years that that changed a little bit because there there was already a bit more of an open atmosphere that you could work with anybody. If you would be if you find if that person found you the work interesting. So yeah, from that moment on, I always started to make different combinations and work with people that never did a commercial job before. And yeah, this is very important. And in that case, because of that, I got also interested in, yeah, for instance, in photographs that I found on flea markets, because these were done by amateurs, there were a lot of mistakes in there, even in the family albums when people had their eyes closed or when there was a finger in front of the lens, like that. Yeah, they still stick it stuck it in an album, and that was still there for many years. So yeah, this inspired me always the flaws and the mistakes that you find in people's behavior in people's behavior with the camera or writing things down or recording things. So that that's, I mean, the the imperfect is quite an inspiration. Because, yeah, like when you are completely perfect, and when your idea already has to be from the start perfect, it's not working. I mean, I, yeah, I also compared this often with the backyard and the front yard of your house. Because nowadays, a lot of people only function and work in their front yard. Because, you know, the front yard is your your web page, it's your portfolio, it's your Instagram page. It's the finished work or the exhibition. But this is like the end result while, yeah, a lot of people don't really visit their own backyard. And the backyard is a place where there is unfinished projects where you walk around half naked because there's a fence around it. There's a lot of rubbish there because you are kind of embarrassed about your backyard, personal stories, fascinations. There's a dirty shed somewhere with a lot of stuff in there. You know, and these are the places where you really find your ideas and your so the ideas come from deeper passion secrets. You know, ironic things. And yeah, those things are more to be found in the in the backyard. I love the idea of sort of imperfection that you found in photography influencing imperfection that I think I see in your advertising, which makes it sort of stand out a lot. Like you often, I think one of the most famous campaigns you did was for a hotel company where it was sharing all the imperfections. Is it is it still going? Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, I think also that working in an industry, I mean, I always had you know, quite ambivalent. Yeah, idea. I mean, I don't really like advertising also. I mean, to be honest, I really hate it at 95% of the times. Because, you know, like, let's be honest, a lot of stuff is really horrible, you know, like a lot of compromises, you know, it has to be done to please someone, you know, there were a lot of hurdles on the road. That's what you feel, you know, and I think that, yeah, like, it's very stereotypical, the whole industry, and very opportunistic also. But, yeah, like that makes it also quite good to work in to break with these conventions and to really find another way and take side street instead of driving in the traffic jam on the main road, you know, like where everyone is. And that is, yeah, that's what I enjoyed also. You know, you work of course with the biggest talents in a way, because they are all grouping there in that industry because, yeah, there's money to be made. But, yeah, on the other hand, it's also good to be quite stubborn and to be try to do things differently. And that is quite possible if you communicate well about it, you know, I think that, you know, in advertising, a big mistake is that a lot of specialists are very good in communication, but they are actually not so good in communicating themselves about their idea towards a possible client. Or, I mean, there is where they often are afraid because an agency thinks like we have to sell this work because we have to keep this client and we have to do this and that. But, yeah, like, actually, when you are really taking someone by the hand and explaining why you do this and why this is a very good idea and why nobody has done this yet before, many clients will understand this and go for it. Are there certain things that you do to help people when they join your advertising agency or when you meet younger people? Is there a certain thing that you tell them to do to try and make sure that they do more of what you've just been saying? Like, are there sort of bits of advice or wisdom that you give them to make them think more? I mean, one of the most valuable advices is also for people that nowadays, for instance, start their own company or I think it's very important to say no. Like, you have to say many, many times no. You have to say also, of course, yes, a few times, but saying no to things, it's much more important because you are really, I mean, for instance, when you get a work offered and, yeah, it's good money to be made, but it's not really your thing, then it's better to say no because, yeah, like, all the work you do is also, that's your portfolio and that's what you have been working on for a long time. So, when you work for a year on shitty stuff, then, yeah, it's not very likely that the next year you will get suddenly a much better job offered. So, you know, you have to also, yeah, by the work that you make, you also create your personality as a company and as also as a creative. And I think that the personality of a single person or of a company is also a bit underrated, of course, because I think that the personality is much more important than your portfolio. You know, like, I had, for instance, a job interview once and I was talking to this designer for first half an hour, then an hour and it was very, you know, yeah, it was really interesting talk and I really liked her, the way she approached things and her character. And in the end, I told her like, okay, when can you start? When can you start working? And suddenly she became very, she was blushing enormously. She became very embarrassed a little bit and she said like, yeah, that's fine, but you haven't seen my work yet. So, I was completely, I forgot completely to ask for her work. And, yeah, in the end, I saw her work. And this was also very, it fitted perfectly. So, it was already what I expected. But the fact that I didn't ask for her work was actually a very good thing because, you know, she had such a illuminating personality that this was, yeah, that was already enough. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. What was the talking about the power of saying, no, what's the thing that you're most happy that you said no to? Do you think of anything? I mean, we had in Cassus Kramer several times, maybe two or three times, there was a client that was maybe 60% of our income at that time when we were maybe with 15 or 20 people. And, yeah, it started to become quite complicated to work for them. And work was, yeah, starting to go in the wrong direction. And, yeah, at that time, we decided just with a few people in the company to stop with the client, call the client and say, like, let's not do this anymore. And I mean, we informed other people in the company that we would like to do this. And in the end, everyone agreed, even though it could have been very risky for their jobs or for, but in the end, that was always the best decision because you keep a clean slate and you are very, yeah, it's very good that you are very clear about something. And, yeah, I mean, you need to be a bit stubborn and a bit, because that is also, I mean, I don't want to be arrogant because of that, because I have a deep opinion about, I mean, I don't want to make shit work. I don't want to make rubbish. And I mean, life is too short for that. I mean, when in the end, you're not able to make good work, maybe you should find another job or, I mean, there's a lot of people complaining in that industry also. And I think like, why? Because you have a lot of opportunities. I mean, they don't see the opportunities, but there is, yeah, when you are clear about the path you want to take, it's good to stick to that. And, yeah, there will be always fans coming to you and that like your approach, I mean, you know, a creative or an agency or whatever, you don't have to work for everyone. That's a bit of a utopia. I mean, you work for the clients that you also really deserve. I mean, those are the ones that come to you. The other way around it hardly ever works, you know, like, I think we had several times that we knocked on the door of a client that we would like to work for, but that hardly ever worked because you mostly entered the wrong door of that company or the wrong moment. Yeah. Well, I mean, you've obviously dealt with lots of different projects in the past. Was there any sort of particular peculiar briefs that you ever received that, you know, the most interesting or peculiar brief that you've ever received? And how did you kind of approach that? If you don't mind? There is many, yeah, like for instance, I think often like a company or a client comes with a problem and you know, they come to you because they think that you can solve the problem. But in some cases it's even good to think the other way around to make the problem even worse and that that is a solution to really solve the problem. And so those are always quite nice things that were made in the company, like for instance, two people in Cascremum that is, they were working on this job for a school and we did a lot of work for that school. But there was a small job because they had like a lot of problems in the campus with garbage. And there were certain fixed garbage bins there. And yeah, so that's a problem. And you know, you need to solve it. But you know, we decided to make it even worse. So to make it very, very complicated to throw away your garbage by building a fence around the garbage bin, like hosting the garbage bin on a tree with a ladder so that you have to do it like that. So there were seven permanent insulations that made it very complicated to throw away the garbage. And this worked perfectly because the students, they liked this kind of approach and that we took the piss out of them. And suddenly the whole problem was solved but done by a very kind of upside down solution in a way. That's incredible. I'd love to see that. I'll have to look it up. What's the client name so we can Google it afterwards? Yeah, it was for this school called Koning-Willem-Ain Colleges. It's like a college in Holland. But it's, you can find it when you type in garbage or rubbish and Castle Screamer, which is anyway a nice search term. See where you end up. So I know one of the things that you've said before is that you have to be able to kill your darlings. Sometimes you have to be comfortable to let go of things that you've created. Have there been anything, any sort of projects that you've worked on or ideas that you've found particularly challenging to let go of? Yeah, I mean sometimes it's, in a way, when you have ideas, you never let them go. I mean, when they are not happening, you lock them somewhere up in your mind. And whenever there's an opportunity, you find a way again. I remember that there was once, I mean, yeah, like we always wanted to make a film where everyone was naked in the film and we tried it once with a fashion company and so that everyone was naked apart from the two people that were wearing the new collection of that company. So then suddenly all the naked people were looking very weirdly at the two people dressed in clothing. But fashion company didn't really go for that. So later we found another, you know, opportunity for that. We worked for a health insurance company and also made a proposed a film where everyone was naked because, you know, with this health insurance you insured your most valuable possession, which is in a way your body. So that's why we showed how vulnerable in a way everyone is without clothes. I mean, the clothes are just like a thin layer that you wear, but it's not really protection for yourself other than a cover. But yeah, so we tried this and the client, you know, said like, yeah, sorry, but I'm not going to propose this to my board. And yeah, so they didn't go for it. Two weeks later we proposed another idea with that client and yeah, they liked a new idea. But then he said like, yeah, but I have to admit that in the last two weeks I was still thinking a lot about your first idea. And I want to come back to it. So in the end, we made that first idea and it ran for two years on television and yeah, it was really, really nice. But it's more like to show that sometimes also when you really believe in an idea, you can also show to a client that you're really sick, sick about it, that they don't go for it. And sometimes then you still need to let it go. But yeah, then you put it in the parking and wait for another opportunity. Yeah, have an idea vault is something we often talk about. So this idea of keeping the things that don't work out, maybe they'll work for another client or for another time. Yeah. I mean, how much do you nowadays sort of do you are you spending most of your time on the art side of things or on the advertising things or is it a balance? And I guess there's, you know, could you live without one or do they both inform each other? Yeah, I mean, since 2001, I have done a lot of things. I have done like more my art work and commercial work. I've done that simultaneous in a way, even though they are completely different things. But since, yeah, maybe three or four years now, I am not so much involved in the or totally not involved anymore in the day to day work in the in the company. And also because like a new generation of people that I have worked with in the past, you know, sometimes for seven or eight years, sometimes for 25 years. Yeah, there was a good opportunity for them to take over and to run this themselves. But they are, you know, they are, it's very nice for me also to see that they are in the DNA of the company, because, you know, I don't know completely everything that they are working on. So sometimes I see something passing. And I think like, wow, that's a nice idea. And then I look on our own website and it's something that they have done. So that that is quite, quite nice. But I mean, yeah, this is very nice that you kind of continue the family and because, yeah, people always stayed and still do for a very long time in the company. And yeah, there's there's many people who have who have been there already now for 25, 26 years. And some people recently a girl left after 20 years working with us. And yeah, so that's a really good sign also. And for, yeah, for the company much better to continue like this than to sell it to, yeah, and people that don't have any connection with and roots with with the style and the ethics of the company. What do you think are some of the reasons why people stay for such a long period of times? It seems to be in the creative world, it seemed like the churn in the creative world tends to be very high in the advertising industry. So, you know, fascinated to learn what what you think helps people to stay longer, the particular things that you do or a particular culture that that you helped grow there. Do you think that work? Yeah, I think yeah, one of the most important things is also honesty, you know, like you have to be very honest and very direct to the people you work with. And yeah, there is no politics in the company. And there's also everyone is kind of naked metaphorically, because work all in one open space, you can hear everyone, you can smell everyone, you can, you know, it's like one open environment. I mean, at the time when we started this was quite new, not now that's not that new anymore. But anyway, yeah, like in in a group like that, you also see and you feel after only after a few weeks, you feel already if someone fits there or not. And yeah, by now we have kind of an idea, what kind of people that fit there. And yeah, so it's also people that, you know, that have that have certain interesting stories with them, apart from the work they make, also people that are different in what kind of hobbies they have, what kind of fascinations they have. Yeah, I mean, you know, the contrary of what I was just saying of hiring someone that I didn't ask for the portfolio, there was also one case where I looked at the portfolio was very, very good. It was one of the best portfolios I've ever seen. And then I got kind of curious. So I started to discuss with this person more and more why he was doing this. And in the end, it really after an hour, it turned out that he was actually making the portfolio because of that he wanted to work with us or that he wanted to work in some other places where he thought that this work would be really fitting. And but yeah, he admitted also that in a way, yeah, he talking about front yards and backyards, his backyard was was was kind of similar to his front yard. So I mean, it's, you know, the authenticity of people is also very important. How authentic is someone, you know, like, you know, we are creative people are all kind of not normal. Like, you should not be normal because it's, I mean, everybody is hyperactive, everybody has a bit ADHD, or it's a bit autistic. So this is normal, you know, like, it's, it's like, it's almost being a controlled madhouse in a way where you have to take care sometimes of people and people take care of themselves and, and of each other. So no, but I think the authenticity of people is very important. And yeah, it's good. So it's like a lot of that work, I guess it comes up front in these interview processes where you just get a good idea of people. Yeah, it's nice. So I guess you probably don't leave that to an HR team in the back office. I'm guessing you do that with with the teams of people who they'll be working with or yeah, it's HR is sorry. Yeah, I think even in a very, very big company that HR is like, completely overrated, I think that the director of the company or should should hire people, you know, like, this makes the culture of a company is very important. Yeah, yeah, makes no sense. And then you've got this amazing business that's also sort of a publishing company now as well, right? It's you've been publishing, I mean, too many books to count, I guess now, but the I think there's these are all sort of limited edition books, they mostly around photography. I remember rightly what have you always been fascinated in photography or did it just pop up to him? So my dad was a photographer, I'm a big fan myself. I think, yeah, it has two origins, in a way. One is what I just said in the beginning that I worked with a lot of photography as a art director. And I was asked also in that, you know, working with photographer with for instance, Magnum photographers at one point I was asked to make their edit some of their books. And yeah, so in that case, you, yeah, you are quite deeply into that industry in a way. The other reason is maybe also because yeah, I was in my youth, I was like, when I was 11, my sister was nine. And she yeah, she had an accident and she died because her car drove over her while she was crossing the street and he drove through a red light. And yeah, so this was a very unfortunate thing. And I remember at that time also vividly that my parents, they were looking for her last picture and the last picture that was taken of her. And they found one which was actually a picture from a holiday park where the whole family was. It was like a color image where that was taken by an anonymous photographer who worked in that park and leaving the park, you could buy that print and take it home. So that was the last picture of my sister at that time. And my parents decided to crop that image and make it take another picture of the image in black and white and print it in black and white and enlarge it and put that in the living room. And yeah, that is for me also something very important that, you know, in this case, my parents reappropriated that image and made it like a very, it's a very mundane image. When anybody else would look at that image is very bit out of focus, not really well cropped. It's a terrible image in a way. But for three people in this world, this image is very, very important and almost iconic. And that is also what fascinates me, you know, how you can reappropriate images, take them from its original context, bring it into a new context and then suddenly the meaning changes and suddenly people really start to look at it again instead of consume images. So yeah, you could say that also that we are now living in a period where we consume images in a rapid tempo, but it's quite good to, I think that nowadays, that what interests me that the stories behind a single image or a series of images nowadays may be more important than the image itself. A lot of images are photographs have been made already. There are thousands of memes or ways of people how they photograph things, selfies, their food, their travels, their certain landscapes, certain filters, it's all the same, you know, like, and even in advertising is also the same, like if you could look at online advertising, how a hotel should be photographed from the inside, how a car should be photographed. So these are all repetitions. And for me, it's interesting how I can look for certain outliers and certain things in the fringe and to really put a finger on that and point it out and ask people to look at it. I'm so sorry about your sister and I think there's something sort of lovely in there about the power of imperfection in an image and that almost makes the picture more meaningful, which fits, I guess, with what you were saying about what's your back garden or your backyard look like. It's the imperfections where you often seem to find it. That is my backyard, part of my backyard. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, what's your most recent project? What's that been focusing on? Yeah, now I'm working for three or four years already on a bigger European project called Europe Archive and it's a website called Europe Archive.eu. And this is a more anthropological project where, yeah, I mean, nowadays people migrate a lot in and out Europe and also within Europe. But the objects that every country lives with and that are sometimes typical for a country and also in the heritage and in the tradition of a company, they also migrate through Europe and they are not really fixed to a certain country anymore. So in this archive, I do this together with Thomas Mylender, a friend of mine, and we collect really objects from that we specifically search online or on flea markets but we buy the objects physically and yeah, we recreate a collective memory of that country. And that is, yeah, we had now in this summer an exhibition with it in Hungary, Hungary. That was the first exhibition and so now this archive is growing and it has like, yeah, we'll have more stops in Europe. I think in, I don't know when this will end, hopefully not soon, but the project is growing a lot and yeah, I mean, it will be also iconic at one point, I hope, because it's really nice to pause these things and collect them and show them what these are sometimes hilarious things. They are not expensive, they are with certain traditions, things that are repaired. I mean, for instance, one of the most brilliant things I found in Romania, it's like a frying pan that the handle was broken, but then they found like a Jesus that was also broken from its cross and they repaired the frying pan with a Jesus handle. So yeah, like these are very strange habits and or yeah, like in, we found in Hungary like a cooking pan on the flea market, but it was filled with mobile phone parts. So it looked almost like a vegetable soup with all these colors in there but yeah, actually it has something to do with the fact how quickly we consume technology at the moment and yeah, then it ends up in a pan, in a red pan in a market and yeah, so there's also on the website, in the archive, in Europe archive, there's all the countries and there you can find also stories with every object that we found. So that is a very, yeah, that's where I'm on and off working on. Yeah, it's incredible. I opened up the site and looked now quickly, it looks fantastic and I love the stories that go with each of the images as well. So yeah, highly recommend it, Europe, archive.eu and very sad that we can't have the UK in there anymore. But yeah, I've got Ireland, so close. We'll have to rectify that at some stage. But then, yeah, the other thing I was going to say was that in so much of your work, there's so much of it is absolutely hilarious as well. Like often the things in the failure book I've got behind me here and the complete amateur guide book that you've got as well as some of those I was cry laughing going through that. It's a new, you know, the Jesus panhandle that you just explained there. I mean, is it just, you know, just very, very good at observing these things? Because I mean, they're all kind of seem to be out there in the ether. Yeah, but it has also to do with that what we call as so-called like normal life or normal people or ordinary life or ordinary people. Yeah, there you can find the most hilarious things, and life is not normal. You know, it is hilarious sometimes, like a normal life. And I mean, that's also what you see, of course, in history of filmmakers or documentary makers or, you know, like there is, yeah, for instance, like in England with Ken Loach, for instance, the filmmaker, yeah, he also focuses on how absurd in a way normal life is. But also in, yeah, you can, when you have an antenna for it, you find things on the street, you sometimes you hear like crazy conversations like a part of a conversation or like a note that someone dropped on the street and, you know, things out of context are always good. And that is also what you point out just now because there also you take it out of its original context, put it in a new one and then suddenly it is something hilarious. So that is often the trick. It's amazing. I know we're running out of time. So I'll try and ask one or two final sort of closing thoughts. But I mean, what sort of advice, I guess, would you give to people who want to be able to look at the world in a slightly different way? I mean, you seem to have a real knack at it. Everything that you do has always been, I mean, personally, I just find it always very inspirational and very interesting. But I don't find many other people who look at the world quite the way that you do. So thank you. This is also, yeah, for me, and that's maybe also the reason why for me, when you say these things, I think like, okay, for me, it's more like the, you know, it's not a planned thing, you know, like with the company, with my art career, you know, when I would have a certain career plan in that, it probably never would happen. So it is also very important that you are, yeah, you always need to stay very, you know, you should not never be too confident, you know, like overly confident or, I mean, I really, every time when I start something new, or I have to come up with an idea, I feel like a complete beginner. And that is really, in a way, quite a nice thing, not at that moment, because I think like, shit, how many times, how long do I do this and why Kanda have this idea earlier. But at the end, it's very good, because it's good to be, to behave like a beginner. Because, you know, nobody is born with the talent to become a fantastic creative or brilliant artist. I mean, you don't have a talent for that. It's like, really, you need to develop your skills in daring to let go or daring to be very intuitional and not panicking. And of course, these are things that you can learn. But, yeah, like, and these are the important things, why something happens and why you suddenly have an idea, because you leave the space in your head to allow to have that idea. That my brain is not different from yours. But, or from others. But, yeah, sometimes you need to be very, almost naive, stay very naive in that. So, yeah, so those are things, I mean, yeah, you should not be afraid of having not an idea, because but you, if you have the confidence that it will once come, and you have the feeling that you can trust on your intuition. Those are good things. Yeah, it's fascinating. It kind of reminds me of sort of get comfortable with the uncomfortable and be happy or be happy with a beginner's mindset. And I love, yeah, I do love that you often find there's beauty and imperfection. You seem to be an expert at doing that. And I hope that you carry on finding these these beauties and all these wonderful imperfections that we have in the world for many years to come. And thank you for finding them in there. Thank you so much for taking the time. If you anyone listening, please do go check out Eric's website. He's got a brilliant website. You can find lots of his creative work. You can also find links to all of your fantastic books as well. It's just EricKessels.com. Google search will get you there very quickly. But yeah, Eric, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate your time. And yeah, have a good one.