Spark Off – Episode 6 – Mason

INTRO
Hello and welcome to Spark Off. Get ready to supercharge your creativity with our new podcast where we have chilled out conversations with the awesome team who bring you alive with ideas.
I’m Zoe Hansen, the podcast lady, here to spark off the stories they share and to give us the stories in this episode, Mason Lattaer, who’s a graphic designer at Alive with Ideas.

But you’re not just that, are you? – No, I guess a bit of a jack of all trades, really. Cover things like print design, web motion. Yeah, try to dabble in a bit of everything,
really. – What’s your favourite out of all of those? – That’s a question. Yeah, I don’t know if that will anger a few people, (laughing) a few other teams.
I started off in print and since joining Alive, that’s where I’ve kind of broadened things and been brought to the dark side, I guess, a little motion design. – Okay. – So I enjoy motion.
I enjoy all the things. I like having that sort of, like being able to do across the board really, work across the board. – And now everybody is happy with that answer,
so. – And now everyone’s happy, yeah. – Now, I wanna know what you would like to sponsor this episode. It’s your episode, you can sponsor it by anything at all.
– My choice is spontaneous purchases. – Okay, that’s a good one. – I just think it brings you so much joy. Just buying stuff that you see online and then it arriving at your door.
– Maybe it doesn’t bring your partner so much joy, right? – Well, actually the biggest spontaneous purchase was probably our puppy. And I mean, they say puppies aren’t for Christmas, but it was a birthday present.
– Right. – We’ve been meaning to buy a puppy. We’re both dog people. – Okay. – And yeah, we’ve been meaning to get one, but just maybe not quite this early. – Okay. – And she kept on sending me pictures of puppies and it’s like,
right, we’re either gonna buy this puppy or you’re gonna stop. – Okay. – Two days later. We’ve bought a puppy. – Oh wow. – Yeah. – So what have you got? – Sprocket Spaniel. – Oh wow. – Stanley.
– Oh, love it. What’s been your favourite, you know, the thing that’s gonna be delivered the next day or 10 days time or whatever, What’s the thing that got you most excited?
Spontaneous purchase? – It’s always the latest purchase because that’s what I get obsessed with. And I guess I’ve bought a new watch, I’ve bought a new Garmin to track my runs.
And yeah, I just love it. I try to save the things I want, but the spontaneous things are the interim purchases really. So just to keep me ticking along. And so,
yeah, no, I don’t buy too often, but they’re usually big purchases, that’s what I do. – We’re not gonna see a video of Mason unboxing a lube brush any time soon.
– No, no, I don’t get excited. – All spontaneous purchase. – Yeah, no, I’m not one of these people that falls into that TikTok trap of buying all the sorts of things, although now my fiance does, and dog toys,
they just keep coming. (upbeat music) – So, So, Sparkoff is all about creativity and passion, and what sort of fires up your passion.
So, what fuels your creativity, Mason? I guess it’s been thinking about this, but it’s always been that sort of strife of perfection. I guess it’s that fine level of detail that I get obsessed with,
And it’s sort of to fulfill a level of satisfaction in everything that I do, and for me, and that’s the sort of thing that I can never give up work if I’m not proud of it.
So yeah, and I’ve always been that way. And I think it comes with some positives and some negatives. I guess the positives is being proud of things that you work for and the work things that you do,
but it does come with that sort of sometimes negativity of you sort of being quite critical of your work and stuff. – Probably too critical. – Probably too critical in places,
’cause but I think that’s, that’s I’ve started, I’ve been with Alive now four years, I think, and I started with, during my university, I found them for a placement.
So there’s still sort of early days in design career, and I guess that sort of development from like learning to sort of let go, collaborate and share and stuff like that. And the things that you do are very creative,
but like just not getting it, don’t get it to the end stage before sharing like share earlier. And that’s that sort of understanding has sort of developed over time, but definitely to start with that’s where it stemmed from.
So, what sparks you, Mason? What ignites you? What makes you go, “Aha! Yes! Oh, gosh, yeah, I feel great.” It’s probably quite a classic answer,
but just good design. Like, things like a bar menu, like wayfinding signage in a building. Like, it can be anything. Like,
literally, everything’s designed. Someone’s garden. like it’s just I guess as a designer you spot those sorts of things like balance and hierarchy and things and you just think oh that looks that looks great but I guess it’s those sorts of things and just the appreciation of good design because I think good design in general is supposed to slip under the radar okay design is supposed to communicate something yeah and if
it does that in the way of sort of resistance, then that– – Then you’ve done your job, right? – You’ve done your job, right? And I think, yeah, just that appreciation of good design, really. – What was the last thing that you saw and you thought that design is spot on?
– I think it probably is that a bar menu or something, ’cause I love a pub, I’m always at pubs. And yeah, just a nice menu, laid out nicely,
something that invites you to – Really, really, it treats you to that big roast in or something that’s standing out right in their special display menu or something like that.
Yeah, really wants you to have that biggest roast they’ve got going, and I fall for it. – Yeah, right, right, I can hear it in your voice. So, have you always been a designer?
Do you remember being a kid and designing things or changing things around in rooms and stuff like that? Yeah, absolutely. I think changing things around in rooms is take the box straight away.
Like, I always have to have a new layout of something and just get bored of things. You know, you’ve got to change it up and stuff. So, yeah, bed one corner, bed next corner next week, it’s got to be done.
But like my parents sort of instilled in me that sort of creativity and sort of do it yourself type vibe. And if we’re going to build something, or if we want something,
you’re going to build it. So you’ve got to create yourself, you’ve got to come up with the idea, and they were very good. They’ve supported me an awful lot when these master plans and product designers studied and decided,
yeah, well, I’m going to build a center console piece for a car. And yeah, we had a defender at the time and just completely rearranged the inside of the car,
created this whole centre console thing. And like I say, they support to be the whole way. Are your parents quite creative as well? I guess so. Yeah, I mean,
both grew up in mid Wales and kind of like there wasn’t exactly much around at the time. Dad was on a farm and so yeah, things like building and stuff and sort of building sheds and everything.
He’s done that from a young age. So yeah, anything that we wanted, we build. – It’s quite amazing, actually, how much you learn from your folks and the environment that you grow up in,
isn’t it? Like you say, the DIY thing, it’s okay, I can do it myself and there’s gotta be a way. It’s all right, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna make this. łą Wanna Wanna Wanna Joining Wanna press Wanna Wanna of Wanna Wanna UA illes uckles nuts illes Wanna Wanna Add uckles 合 of uckles ッ Wanna press press one uckles illes uckle was Wanna łą press press press uckle Wanna press press press – They’re wardrobes,
well, if we’re gonna build them, I’m gonna build it built in. I want the skirting board run around everything, coving across the top type thing, lift the wardrobes up, they go, it’ll fit perfectly. When I measure it to a T, and that’s that sort of level of satisfaction,
really. You stand back once it’s done, you’re like, “Yeah, that fits really well, doesn’t it?” It’s just that. – Did it, though? – Oh, it did. – Oh, and it did fit, – That’s amazing, well done,
you. – I carried my frame up and down stairs several times to make sure it fits, cutting things out. Yeah, no, millimetres has to be done. – So that’s at home. What ignites your passion?
What gets your fire in your belly going when you’re at work? – I guess it is, I work across, like I said, like multiple different design fields. And I think it’s that just sort of I like exploring different ways to come up with things or different ways to answer a brief.
And yeah, just being able to work across those different fields gives me the ability to sort of just come up with something that’s completely different. And pick out something that’s absolutely right.
Tell us about a piece of work that you’re really proud of that you’ve got the brief and you said, right, Okay, this is how we’re going to tackle this. – When one of the clients came to us and they sort of wanted a way to display sort of quotes from their team and they were open to options and that’s always the best clients when they’re sort of coming to you for the answer rather than wanting you to design
something they’ve asked for basically. One of those things was basically come up with an exploration board and there was all sorts of things like hanging cards and stuff. They wanted something a bit different really, something to stand out and in the end we settled on a big 3D sculpture type thing.
It was spinning, it was almost like the Knecht 4 type thing but like the blocks and there was a sort of spin and yeah I came up with all of that, yeah got in touch with someone that could make it and yeah and there it is.
Amazing, And you go down there and you feel a sense of pride. Is there anything that comes in on a brief and you think, oh gosh,
really? – I guess that’s that. Just when it’s this sort of same old, same old stuff that people just want to bash out, it’s stuff that needs to be done. But I guess as a designer,
you always want to find a way to make it different, to make it unique and make it stand out, even if it is that same old, same old. It’s got to stand out, it’s got to answer the brief, and it’s got to make a difference and communicate something at the end of the day.
– Absolutely, and if it does communicate, then you’ve solved the problem, haven’t you? – And if you can do it in a way that brings you joy through the process, then there we go, all the better.
– Yeah, great. So, you’re an onion, we’re all onions, right? We’re going to back to the layers. What are the layers of you, Mason,
that translate into your work? When I’d sort of started my design career, I guess, I was in A level and I went for the sort of product design background,
quite mathematical. As well as with A levels, I picked up further maths, maths, physics. I don’t know who I thought I was really, doing physics. I absolutely went,
that failed. That was not a good start. But yeah, I guess it is that sort of the building things, the product design background, that sort of mathematical bit that sort of started my interest in design.
And I wanted to go on with the idea of becoming an automotive designer. I love cars, as they say, but I’ll send a console piece and one and stuff. So,
yeah, I really, really sort of wanted to go down that route and fade in physics didn’t quite get me a UCAS points to get me into the graphic design course or a design course at university.
So I went for the foundation art and design instead. Again, maybe me have to overcomplicate things. I’ve got to do a university can’t do a local one. I’ve got to go away. Everyone’s going away to uni.
I’ll go do that one. But to be honest, that was really what I have to thank for that to go in for an art and design foundation, just exploring all different areas of design and just art in general.
And I guess that’s what made me want to work across multiple fields. I was able to experience everything there from fine art, not amazing at fine art,
but experience everything, all different types of design and then from that I got to sort of pick and choose and graphics was the one that sort of it wasn’t tunnel vision into one specific area of design like you can cross into things like print web motion like you have that that ability to do that and that’s what I enjoyed so that’s what I went for in the end.
So they are then, right? So from going from wanting to design cars to this, yeah, it’s quite a big sort of leap,
I suppose. Do you miss the maths and the physics? Well, it’s just there’s still a lot of maths in design in general. And I think there’s quite a few times where people have sort of come to me,
I guess, to work something out in maths alive. And, but yeah, I think working out sizes of things and stuff, like mass has definitely helped massively. Exactly, exactly working on those sort of sculptures and stuff.
I like to present it in a way as well and sort of build it slightly to show the client what they’re going to get and that sort of precision and wanting it to sort of be perfect to be able to share as well comes back to that.
And I guess product design has given me a bit of a background in things like 3D design and 3D rendering and everything like that. So that’s sort of crept into a few projects as well,
just naturally. It sounds like you sort of know what you want to do and you always have. Is that fair to say or not? It’s always been design and something like that,
something creative. But have you faced challenges along the way? Definitely. And I think The biggest challenge I think I’ve probably faced is coming from university and going into industry and the sort of difference in the design work,
actually working for a client. You’ve got budgets, timescales and everything that are properly catching up with you and you’ve got the speed of design, I guess, that you’ve got to put out there.
Some days you’re creating things every other day you’re creating a new design and that initially when you come from university and you’ve got three projects maybe on for the whole term you you’ve got a switch you’ve got a design quicker and initially that probably I think it’s that sort of perfectionism it comes back to that and I wasn’t I didn’t want to share my work until it was done yeah and you don’t feel like
it’s completely finished until it’s absolutely perfect and at some point you’ve got to go okay sod it and send right? Exactly but I guess yeah using as much time as I could at the start but then you just you learn so much more from from sharing early and and just let the collaboration and and utilizing the team and just sharing your work with everyone,
it always is better at the end. The end result is much better than probably what you could have done on your own. – And actually, even bringing a client in and saying, “Okay, this is why I’ve done this,” then putting their spin on it,
or, “Yeah, I love it. “Let’s go down this route.” Or, “Mason, yes, off you go. “You’ve got free reign.” That must be quite sort of alien coming straight out of uni.
– Yeah, ’cause Obviously, you kind of got set briefs, a couple were a bit more open, but yeah, when clients come, I mean, they are the best projects to be able to, a client comes and says,
“Look, we want you to design X, but you can do it how you want,” and they are the best really. But sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of direction, because like you say, if you’re churning out designs day in,
day out, then sometimes you need, you want a quicker design, you want something that’s a bit more like to the point. What’s your favourite piece of work with Alive with Ideas?
I think there’s probably a few sort of favourite projects to pick from and Captain Poo, one of the NHS animations, that really does stand out and it’s not every day you get to animate a poo running across the screen is it?
And – Just the joys that that brought, it was great fun. – Every teenage boys like face lights up, you want me to do what?
– Yeah, exactly. – Yeah, I can do that, no worries. – Exactly. I was well up for getting involved in that project. – Any others? – Yeah, so, I mean– – We can’t just stick with that one,
right? – No, we’ve gotta move on. We Live did a project that was based on Zombie Vusters, which was all about a disengaged workforce and how they sucked the life out of an organization and how you could breathe life back in.
But just the project, it was filming, we fully filmed it ourselves and got a team in and stuff. And it was just great fun, like people from Alive that us from the studio and everyone from the team sort of just got involved,
got all dressed up in zombie outfits and everything, all makeup and everything and filmed this thing. And it was such a great experience. And editing it at the end, it’s just all the sort of zombie noises that you get to put in and everything.
It was really good fun. – And so was that for a specific company or? – That was for us. – Oh, that was for you? – For a live. – Right, – Brilliant. – If you haven’t seen it, definitely go check it out. – I love this,
the zombie busters. And give us one more example. – I also like coming from that sort of, like being aligned and being like sort of perfectionist. I’d really like just in general reports as well.
Just doing things like annual reports and everything and just getting a nice spread or a nice layout or something. So I guess not a project in particular, but that style of projects I really enjoy.
– And people must really appreciate that because, you know, look, they’re fairly dull. You know, the annual report is fairly dull, but making that come alive a little bit.
Yeah, I can see in your eyes, it’s pretty satisfying. – Yeah, it’s spicing up a nice layout and working it out and trying to get all the images in and everything. And that’s one of those things.
If people, if you if you get a nice brand guidelines to work with as well and you can sort of push the boundaries of it a bit, then, yeah, no, it’s just really fun, just sorting out all the different layouts and I have to make everything nice and aligned and you can take your time on that and just get the alignment all perfect,
running across the spreads, just, yeah, it’s great. – I love your face when you’re talking about these things. But what do you think on brand guidelines. How important is it to have that kind of thing,
to know exactly what your brand is, stands for and all the rest of it? – I think with brand guidelines, sometimes you do have to take from the pinch of salt.
They’re there to guide you at the end of the day and to guide the designs to make sure that they look on brand. But within that, and like With Alive, we work in a lot of internal communications,
so we’re not necessarily always forward -facing of the brand. It’s more maybe to the employees and to the team, and there you get to push those boundaries a bit further.
So I think I quite like that with Alive, and working with those brand guidelines as a guide, but pushing them as far as you can, and then sometimes the client goes, “Wait a minute. let’s run this back in.
But then if you push it as far as you can go and you can bring it back and back and back until they’re happy with it, that’s better than sort of under delivering. And I bet there’s a lot of clients that will say,
“Oh, no, no, no. That’s brilliant. I love it.” Yeah, when you get that tick in the box and you’ve done the design that you’re really proud of and that you’ve put to them because you think that answers the brief and you’ve really enjoyed doing it,
then, yeah, now that’s really enjoyable. What are your passions away from work and do they do they feed your creativity? Absolutely.
It’s the DIY with recently buying that new house, the full Renault project, I guess sort of passion away from work has become that. It’s become like you literally when you have spare time when you have the weekend,
that’s what you’re working on. But I do enjoy that. I like building things, but I have so many “I’ve got to do that,
and I’ve got to do that, “and I want to do that, and I want to do that.” – It’s definitely that, and it’s just thinking, like in my head, it’s like, how am I gonna do that? Because I’m not gonna do anything straightforward.
I built a porch canopy to go over the door, and the old one was just horrendous and falling down, and it was like, okay, I could just replace it,
and just build one measure it up you know jobs are good but no I have to do I have to get a bit all out I have to build something a bit crazy I guess and this thing weighed an absolute tonne by the time we’re trying to get it on the wall and honestly my dad and I were up a ladder thing falling off the wall of fiance’s on another ladder trying to hammer some bolts into the wall and everything we were wondering
is this thing going to fall off there’s going to be a crash in the middle of the night there’s a There is an audience. There is people watching and all these houses have big windows, so yeah,
everyone’s at the window watching, waiting for that moment. £250 from you being framed, right? Yeah, well there we go. Always a bonus. So you’ve talked about the house.
Is there anything else that you do? Like, what do you do to get away from the house as well? I run far away. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. It’s far away as possible. Now,
I really enjoyed running and I’d like to get that and get into the outdoors. Like I mentioned, Mifonsi and I just love going on long walks to whether that be like Snowden and Wales,
like across up the hills, mountains and stuff. We love walking. And yeah, I think it’s just something about it, just being, I guess, free and sort of, yeah, just away from the complexity of just normal life.
– Yeah. Somebody said to me when you go running, go towards the blue and the green. So the water and the trees, right? And actually, there’s something in that. There’s something in that,
it’s just grounding you. – It really is, yeah. – Do you become quite creative on your runs as well? – Yeah, you definitely work things out, that’s for sure. Unless you’re worried about how fast you’re running,
you’re watching your pace and stuff. – Well, – Well, that’s when the maths comes in, yeah. – It’s when the maths comes in, that’s when my spontaneous purchase new watch does all for me now, there you go. – Right. – Happy days. But yeah,
definitely running, you can just sort of clear your mind and just if there’s something that you’ve been thinking of and you wanna work it out, I’ll go for a run or a walk and just take some time out really. Just to think about it and let it over,
then there’s nothing else sort of going on in your head as soon as you come home, you’re like, oh, there’s another room to sort out now. – Yeah. – But yeah, just taking that time really, take that time out for yourself.
– So what I’ve got in my head is, this is Mason’s life, right? At work, designing, at home, building. – Yep. – Outrunning, that’s it,
right? – Yeah, pretty much. And then in between that is taking the dog for a walk. So there you go, it’s pretty much my life in the show. – Another spontaneous purchase, wonderful. This might sound like a bit of a strange question,
bit of a curveball, but what’s your strongest belief? Do you think that you need to believe in something to be creative as well? – I don’t have any sort of strongest beliefs,
but when thinking about it in sort of design terms, there’s a lot of talk about things like generative AI coming in and will that take all our jobs, basically as a designer.
And me, I like to work across all things and anything new I like to learn. So I’ve definitely watched it come into this space. And I guess I’ve learned to use it as a tool to aid your work in things like,
for example, if you want to extend a photo, it’s great and it really can help you, although I have had sometimes where it’s properly messed up, like extending a picture which had a load of rocks in it,
and it’s decided it’s a perfect spot for a stack of pancakes, like something that is completely random, golden syrup and all, like everything,
and it was like, how have you come up with that? I do not know, but Definitely, yeah. I think it’s got its place, AI. It’s definitely going to be a tool that can be used and honed by designers.
But at the end of the day, I think you’re still going to need a designer that’s going to be able to spot those things like that stack of pancakes and be like, that’s not really answering the brief, is it? Let’s move on.
Let’s do something different here. What do you think the future of AI is in the design world? I think for a designer it will make it you can save time like by doing it like you can use things like chat gpt it can come up with copy and you can just put a sort of placeholder text in but it’ll come up with something that’s maybe a bit more sort of unique based on what you’re asking it for and it will definitely
be able to use it for like quick things like image extensions like I was saying but I think the challenge becomes when people like clients and stuff are thinking,
well, look, I can come up with this too. Like doing it, I can find this copy on on -chat GPT too, but just not understanding that actually this needs, it needs, still needs to be designed. It still needs to be put in place and it comes back to that sort of balance hierarchy,
that good design. And as a designer, that’s instilled in you. You’ve learned that, how to create that. And yeah, so it’s just sort of, I guess educating people that aren’t designers,
you’re still gonna need a designer to sort that out for you, even though it’s giving you X, Y and Z. – Now Mason, if you were gonna do a TED talk, what would it be about and why?
– My TED talk would have to be about the benefits of just giving something a go. – Okay. – Just learning new skills for yourself. If you see something as a challenge,
then that’s the time to give it a go yourself really. And just sort of, like you can do a lot more than you think you can do. And these things, I mean, coming back to renovation, like my fiance’s just suddenly decided she wants to put new plug sockets everywhere. So she’s become an electrician. – Amazing. – So she’s just gone for it. And I think that it’s things like that.
If a lot of people would be scared to give it a go and do that. But okay, it’s going to take longer. And okay, you’re going to have to sit there, learn about it,
sometimes some risk involved, electrics, you know. I’m worried now. Yeah, but I think don’t just want to YouTube video. Well, they’re very good.
They do teach you a lot. But if it all goes wrong, bring in a professional. So, at the end of the day, give it a go and then you’ve got back up if you need. Don’t let her do the gas,okay? No, the gas we didn’t touch. We went straight for the professional with that one. New boiler. Yeah, no, we’re not touching that flood in the house and filling it with gas. It’s probably not the one.
That was brilliant. Thank you so much, Mason, for letting us know all about your creativity and where it comes from.

OUTRO
For all things strategy, content, creativity and workshops, Alive with Ideas is in your corner. So check out their website and follow Alive with Ideas on LinkedIn to find out more. Make sure that you subscribe to this Spark Off podcast and thank you so much for listening.