SIMON SCHWAIGHOFER
Simon is Creative Director at Red Bull Creative, Austria - the brand's in-house agency. He attended an agricultural school “where you learn everything from milking cows to chucking the dung out of the pig shed”.
Image: Simon Schwaighofer
“At 19 I thought ‘that can't be it?’ and I started again from scratch at the HTL1 for Graphic-Design in Linz, Austria. I was lucky I had good teachers who taught me a lot so I had a good start to my creative career.”
The first thing I do in my day is...
Take my scribble book and sketch what I have in my mind.
At the moment I am working on...
A campaign to encourage pensioners to enrol for courses at the University in Salzburg. We do a crossword puzzle campaign in newspapers because there we can reach our target group. It is important to pull down boundaries for people who never thought about going to University at the age of 55+ so the crossword has clues like "Organ of students which suffers most" - which is of course the liver.
The best piece of creative work around at the moment is...
The campaign "Visualizing Palestine" which tries to show drawbacks in a very cool and unemotional way. The campaign uses pictograms and typography to make the drawback to a hard fact. So the problems of the Palestinians can get discussed better and it makes it easier for all parties to solve it.
I am inspired by...
Good discussions with interesting people who I try to meet up with in my neighbourhood.
This year I’ll be attending...
Golden Drum Festival in Portorož, Slovenia CCA Venus in Vienna, Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Biennale Arte in Venice and the Schmiede Hallein in Austria.
The next big thing in advertising is going to be...
Advertising which doesn't look like advertising anymore I suppose. I think that advertising will be structured or seen like an entertainment product in the future and not as just a commercial or ad.
The advertising work I wish I had thought of is...
A very old ad from Volvo where you see a safety pin in the shape of the car. The ad instantly conveys everything the brand stands for that's great.
In a film about my life, I’d like to be played by...
Quentin Tarantino.
My last social media update said...
“Shut down the computer and let's go out for some beers.”
My dream collaboration is...
If a handicraft business and a creative person worked together to develop a new product which is relevant in our time.
In up and coming talent, I look for...
A creative person who has the ambition to push the limits.
A piece of criticism I’ve received was...
That I shouldn't do everything by myself and to get more people into the project to increase the quality and push team spirit.
The last song I listened to was...
"Counting Sheep" from Klumzy Tung.
Image: Volvo (1996) "A car you can believe in" by Dentsu, Tokyo, appeared in Archive Vol. 4/1996
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