Industry Profile: Damon Stapleton

Posted on 25. Feb, 2010 by admin in Personality Profiles

Executive Creative Director of TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris

• What’s a typical workday for you?

Very funny.

• What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?

The plastic sleeves

• How do you handle work stresses?

Deep meditation and binge drinking. It’s called balance.

• What has been your biggest professional challenge?

Stepping up to the challenge of running a legendary agency

• What is your No 1 industry peeve?

The pettiness. And those who expect it all on a silver platter

• What are the favorite brands that you cannot live without?

Apple and Omega (I collect watches)

• How do you relax?

Slowly

• What’s your chosen way to communicate with family and friends, (mobile, social networking pages like Facebook, Skype, emails, fixed lined telephone)?

sms, e-mails, bit of Facebook, cellphone

• What’s a favorite local holiday destination?

Anywhere with Big ocean and small talk.

• What’s your idea of a relaxing Sunday morning?

My kids waking up after 6am

• Which are your favorite must-have printed media titles?

Vanity Fair, Men’s Health, Farmers Weekly and Rooi Rose (o.k. just the first two)

• Do you have a favorite online site?

Postsecret.com and theonion.com

• What’s your best dining out venue?

Tsunami and Assagi

 

Industry profile: Jason Levin

Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by admin in Personality Profiles

 
Managing Director, HDI Youth Marketeers

 
Following a B.Com Hons in Marketing and a false start in the financial services sector, Jason followed his heart into advertising as a strategist at the Financial Mail’s 1998 Emerging Agency of the Year, tool®. Later that year, he took on the MD’ship and assisted in re-defining the offering in the purely digital (internet and multimedia) space. He re-aligned the company to TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, and re-launched it as Digerati, in 2000. After six exciting years working with large South African and international brands; numerous awards and the launch of the first major digital art exhibition, he returned to his first love: strategic marketing as a brand consultant with TBWA\’s consulting company: The Disruption Consultancy. In April 2008, Jason was lured over to HDI Youth Marketeers as their new MD where he now spends his time understanding what makes young South Africans tick.

• What’s a typical workday for you?

9am-9pm with lots of action. Working with a tight-knit team in Joburg and a satellite team in Nigeria, over 20 cool clients and loads of kids, teens and young adults who are our market. Pace. Fun!

• What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?

The creative thought and idea generation involved, and the dynamism of 3-23 year olds as a market.

• How do you handle work stresses?

Pulling good people into a collaborative environment to help solve things, there’s always a way…and chatting to kids – they are great at grounding us, adding perspective and generating a smile.

• What has been your biggest professional challenge?

Creating shared belief, work ethic and passion in people. There have been some blow-by-blow skull-cracking incidents over the years, but if you have a dedicated, gung-ho team and good relationships, everything’s manageable.

• What is your No 1 industry peeve?

One that is fast-changing, but the notion that execution should be paid for, but insight-fueled invention should be free (or at least cheap).

• What are the favorite brands that you cannot live without?

Guess, CAR, Issey Miyaki, Levi’s, Lindt…(and a car-watch-shoe brand cluster too big to roll out here).

• How do you relax?

Movies, skiing, travel, rap jumping, gymnastics and lots of tea (oddly).

• What’s your chosen way to communicate with family and friends, (mobile, social networking pages like Facebook, Skype, emails, fixed lined telephone)?

I’m pretty old school actually: e-mail and SMS, and only small doses of phone and SNS…almost never Faceballs if I can help it.

• What’s a favorite local holiday destination?

The KZN North Coast – good weather, great beaches, an ocean that you can stay in for more than 23 seconds…

• What’s your idea of a relaxing Sunday morning?

Weekend papers, car wash, sunshine, good brunch, sunshine, drop-top, sunshine, movies.

• Which are your favorite must-have printed media titles?

CAR Magazine, The Times, Sunday Times (most of the business and trade media I read online).

• Do you have a favorite online site?

Top 8 okay? Google (everyone’s?), TimesLive, IOL, BizCommunity, Wikipedia, AutoTrader for car drool and IMDB and M&G for movie trivia and entertainment reviews.

• What’s your best dining out venue?

Sugo in Partktown North (Joburg) is my ‘local’, Cnr. Café as the perfect brunch spot, and Roots at Forum Homini for special occasions. There are a lot more great places in Durbs and Cape Town though.

 

Industry profile: Megan Coquelle

Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

 
 
 
Megan Coquelle
Lindt – National Brand Manager

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
• What’s a typical workday for you?

Lots of e-mail, lots of running around and meetings and of course lots of taste testing

• What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?

Firstly, the brand LINDT. I am lucky to work for such a fantastic brand that I truly believe in – it makes my job so much more enjoyable. I enjoy the strategizing part the most.



• How do you handle work stresses?

Deep breaths in the office and a long run after work. If I have had a stressful day, I find exercise the best stress reliever. A glass of ice cold white wine also does the trick.

• What has been your biggest professional challenge?

Always ensuring that the brand is one step ahead of the competitors especially in this volatile economic environment.

• What is your No 1 industry peeve?

The misunderstanding in business that marketing is all fluffy and pretty and up in the clouds.

• What are the favorite brands that you cannot live without?

Lindt of course. Woolies food, Dermalogica, and Vida coffee.

• How do you relax?

A glass of wine in the evenings with a good book or magazine after the kids have gone to sleep.

• What’s your chosen way to communicate with family and friends, (mobile, social networking pages like Facebook, Skype, emails, fixed lined telephone)?

E-mail as I am always on it and my mobile.

• What’s a favorite local holiday destination?

The Seychelles for a relaxing week in the sun.

 

Industry Profile – Tholoana Qhobela

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Name: Tholoana Qhobela
Company: The Jupiter Drawing Room Johannesburg
Title: Executive Business Strategist

What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?
Seeing a strategy come to fruition in exactly the way we planned

Where did you go for the summer holidays?
Stay right here in Jozi. It’s the best time of year to enjoy the city.

Describe your home environment briefly.
Quiet, private, hidden. My sanctuary.

Are you more of a TV/Radio or DVD person? Favourites?
All three. I have a few TV programs I follow. The radio is always on and DVDs are biased to current affairs / social affairs documentaries and for leisure, I am a sucker for BBC drama

My Favourite DVD’s / movies ….
My favorite DVD is Control Room, a documentary about the media management of the Iraq war and my all time favorite movie is The Godfather Trilogy

We live in a brand conscious society. How do you feel about that? Are you a labels or off-the-peg person?
I am ambivalent about us being a brand conscious society: my career depends on it, but the sociologist in me sometimes finds it hard to do what we got to do!
On a personal note, I am hyper aware of how brands are created so I tend to be off the peg. In fact, the more popular the label, the more likely I am to by pass it! Money does not buy taste.

What’s your Sunday morning read?
The Weekender, The Citizen, The Sunday Times, The Mail and Guardian

Which are your favourite magazines or must-buy mags of the month?
I am still looking for a magazine that is relevant to my lifestyle and life stage

Favourite on-line site?
Huffingtonpost.com

Your South African hero/oine?
The mamas (and papas!) that are unnamed that go to work for little reward, sometimes bringing up other people’s children, but invest everything in their kids so they don’t have to live the same life as they have.

Best dining out venue?
Anywhere that I can still smoke

No 1-industry peeve?
Forgetting that some of the good old media is what the majority of the country consumes – we seem to think that it isn’t all that good no more and the ‘sexy’ new media is the only way

Best all time local destination?
My family home in the highlands of Lesotho

 

Green Architect: Luyanda Mpahlwa

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Designing the future

Luyanda Mpahlwa has travelled a great deal since his birth in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. His personal and professional journey has confronted ideologies, crossed continents and spanned diverse creative visions of people within spaces. Regarded as “inspirational” by his peers, his architectural ideas reflect a clarity of vision that meld economic imperatives with social transformation and a desire to contribute to the development of South Africa in his chosen field. All the work that he has been involved in demonstrates a strong commitment to ensuring that the architectural projects reflect the country’s diversity of cultural experience in the processes, materials and designs.

Luyanda Mpahlwa is the founder member of mma’s Cape Town Studio, an architectural company identified with innovative and home-grown design solutions. This softly spoken man’s overt gentleness belies a strength of character that has resulted in a career loaded with accolades. After a 12year partnership at mma, Luyanda is now in the process of launching a new Architectural brand: Luyanda Mpahlwa DesignSpaceAfrica (Pty) Ltd – to be celebrated later in the year.

So what motivated the decision for a young Black man from Mthatha to study architecture at a time when just owning a home for most African people was an impossible dream?

“Apartheid was oppressive but also created opportunities at the same time! I was fortunate to be guided by my parents who encouraged me to pursue engineering courses at University level. My father was of the view that therein lay the key skills to drive the economy of the country, and my mother remembered that I liked drawing houses on my slate as a child! Since Architecture and Engineering were not allowed for Black students under Apartheid, that actually encouraged me to study exactly that and I sought all the permission required from Government at the time, to achieve that! I do not regret the decision and the guidance I received.”

In the late 70’s, Luyanda studied architecture at the University of Natal and Natal Technikon before being imprisoned for 5 years for anti-apartheid political activities in 1981. After his release from Robben Island in 1986, he went into exile to Germany and completed his M.Sc/Dipl.-Ing. in architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. For the next 14 years, Germany was home, where he witnessed the fall of the Berlin wall and the relocation of its capital from Bonn. In 2000, Luyanda returned to SA because he “had always cherished the idea of returning home from exile, and contributing towards the rebuilding of the country living under the democracy I had sacrificed my youth for. I also felt a sense of personal achievement to see the peace and the progress the country was making post the 1994 elections. At that time, I had made sure I was back home, in Mthatha and felt part of the historic moment.”

Since then he has worked on a series of projects that have allowed him to translate his notions of creating spaces for people that affirmed their cultures, traditions and creativity. Luyanda was the co-initiator of the South African Embassy project in Berlin, the first time that a major architectural commission was given to a Black company by the new South African government. This building was awarded the Award of Excellence by the South African Institute of Architects in 2003.

Whether designing a school, an embassy or urban spaces, his design ethos is people-centred. In a landscape of pseudo-European Tuscan Villas and Provencal design, the buildings and projects he has been involved stand out and reflect a South African –ness that is not a tacked-on crudity, but an essential and central aspect of the overall design. He describes his design ethos as wanting to “elevate African inspired design at all levels.”

Last year he received a Curry Stone Design Award from the University of Kentucky USA for the Design Indaba’s 10 x 10 low cost housing project where 10 local and international architects were paired with 10 families to build experimental homes on the government subsidy budget of R 50,000 in the township of Freedom Park, Mitchells Plein Cape Town. The project was also finalist in the prestigious 2009 INDEX Awards in Copehagen.

As creative director for the project, his winning design was inspired by traditional, low cost mud-and-wattle building techniques. Luyanda’s design team opted for the use of sandbags combined with a timber frame structure – EcoBeams – to build a double story house for the Jonker family. Cost effective, green friendly, architecturally creative, it was space for an impoverished family to live with dignity. Due to the success of the sandbag design, Luyanda was commissioned to build all 10 low cost houses in Freedom Park. No other architect had managed to fulfil the brief given by Design Indaba. These houses have now been completed and families moved in July 2009.

Luyanda is a busy man. Apart from running a 20 member design office, serving on a number of advisory committees, he currently serves as a technical advisor for the construction of all 10 stadiums for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

He is married and lives in Cape Town with his wife and children.

 

Nikki Rule – Chief Marketing Officer YUM! Restaurants Africa

Posted on 09. Oct, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Nikki Rule is busy. As if being YUM! Restaurants (KFC) International Chief Marketing Officer for Africa is not enough, this self-confessed caffeine addict runs for pleasure and also manages to design, build and renovate houses!

An effortless achiever of note, Durban-born Nikki was Head Girl at St Marys DSG in Kloof before simultaneously undertaking an In Service Hotel Management Diploma through Three Cities Hotels whilst completing a BComm degree through UNISA between 1992 and1995. With no slacking off time, Unilever became the site of a star-chasing trajectory though the ranks. Employed in 1996 as Assistant Brand Manager, she was appointed Brand Manager and finally Regional Sales Manager. With the turn of the millennium, Nikki’s rule continued. 2001 saw the beginning of another epic sprint through YUM! Restaurants International – filling the posts of Marketing and Senior Marketing Manager, Marketing Director to the post she currently occupies. She lists her greatest achievement as YUM won Marketing Organisation of the Year 2008.

• What’s a typical workday for you?

Kick start the day with a KFC am Cappuccino (I’m a much nicer person after some caffeine) A number of Jeep bonnet reviews with the team i.e. Marketing team (so that I stay in touch with the multitude of projects on the go at any time) peppered between conversations with Franchisees and other departments and finally some valuable scheduled thinking time!

• What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?

The ability to step change what you do constantly and supporting a great team that always strives to outperform their previous best. What can be more fun that having the ability to change peoples perceptions and behaviors?

 
• How do you handle work stresses?

I thrive on adrenalin, but still prefer caffeine to nicotine! Jogging and good friends always help put things into perspective. Stresses are just opportunities waiting to be uncovered.

 
 

• What has been your biggest professional challenge?

Morphing from being a great Leader to a great Coach

• What is your No 1 industry peeve?

Unsolicited e-mails – get me off those mailing lists !!!

• What are the favorite brands that you cannot live without?

Nike, Moet, Redken, MAC and Woolworths.


• How do you relax?

Golf, dinner parties and spending time with my fiancé’ Dean, friends & our two dogs Frank & Nigella. Designing & building houses, I’m constantly in a state of renovation or rebuilding.


• What’s your chosen way to communicate with family and friends, (mobile, social networking pages like Facebook, Skype, emails, fixed lined telephone)?

Mobile (always catch up with my Mom & Dad while driving home in the evening) & Facebook (great for the overseas friends & speaking to my nieces)

• What’s a favorite local holiday destination?

Plettenberg bay locally & Sydney internationally (love the food there !!!)

• What’s your idea of a relaxing Sunday morning?

Not too early morning jog with friends followed by breakfast afterwards at the closest coffee shop.


• Which are your favorite must-have printed media titles?

SA Homeowner, Food & Home & Sunday Times

• Do you have a favorite online site?

Not really

• What’s your best dining out venue?

Roots at Forum Homini for a special occasion – else Nice in Parkhurst for breakfast.

 

Mandie van der Spuy

Posted on 27. Aug, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Making Music with Mandie van der Spuy

Mandie van der Spuy’s name is synonymous with two of South Africa’s most iconic arts events: the National Arts Festival and the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz festivals. In her role as Head of Arts & Jazz Sponsorships with Standard Bank, she has worked actively towards mainstreaming the arts through its corporate social responsibility programmes.

Mandie is quick to point out that this is not a philanthropic venture by a key financial institution but rather a business investment in communities and sectors that reinforce the bank’s values and bottom line objectives. Be that as it may, a survey of her career is indicative of her dedication to the arts and over the years, she has been immersed in nurturing, developing and sustaining an immensely important aspect of a society.
What distinguishes Mandie’s work from many CSI managers is her very real knowledge of her sector, its dynamics, challenges and the creative spirits that make up this highly charged environment.

Her career started with the Market Theatre under the leadership of a theatre luminary Barney Simon. It was the beginning of a long relationship with some of South Africa’s foremost theatre spaces which also involved moving to Durban to take up the position of Head of Publicity and Public Relations at NAPAC during a particularly exciting time period that saw the birth of the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Loft Theatre Company. Later she joined PACT as the Head of Marketing and Publicity and when the Head of PACT Drama Lynette Marais took up the post of Festival Director for the National Arts Festival, Mandie herself assumed the reins.

Ironically, her next career move to Standard Bank continued another working relationship with Lynette since the bank was the naming sponsor. She admits that she is exceptionally blessed to be able to combine her abiding passion for the arts with a career. Receiving a Chevalier Award of the National Order of Merit in 2007 from the French government was unarguably the highlight of her long career in the arts and corporate social investment. It was bestowed on her for her promotion of cultural exchange between France and South Africa that resulted in a number of joint projects with the three major exhibitions of the paintings of Picasso, Chagall and Miro the crowning achievements.

An ardent Francophile, her relationship with France goes back a long way and she holds an Honours degree in French Literature, a post-graduate degree in Theatre Studies from UCT, as well as a Master’s degree in Theatre Literature from the Sorbonne University, Paris. Mandie loves to travel, go for long walks and read.

 

John Faia, Executive – Sponsorships at SAIL Sport & Entertainment

Posted on 27. Aug, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

• What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?

Every day is a challenge and the experience to work on so many different sponsorships with so many diverse people is invaluable. I love being part of a greater team that successfully delivers brand campaigns to the consumer through their passion for sport.

• Where did you go for the summer holidays?

Stayed at home, opened a coffee shop.

• Describe your home environment briefly.

Family, kids, fun, noise, energetic…. We live for our children and weekends where possible are mostly spent with family at home.

• Are you more of a TV/Radio or DVD person? Favourites?

Definitely TV/Radio, I like trying to keep up with current events. 702 Talk Radio and Enews. Enjoy watching CSI, House and yes even Grey’s Anatomy.

• My Favourite DVD’s / movies ….

Jerry Maguire
Saving Private Ryan
Pulp Fiction
Scent of a woman

• We live in a brand conscious society. How do you feel about that? Are you a labels or off-the-peg person?

Do we really have a say? I guess it’s all about choice and people choose brands for many different reasons. As long as we market products society will be brand conscious I do not see anything wrong with that.

I would say I am a bit of both, comfort to me comes first.

• What’s your Sunday morning read?

Sunday Times and Rapport…

• Which are your favourite magazines or must-buy mags of the
month?
Sports Illustrated

• Favourite on-line site?

My work server.

• Your South African hero/oine?

Nelson Mandela

• Best dining out venue?

Café Talk

• No 1-industry peeve?

No real irritations or annoyances. There is good and bad.

• Best all time local destination?

Kruger National Park

 

Christiaan Hattingh, award winning digital artist

Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Gita Pather talks to Christiaan about his work, its mediums and meaning …

• You are an engineer but have chosen to redirect your career into multimedia, interactive art and new design. What prompted such a radical change in career?

I am still earning most of my income from engineering. Making a good enough living from digital art in South Africa is generally reserved for those working in the advertising industry, and having done my time in that sector I have made a conscious choice to remain within the engineering field and to focus my art on innovation instead of pleasing the client. I am sure within a very limited niche the expectations of the client and creative innovation may co-exist, but it only happens very rarely in my experience.

 

• Generate-mutate-translate, the title of a work of yours could aptly describe the impulse of a lot of digital art. What did you want to convey with this exhibition/artwork?

I suppose this work is my most successful to date, even though it is quite different from most of my current projects where I focus a lot on real-time interaction. Generate-mutate-translate is a complex work with multiple layers of meaning and engagement, and I would say the title aims at conveying something about this complexity. Firstly, it alludes to a layering of meaning, but also more literally, to a layering of processes within the digital domain. It is not easy to describe a clear-cut intention with this work, quite simply because it has evolved so much from the initial development stages that my intentions had to be flexible enough to keep track of a process that sometimes acquires a life of its own. In short, I would say that for me the work is principally about the relationship between language (which could be simplified as a form of information exchange), the evolutionary process, and even life itself – these are key concepts for understanding the workings of the “information age”. As a subtext one of my intentions could be to reveal the principle of convergence (different types of information on a single channel, different devices merging to form one device, etc) and some of the idiosyncrasies that could result from this phenomenon in the digital domain.



• SA has a plethora of artistes working within multimedia and inter-disciplinary frameworks. What do you find exciting about the current artistic endeavors within these fields?

Quite honestly, in terms of my area of interest I am not too impressed with what I see in SA. Here I am referring mainly to what is shown in the fine art/contemporary art domain and not commercial design as such. By and large I think South African art is burdened by localised political concerns and expectations. Issues such as gender and race seem to be the main source of subject matter for many artists. My focus is definitely one of a more universal nature since I believe bigger issues are also at stake, like the global relationship between humans and technology.

Apart from content or subject matter, I also find that a lot of SA artists still use very “manual” techniques, even if they work digitally. Few venture into the domain of true generative and interactive art. Artificial intelligence, for example, is often imitated rather than actually applied within an artwork. Animators also still key, tween and spend hours on manually creating an animation in a very traditional way (even if it’s 3D). I am interested in animations produced spontaneously through generative techniques, or a sound input which is linked to a motion tracker drawing an unpredictable animation on the screen, for example. I draw inspiration from sites such as generatorx.no, vvvv.org, and theverymany.net, to name a few. Generative modes of art making are virtually non-existent in SA. That is also why I appreciate endeavors such as the WITS School of Digital Arts’ interactive program and the work that Nathaniel Stern did while he was around. In my involvement with part-time teaching at UNISA and UP I try to stir an interest in advanced digital media and some of the student work that has come out of this looks promising.

• For many traditionalists, creative digital manipulation is not art. In your opinion what are the criteria to judge great, innovative/groundbreaking/seminal art forms that use computers to create or display work?

Well, I think this debate is dying a slow death. In art history courses on “new media” art you are typically faced with a mourning of the loss of the crafted object, where the artist’s hand was in contact with the artwork and so forth, but I think a lot of these debates actually originate from a perspective that is not familiar with digital technology. It is a kind of fear of the unknown. With younger generations who are increasingly exposed to digital technology it becomes less of an issue and the medium is accepted more readily.

I don’t necessarily think the criteria for judging digital art are that different from traditional benchmarks. For me, in simple terms, it must be engaging – not only its initial impression, but also the layered meanings that draw you deeper into the work. The danger with screen-based work and digital installation is often that there’s a major wow-factor that’s initially registered. It may look unusual and engaging, but when you get into the work it turns out to be very shallow and disappointing, often actually quite lame.

• Advertising and marketing are still very traditional in its applications. However some agencies do push the envelope. What ad campaign would you single out as reflective of encompassing the vast potential of the virtual world, cyberspace, digital art, like animation and so forth?


Once again I will steer clear from the “traditional” digital. A lot of animation, video and such adhere to a tried and trusted narrative and linearity which is rarely challenged. One of the most interesting campaigns I can think of was part of a BMW expo of some kind in Spain: some links – dotdotdot.it/newdot/?p=399 and vimeo.com/626876. I think purely in terms of an engaging interactive form of advertising it is quite unique.

 

Steven Felmore – Senior Finished artist and illustrator

Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Steven Felmore – Senior Finished artist and illustrator for Berge Farrell

•    What’s a typical workday for you?
Arising at 6:30 and driving from Glencairn to Newlands. I work until around 6pm,  then drive home, then either making supper or playing guitar while Avril makes supper. After that I usually either work on a freelance illustration job, or I practise my classical guitar. It’s a very special Colin Cleveland 1985. I might help Avril with her CTAM (Cape Town Academy of Music) website, and on Mondays and Tuesday evenings I teach classic or electric guitar for the CTAM from 6:30 to 7:30.

•    What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?
Realistic oil-painting style illustration work.

•    Where would you go for the summer holidays?
Haven’t had a decent holiday for ages, but when I do, usually Hermanus.

•    Describe your home environment briefly.
It’s a wooden house on the mountain in Glencairn. We are surrounded by natural fynbos and it has inspired me to start a series of oil paintings. I am busy with number 4 so far. Avril plans to compose a series of guitar works based on my fynbos paintings.

•    Are you more of a TV/Radio or DVD person? Favourites?
We watch DVDs – I prefer action movies, Avril likes romance. But my best is to go to the cinema – it’s a psychological break from the stress of work.

•    We live in a brand conscious society. How do you feel about that?
I have a good consciousness of branding through my years in the business. I feel the importance of a strong brand identity cannot be denied especially given the current economic situation. Companies who allocate more budget to this and not less, will have the advantage over the “wait and see” companies. For example, in supermarkets consumers are reading ingredients copy on packaging and comparing quality with similar priced product as opposed to simply reaching for what they have always bought. With such a critical market the packaging design and marketing/advertising thereof is essential for survival and growth, and this is where I come in.

•    Are you a labels or off-the peg person?
I am definitely an off-the peg person. Clothes, provided it fits me and is good quality, do not have to have the “right” label – advertising in the clothing industry is aspirational and the quality is not always related to cost.

•    What’s your Sunday morning read?
I don’t read on a Sunday morning!

•    Which are your favourite magazines or must-buy magazines of the week?
I usually buy the car magazine, otherwise American artist and National geographic. I also like Scientific American.

•    Favourite online site?
www.avrilkinsey.com

•    South African hero/oine?
Mandela

•    Best dining out venue?
Dixie’s or Cattle Baron

•    No 1 industry peeve?
There is simply not enough money spent on good artwork. The emphasis is on speed and not quality. I am asked to do an oil painting for an illustration but it’s wanted tomorrow. So I use the digital equivalent, Painter on the Mac and I use a Wacom digitiser – but it’s simply not as good as a proper oil painting. My ideal would be to be commissioned like the old days – Howard Pyle who produced serious artworks for magazine covers – no chance of that these days…sorry to sound negative, but the question used the word “peeve”!