Matt Pyke

Matt Pyke came all the way from Lovely Sheffield (is it me or does everybody seem to come from Sheffield these days?)
to give us a talk about himself and his company, Universal Everything.
Before the presentation myself and a few other lucky D&AD students got a chance to meet with him first to get a sort of pre-talk talk.
He spoke to us a little about himself but kept it brief knowing we were going to be going over the same things later that same afternoon.
Instead the floor was more open for us to ask him questions. David Crowe opened the floodgates by asking him about his methods. This turned out to be the most interesting thing that Matt Pyke had to say all day (that isn't supposed to sound as negative as it does, he was actually a lovely chap). I really did enjoy Matt's methods, his ideas all stem from a single sketch he will doodle on the closest piece of paper or tissue and it all goes from there.
While Matt rarely creates the final pieces himself it is his ideas which make Universal Everything the broad and talented agency it is.
My favourite work of the day was the Nokia commissioned "Beautiful Connections" piece which saw a load of black and white balls being attracted to the colourful ones. While the work itself was nice, it was the story of its creation which really inspired me. Apparently, the balls were an idea Matt had scribbled on piece of paper which he then commissioned a 16 year old Serbian boy, that he discovered on the internet, to actually make! The soundtrack was also an opera singer's audible response to the piece when it was played to her.

Matt Pyke's ideas are the foundation of the aptly named Universal Everything. Each piece of work the company produces seems to involve at least a dozen different people every time.