Ten questions with… Matthew Ockelford

1. What do you do? 

I’m a senior conceptual designer here at Zap. It’s my job to get under the skin of projects and offer inventive and original ways to develop them.

2. What’s your career highlight so far?

Helping grow Ugly Drinks into the sparkling water super-power that it is, was a huge highlight for me professionally. I also had some mad projects in a previous job as a junior, working with many brands in the entertainment industry.

3. Which brand excites you the most at the moment? (Doesn’t have to be one of ours!)

I love the look of &Soda, its fun, colourful and disruptive. Do I wish I had designed it – absolutely! I’m also a massive adidas fanboy, they literally can’t do wrong.

4. Who’s your favourite graphic artist?

James Martin (Instagram handle: made.by.james). The guy’s just a design wizard, I love his approach to both logo design as well as enriching the design community on a whole. He really promotes positive mental health within our industry and thats something i’m so interested in.

5. What attracted you to Zap?

Oddly It’s my second time here! I initially joined because I loved the studios approach to work as well as the amount of creativity on offer. I left, then returned because I just missed it too much! Safe to say I’m here for keeps now. (if they’ll keep me that is!)

6. Last film you watched?

Kenshin – the live action of the anime classic. Lots of samurai style sword fighting and special effects!

7. What’s your guilty pleasure?

Queer Eye – it’s just feel good, a show about making people realise their worth as well as shining a light on mental health.

8. Most embarrassing moment?

Too many of these to list. I’m naturally unbalanced so let’s bring alcohol to this and you can imagine I’ve got a habit for falling over!

9. If you could choose any superpower…

Bit of an obvious one but I’d love to be able to fly! The worlds just way too big to stay in one place – I’d love to be able to just fly over to distant lands whenever I wanted!

10. What are you looking forward to most this year?