Hello,
Just writing to say M&E are featured at YCN (http://www.ycnonline.com) as today's news. Tomorrow we will be yesterdays news :)

About YCN
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YCN exists to inspire and showcase emerging creative talent in design and visual communication.Through annual creative awards, publishing ventures, live events, relationships with creative education - and frequent collaborations, YCN has established a large and ever growing international audience.This website serves as a platform from which interested parties can discover new work, share content and self-promote. Additionally the latest creative opportunities across the creative industries internationally are added to the site daily.
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Thanks to Johnny Kelly (www.mickeyandjohnny.com) and all at YCN.

Take Care,
Matthew & Emelie
M&E

First things first, who and what is M&E?

M&E are Matthew Bolger and Emelie Lidström. M&E has
only come into existence during the last year although
the collaboration between its parts can be traced back
to 2002.

So young with such amazing work for so many
interesting people. What's your favorite type
of work to do or is very project interesting to you?

M: So far we have been working almost entirely with
printed design for music. We've been lucky in that
respect since we are both huge music fans and feel this
area provides us with a greater creative freedom. Our
clients come to us because they like our work and feel
they can trust us to run with ideas that might be a little
strange. This is our favorite type of person to work with
and the projects that result from these relationships
have an energy and an air of freedom which we feel
design is all about.

E: But in theory it could as well be something else than
music as long as the project led somewhere different or
was based on something interesting.

What do you reckon are the most important things to
remember when solving a brief?

M: Briefs are a set of guidelines, which the client has
laid out to help steer the designer in the right direction.
Sometimes you may not agree with this direction but
that's just part of your role as a designer. Briefs vary as
much as the clients themselves. Sometimes you can
feel extremely confined by both the brief and the client
and other times the relationship can be an extremely
enjoyable one. Clients are just people like anyone else,
you don't become friends with everyone you meet,
sometime you might not even like them but this can
not get in the way of the goal of the project.

The biggest and hardest thing to do as a designer is
not to be selfish. If you feel passionately about what
you do, it's very hard to take criticism sometimes.
This is of course the same in all other areas of art and
design but as a designer you have to let go a little. You
could feel like you are writing your Bohemian Rhapsody
and the clients suggestions are chopping it up into a
jingle for toothpaste. Sell that toothpaste!

When you've got a project do you prefer to work away
and then reveal or do you prefer a more collaborative
approach with your client? What do you prefer about
your preferred way?

E: Definitely to work away and then reveal, so you can
do something you are really happy with before you
show it. The chances are otherwise that things can get
shot down before they got a chance to grow up and
turn into something nice just because they looked
weird as young. But we are trying to get better at
showing stuff as we go along. Dare to bare!

It also depends on the client and the idea. The more the
client is involved in the initial idea the more you have to
show along the way of course. And the better you
know the client the more they trust you to work away.

Matthew, you're from Ireland but Emelie, you're from
Sweden. Have you ever toyed with the idea of upping
sticks and moving somewhere else or do you think
Dublin satisfies all your creative needs?

E: We think about it often and we have been close but
every time we are ready to go something nice crops up
here that makes us think "Ah, we will stay for a little longer..."

M: We met here and have many friends, family and
working relationships with people in Ireland so moving
away would kind of feel like starting over again. We
need a change of scenery but are very happy living
here and with our creative lives, although we always
feel like we could be doing more.
Our dream would be to get M&E to such a level so it
didn't matter where we lived.


The level of thought and detail into which
you go within your ideas and execution is
extraordinary. For both of you your
creativity isn't simply flat graphics on pages
is it, you're always bringing a handmade
organic element into your work. Why do you
feel it's important to go that step further in
your output, surely you'd be in bed far
earlier if you didn't?

M: We want to work as hard on a record
cover as the artist worked on the music. The
detail and pain staking construction of text
and props reflects the lengthy process of
writing, recording, mixing and mastering of a
record. Records can take years to write so we
feel rushing a cover takes away from the
music's importance.

The most time consuming cover we have
worked on so far would have to have been
The Monkeys in the Zoo Have More Fun Than
Me by Jape. We created the back titles by
constructing a white monolith from wood
and bringing it into the lemur cage in Dublin
Zoo. We cut all the titles out of the wood and
created an object which the lemurs could
interact with. At this time we wanted to use
as little Photoshop as possible by building
sets, environments and text, placing them
into the frame and photographing them. The
negative that came back was the final cover.

E: Also, it adds an excitement to the making
of things if there is an element of surprise or
unpredictability, like the balloons at the TRM
cover that were impossible to direct or the
uncertainty of how the monkeys would react
to our props. I also think it stems from a wish
to somehow merge photography and
graphics a bit more.

What would you consider to be career
highlights so far?

E: We would have to say SweetTalk because
it gave great feedback and also because it
forced us to bring together everything we
had done so far and explain to ourselves how
and why we did it which was... revealing.
Also, some highlights are the memories of
absurd situations we have found ourselves in
while working on projects.

Matthew, being a member of hugely successful
Dublin band The Redneck Manifesto, what is it
about this outlet that you really enjoy over
say your design and illustration work? Are the
methods of creating something similar in any
way or is it the fact that they're so different
the attraction?

M: It's hard to say. I feel as passionately
about my design work as about what I
contribute to the band. Although there is a
physical rush you get from playing live and
with my friends, on a mental level I feel as
satisfied when I've created a solid piece of
design as I do after I've played a good gig or
written a song. The reaction from the
audience is direct and instant when we play
live with the band, so you know what they
are thinking. There's a delayed reaction to
design work so it takes a little longer to hear
what people thought of your work.

Speaking of music, what's got your body rocking these days?
Also, what's keeps you chilled?

M&E: Daniel Johnston, Daft Punk, The Knife, M 83, Jeans Team,
Kraftwerk, Ariel Pink, Velvet Underground, The Notwist,
Phoenix, Yo La Tengo, Sebastian Tellier and Bob Hund.
It's Friday night, there's nothing on telly and you've just
remembered there's a Twister set up in the loft. While

Matthew climbs up to get it Emelie calls some creative
luminaries from all over the world... Who would you invite
around to have a game of Twister but also to thank for being
so inspirational? Some may be dead but that shouldn't stop
you calling!

M&E: We'd probably have to split them up into different
themed teams.

On the design team would be Laurent Fetis, MM Paris, Faktor
and Michel Gondry. On the photography team would be Hellen
Van Meene, Anders Petersen, Hannah Starkey and Diane Arbus.

You did your first SweetTalk event in Dublin a couple of
months back and rumour has it you may be doing another
one in Limerick in the Autumn. How did you find it, were you
nervous?

E: It felt like we were going to swim with sharks.
M: The exit was too close to the stage for comfort.
The ultimate collaboration you have yet to be asked to take
part in...

M: We feel the collaboration between the two of us has only
just begun. Its about as ultimate as you can get at the
moment.

E: It's not that specific who we would like to collaborate with
now, its more about a wish to work in other materials and
formats, like textiles for example, and expand our practices to
other areas like animation and film.

Anything upcoming you'd like to tell the world about?

M&E: Yes. The SweetTalk in Limerick which we look forward
to. And hopefully our website will finally be in working order
by the time you read this.

www.me-me-me.se.
info.medesign@gmail.com

Hello,

We just finished our first music video. It is for our good friend Jape and we co-directed it with Mike, Enda and Sam at D.A.D.D.Y, www.teamdaddy.com. We're very happy with how it came out and had a great time putting it all together. Thanks to Richie, Mike, Enda, Sam, Ruairi, John, Mary, Aoife, Maria at RedJam Productions, Renate, Hanna and Sam, Stephen, Dermot, Cormac, Katie, Jeannie, Goodtime, Ross, and Matthew Bolger Snr.

We'll be uploading a high quailty version of the video in a day or two so check back in with us soon. Until then here are some low res stills from the video.

Take Care,
Matthew & Emelie