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JANE: Yeah. Let's go on to that. Could you just give us a broad overview of what your
company is?
TERRY: Yeah. I started a collective that's now a company called Monorex. It's nine years
old this summer, and essentially, it was a collective of five graffiti artists back in
the day, and it's organically grown into more of a more varied design network of multiple
talent. We're graphic design, graffiti, street art, fashion, media. There's a little bit
of everything in there.
Underneath the Monorex umbrella, I've started a few sub-brands. We do an event called Secret
Walls, which is probably the world's biggest live art battle. We've done it in 25 cities
to date. I've also got a company called High Rise Murals, which essentially is hand-painted
billboards. We go out and use the big cherry pickers and scissor lifts and paint huge murals
for big brands. Then I also run a toy company. So there's lots of things going on in the
world of Monorex. Every day's a different day, which is what I quite like.
JANE: That sounds cool. How come you didn't go the leave university and get a job route?
TERRY: I tried. When I finished, it was a scary time, a few months. I went and did a
lot of internships in Soho. Everything from TV, animation, post-production; I even went
to Sky Sports in Brantford and did a few months there, and had to make tea and sandwiches
for fickle celebrities. I just realized that none of that was what I wanted to do. I was
sort of -- depressed is a quite big word, but I would say I was a bit down on where
I'm going and where I'm at. I started to think outside the box and just scribble on bits
of paper on things that I wanted and how I can get there and the sorts of people I'd
like to work with.
To start that journey, I had to go and put myself in places where I'd meet these people,
so I went to a b-boy event in Brixton and randomly met some amazing graffiti artists
called Super Duper Crew. They were just putting work up on the walls and selling it for like
20 pounds, and I just thought, "You know what, that's crazy. We could do something really
special here. There's some really nice talent there." Through a few conversations, we just
thought, "Let's start this thing called Monorex," which means one king in Latin. And let's have
some fun. Just start painting things.
To offset and to survive in London, I had to have three part-time jobs to keep that
dream alive, in the early few years. Which was scary, because we were doing this thing
that we called Monorex, and we didn't know what it was, but it always felt right. Even
though my parents questioned that it was probably wrong. So yeah, it was a scary time. It was
good fun.
JANE: Right, and that was 10 years ago.
TERRY: Yeah, nine years. Nine years this summer. It's gone quickly.
JANE: So basically, I'm teaching students who are graduating in about eight or nine
weeks' time. What we're trying to do is to try and give them broader horizons, so rather
than just thinking about going for that one job, it's thinking about how they can use
their skills in different ways. I'm just finding it really interesting that you were doing
that 10 years ago -- or 9 years ago, when you got it started. What advice would you
have for students who are coming out now?
TERRY: I was definitely more average in my class and maybe on the lower end of talented.
From an animation point of view. I did digital animation and interactive design. I suppose
I knew straightaway that I wasn't the best in that particular field, and I had to come
up with a strategy that worked personally and also evolve with what I can do and can't
do.
So again, the circles and the people I met helped enhance the things that I could possibly
do, and I would say definitely you're only as powerful as the contacts around you, and
your little black book of people that you can call upon and collaborate with. Collaborate
being quite a key word. You make your own luck. I'm always positively thinking of the
next best thing. "Oh, let's start a toy company." In a few months' time, there's toys coming
off the shelf. I think if there's a will, there's a way, and it sounds quite corny,
but I think it does work.
You don't have to be the best academically to be doing really great things. University
taught me lots of skills, and it also helped me socialize and ground myself in a big city,
because I'm from the Isle of Wight so naturally I was a small country Isle of Wight boy, daunted
by this big strange place. Ealing Broadway Way was a good place to land to settle in.
But yeah, it's just positive thinking and actively going out there and meeting new people,
and trying to get involved with it as much as I could, and tell people what I do and
what I want to do. All of a sudden you get a phone call or an email, "Oh, do you want
to get involved in this?" That would be my core principles.
JANE: When you're saying getting out there and meeting people, you mean in real life,
actually talking to real people, rather than just staying on the internet?
TERRY: Yeah, because I think I tried that. When I finished, I tried to email my CV and
change my CV every few weeks to attract new opportunities. I suppose I hid behind the
screens a few weeks or months, and didn't really physically go and knock on doors. Then
I tried the other route, which was knock on doors and start asking big companies that
I really wanted to work with. I actually got a few opportunities and a few contacts that
put me in the right direction. I think just pushing that extra mile.
There's going to be -- I suppose that's the thing; there's thousands of students and amazing
people in this city looking for the same job. I think it took me a few months to realize
that, that I had to really think of how I could get the extra edge on everybody else,
if I wasn't technically the best person on paper.
I suppose it's not for everybody, but creating something yourself, like a company, is quite
a scary thing to do. But it felt right to me, and it felt -- even though I had to do
three years of part-time jobs, it felt good. It was going to come good, and we were onto
something special. I suppose in the end we proved ourselves right and created our own
little niche market within the advertising/design world.
JANE: When you say "something special," that's really true. If you'd like to tell me what
it is that you're working on at the moment?
TERRY: Yeah. My latest project is we're headlining the Art Directors Club Festival, which is
a big -- it's its 92nd year, and they give out awards to the world's leading advertising
agencies and creative design studios. So it's like the Oscars of the ad world in America.
Yeah, we've been invited over by the main guy to headline and do the opening ceremony,
so we're going to be the first thing that they see when they sit down and drink their
champagne and eat their oysters or whatever.
We're going to be doing a huge live art battle onstage. It's not going to be the usual type
of art battle; because it's such a big deal, I wanted to go the extra mile, so we've blended
digital and physical. Basically meaning a guy on a Wacom tablet battling on a huge projector
that'll be beamed on a massive wall, going up against a guy that is drawing, to try and
catch up physically with an with a marker pen to try and keep up with the Adobe software
that the other guy's got. They've got 45 minutes to produce a final picture, that then gets
judged by all these amazing creative directors in the crowd.
JANE: The guy who's doing it live, what scale is that?
TERRY: The scale that it's projected.
JANE: Oh, I see. So they're working small and then it gets projected.
TERRY: Yes. They work off a Macbook Pro, a little Wacom, and it's sponsored by Adobe,
so Adobe are going to give us the Creative Cloud Studio Suite, so they'll be using all
the tools. Obviously, he can delete stuff, because he's got the eraser, whereas the other
guy physically can't delete black paint on a white canvas. I just quite like the idea
of seeing what comes out the other end. No one really knows, because we're never tested
it before. It should be fun. A lot of pressure.
JANE: I tell you, that sounds really exciting. Let's delve into that a bit more. You say
"fun," "pressure," but ultimately, you don't know the outcome. Please tell people about
the risk that they're going to have to take.
TERRY: Yeah. Secret Walls, the art battles events that we do globally, taught me a lot.
I think the whole freestyle live art nature, and the risks that the artists take onstage,
just shows good courage and confidence. I think over the years that we've been doing
it, seeing some of the artists grow because of it, because there's a thousand people in
the crowd cheering them on like a football game, painting to the last second of the clock,
it's changed a lot of guys I've worked with from very -- I meet a lot of artists these
days because of what we do, and they want to be on the stage now. We get emails and
tweets all the time from new talent.
Normally they're quite -- at first, these artists are a little bit unsure of either
their own talent and what they can do, but as soon as you put them on that stage and
the bell goes, they just flourish. It's amazing. There's so many success stories over the years
of artists that have come through and didn't really know what or how they were going to
make money with their particular art talent, and have gone on to amazing things from our
first initial Secret Walls together, from going to painting portraits in the National
Portrait Gallery.
One kid called Mr K -when I met him he was in and out of jail for graffiting, and he
was just in with the wrong crowd. He asked me, he said, "I've got this amazing sketchbook
of characters. I'm not very good at digital. Can you teach me?" So I matched him up with
a graphic designer who taught him how to do better, so he got all his characters into
a digital format, and gave him a whole new skill. Then also getting him the Secret Walls
platform to have fun and just meet people.
Within two years, he was painting these fine portraits, and one of them got submitted into
the gallery for a big under-25 show. He was in the top three, I think. Now he's living
in Amsterdam, selling artwork to big gallery collectors and art buyers and flying around
the world, just doing amazing things off his own back. But yeah, those are the things,
for me, that keep me ticking. We create platforms for artists, and then hopefully allow them
to grow in their own little spaces.
JANE: That's fabulous. What a wonderful story. I think there are so many creative people,
and there's this whole thing of the starving artist. It's just managing to connect the
business skills with the artistic skills.
TERRY: That's where I think the collective nature -- collective and collaboration are
two key words in every one of my business plans, because you can do lots on your own,
but I think even if you're working a 9 to 5 in a graphic design studio, I still think
to make yourself tick and do things that might take you down different roads and different
events and journeys, the collective collaboration nature is always the one.
Talking to people about different ideas that they might do something slightly different
that complements what you do. Yeah, growing and learning off of each other. And again,
that's all we've done, really. We've just created that little home that we called Monorex,
and within that you have these platforms where artists can now come meet, create, and then
grow, and then you know...
Other examples being guys would come in and done a couple of years with us, and all of
a sudden they've got a street wear fashion brand in L.A. and he's selling to all of the
big skateboard companies and celebrities in Hollywood. He's living in the Hills and having
a great time. Again, that guy was someone we gave an opportunity to and saw he wasn't
happy in his current situation of "I've got this black book, I'm literally a starving
artist. There's no opportunities here. How can you help?" That's what we try and do,
I think. Just connect people.
JANE: I think it's brilliant, and there's such a need for it. Brilliant.
TERRY: Behance, obviously everybody knows Behance. Behance has done a great job online,
digitally, to have these amazing profiles and to connect people. But again, it's quite
impersonal, because you don't really ever get to meet these guys that you're friends
with. Same as Facebook. Everybody hides behind social media and has at least hundreds of
friends, but are they really proper friends? How can you do something with them, is the
next step really. I always thinking reaching out, just physically meeting people -- and
when I travel, it's even better because you get to meet tons of new people and lots of
different ideas and cultures and approaches.
But physically collaborating and doing an event together or just getting guys round
a table to doodle and jump on computers and have a few hours together is always the best
route to creating something new. It's where Secret Walls and things have come out of,
just having a conversation over a beer or a coffee and we're sitting there saying, "We
need to do this. How can we do it?" It's just a natural brainstorm, I suppose.
JANE: When you say travel, you're quite a difficult person to get hold of. You're very
busy, aren't you?
TERRY: Yeah. Again, I couldn't do it 9 to 5. I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to
do, because it's the safe thing to do; but for me, I love the idea of waking up, having
a new challenge, a different creative brief every week, and just jumping on a plane. Because
at the moment, I've got no kids, which is good and bad. I would like to have a little
family at some point. But at the moment, where it's no strings attached, it's quite easy
for me to hop on a plane and arrive in Tokyo or New York and get involved and meet new
people and disappear for awhile from the UK.
Yeah, I've been traveling to New York once a month for the last two years, pretty much.
I'm now applying for a U.S. Visa because the hard work I put in. Again, going out there
just to meet people and not having contacts there originally, and all of a sudden I've
got opportunities because I was just hanging out in the right areas and banging on doors
and trying to meet the right people. Now we're being offered things like the Art Directors
Club and opportunities with Nike and Reebok and all these large style brands that want
a piece of this European collective, as such. So yeah, exciting times. A whole new canvas,
New York City, to explore.
JANE: So exciting. That's wonderful. I suppose the other thing is that brands are always
trying to capture the youth market, so being able to get young people involved in the kind
of art that they want to produce, I would've thought would be...
TERRY: That's where we come in, and that's probably where I've evolved into. I wouldn't
say I'm an artist anymore, as such, even though my degree says I am. I would say I understand
the artists that I work with, and I'm now the manager above them. Not just an agent,
because an agent's quite cold, I think. Again, because we require a small, collective nature,
the way we operate, everybody's very personal. It sort of feels like family. I'm the guy
that has to go and broker those deals and talk creative and sell us and the Monorex
story to these brands. It's actually not that hard anymore because of the portfolio that
we can offer. They normally come to us, and I then pull the right artists around the table
to contribute to that particular job.
JANE: I think that's a huge statement, actually, that initially it's you making the effort,
knocking on the doors; but eventually, as that portfolio grows, they're coming to you.
I think that's huge, absolutely huge. I think one of the difficulties I have is in persuading
our students that they actually do need to go out and connect with people very, very
early on. If they can do that while they're still students, they're not actually asking
for anything at that stage. It really is just networking and meeting people.
TERRY: Yeah, and try and get involved in a project. I'm sure there's loads of things
that require their talents. Again, another example, I went to Detroit -- I recognize
the bad stories about Detroit, about the crime and the way that the city was on its knees
financially. I saw this one story in Juxtapoz Magazine about a lady that bought 10 hours
for $500 each because property is just -- it's crazy how it was the city in the '60s which
built for $3 million when it was in its heyday of making cars, and now there's only 250,000
or 300,000 people left in the city. So you've got all these empty houses that you can buy
for $1,000 or so.
She basically bought 10 and turned a whole street into her gallery, and invited artists
from around the world to come and paint these houses, and also remix them and do things
in the in the gardens, and installations and big murals. Every Saturday, she has international
tourists coming in to walk around the 10 houses, to have a look at the latest updates to her
gallery that's really her whole street she's got to play with. I went out to see that,
and started, again, putting myself in little bars and galleries where I knew I would find
like-minded creatives. I met the guy that started Kickstarter.
JANE: Wow.
TERRY: I just sat in a little dive bar, drinking in a karaoke bar, looking to talk to people.
I flew in on my own, so I didn't have any friends in the city. This guy called Perry,
who's the owner of Kickstarter, was in there. It was like, "Hey Perry, I'm Terry," and then
his mate was called Jerry.
JANE: (laughs)
TERRY: We spent the night just hanging out. Yeah, I didn't know anything about Kickstarter
then. I was just like, "Wow, this sounds cool." Then I found out the next day on Google that
he's just turned into a multi, multi-millionaire, and expanded to now it's a global platform
that invests, in its own way, in new ideas and new talent. He's such a nice, humble guy.
And again, like-minded in the way that we operate, but on obviously a much bigger level.
But we were all in the same situation. He turned up in Detroit with no friends and was
just cycling around the city, looking, again, for people like myself and whoever else he
could bump into. I think naturally those things just come together.
JANE: Wonderful. It's kind of like when you're on the right path, things just slot into place.
TERRY: I think so. I always believe in making your own luck and positive thinking. I think
if you wake up with a gray cloud over your head and you're worried about finding that
job, that perfect job, which is what I used to think, it actually makes it harder for
things to attract to you. I think you need to go out and make those opportunities for
yourself.
If you're looking happy and you feel happy and you're being -- I'm not spiritual in any
way, but I do believe in good auras. If you've got that nice happy aura, people in a bar
or in a café or wherever you are, in a hot desk studio, will come over and go "What do
you do? What are you up to?" Whereas if you're in that little shell of "I'm having a really
bad day and I don't want to talk to anybody," you can feel the energy off others, and I
think that it just ends up causing you more problems than you actually need.
JANE: Yeah. I'm a great believer in that. It's so much nicer to be dealing with positive
people. You want to be around them, and they are very attractive. Yes. And as soon as people
get into that fear mode of "Oh, what's going to happen when I leave?" and stuff like that
-- just relax. It will be all right.
TERRY: Yeah. Patience.
JANE: Patience, yeah, that's a good one.
TERRY: The three-year course or the four-year course that these guys have done is obviously
a big thing, and that's one massive thing to be proud of. Again, I don't think I valued
that at first, because you sort of get out there with this worried mind. But once you
relax, with a little bit of patience and a happy outcome in your mind, where you're looking
to go -- everybody says "you need the five-year life plan," but I think that also makes you
a bit scared. Nobody knows the future. I think more think about the direction and a few things
you'd like to do; it gives you a little bit of focus. But I don't think you need a five-year
life plan, because I think that's the fun part. You sort of evolve with the opportunities
that come along ,and it gets better and better.
JANE: I think that's a wonderful high point to end on, really, don't you? It just gets
better. You'll be all right. (laughs)
TERRY: Yeah. And again, I'd like to say about the economy -- I was saying earlier to you,
offline, I think all the bad stories you read in the paper -- same as Detroit. Detroit,
even though the media don't talk about it, it's actually probably the most creative city
in America at the moment. It's attracting hubs of artists and talent from all areas
of fashion, graphic design, installation, all sorts. Because it is affordable and cheap,
people are now buying warehouses and working together on these big hubs. They're not getting
press at the moment, but it's got this magical feel to the city.
I think actually in a time where the world's in this bad economy, bad state, and unemployment's
high, I think that actually, in a weird way, it's a good thing. It creates a lot of positives
and opportunities for young creative minds, whether you start something for yourself or
are looking to join something special. I think big brands also are now looking to think outside
the box with maybe smaller budgets, but those small budgets are still tens or hundreds of
thousands of pounds that they want to do something with. That's probably helped us.
Over the last three years, they've been our busiest years and our most profitable years,
because we have those opportunities now, where brands want us to work with a leaner budget,
but those budgets for us are still huge. But they're small compared to how they used to
operate, when they used to pay millions to dinosaur ad agencies that are meant to have
these creatives inside.
I think it's actually molding a whole new system. The world is changing from top to bottom -- and
I'm trying to put my finger on it, but there's so many good things that come out of it. Again,
I don't think you should be worried about the headlines that you read, because again,
bad press is always the sort of press that they want to print most of the time.
JANE: I do think that it's a willingness to learn, a willingness to be flexible, and just
to be excited about life and to go out there. And as you said all along, collaboration,
meeting people. Cool.
TERRY: All positive.
JANE: All positive, all good.
TERRY: I don't know if you sent it out yet, but if they want to check our show reel and
ask any questions, by email or Twitter, we're normally pretty good on social media. Have
a look at what we do in the video and ping us.
JANE: Actually, that was something I meant to ask you about. Did you have a social media
strategy?
TERRY: Well, we have now, but only in the last two months, three months. We're connecting
everything and making it a bit more consistent in its voice from the particular brands that
we run. But before, I think it was really naturally just popping on the phone and using
Twitter on the bus and trying to keep up with what's going on. But there is more of a strategy
now with trying to push more information out in a more consistent flow, whereas again,
maybe I'd just be doing it at the end of the day and the start of the day and be busy in
between.
But yeah, we try and be as interactive and engaging with our fans and our clients and
people that come along to our parties. I think, again, connecting, engaging, and just being
yourself and being accessible is one of the key things in how we've grown as well. I think
it wins a lot of respect with other creatives and other companies, that you're not just
these cool guys trapped in a little glass box. We do exist, and we physically like to
go out and talk to people and hear what others are doing. I think there's always, again,
some collaboration around
the corner that could be made.
JANE: Fabulous. Thank you, Terry. This is utterly brilliant, and I'll put this up
on YouTube. [00:30:01]