Matteo Bologna is the founder, president and creative director of Mucca Design and Mucca Typo. He is also president of the Type Directors Club. In our little Skype interview in the run-up to TYPO Berlin 2016, he takes us through the important stations of his successful career, from the early beginnings back in the day in Milan, via Mucca’s breakthrough in New York with their work for the SoHo brasserie Balthazar’s, to some recent projects for the likes of Whole Foods and The Chicago Athletic Association.

 

Mucca Design works for wide variety of global companies like Sephora, Whole Foods, Victoria’s Secret, Rizzoli, Adobe Systems and Grey Goose. “We work with existing brands and expand their voice.” Projects that involve custom typefaces, such as his classic work for Balthazar’s, which, since its opening in 1997, continues to be one of New York City’s prime culinary destinations, or, more recently, for The Chicago Athletic Association, make him especially happy.

With respect to the theme of TYPO Berlin 2016, »Beyond Design«, Matteo explains why he is convinced that professional designers will continue to be relevant even when, these days, predesigned templates seem to be taking over. He doesn’t condemn this development. In his opinion, in many cases there’s nothing wrong in using these tools per se: “There are good templates out there!”. On the other hand, he does see a risk that, when everybody uses the same templates, this leads to a kind of homogenization. And here, Matteo says, is where designers come in: “If you know how to create something new and revolutionary, it’s a good thing to try.” We are looking forward to see Matteo on stage at TYPO Berlin 2016!