If you haven’t seen any of Sarah and Mandy’s work yet, you are likely to very soon. The recent graduates have just started their first job at Wieden + Kennedy, where they are working on briefs for Orange and Save the Children. Their safe crockery product, TEMPlate, which won last years RSA design awards, is being exhibited at The Ideal Home Show’s Concept Product Awards early next year. They are meeting manufacturers with a view to producing the product commercially.

Right before this interview I was...
Sarah:
Drinking a cup of tea (milk, one sugar), completing a Sudoku puzzle and day dreaming about my trip to China next year.  

Mandy:
Nicking three of my five portions of fruit and learning the difference between grade one and grade two Braille.

The inspirations for my most recent work are...
Sarah:

1. Our last TV ad was inspired in part by the 1986 film Labyrinth featuring David Bowie (a favourite of mine).
   
2. Products, products, products... Aren’t products great! I like to browse various design websites such as Thorsten Van Elten.com and Designboom.com.

Mandy:
I echo Sarah, DesignBoom is great and it’s good to see what other people are doing in different disciplines other than advertising.

If I could have one piece of art for free it would be...
Sarah & Mandy:
We were both unanimous that the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona by legendary architect Antoni Gaudi would be our first choice. There is something quite attractive about having something unfinished that can’t be moved.

Sarah:
If I couldn’t have the Sagrada Familia, it would have to be the original print of Larry Dunstan’s Chicken Eye photograph, one of the most captivating images I’ve seen in a long while.

I prefer freehand to digital design/digital design to freehand because...
Sarah:
I’m going to sit on the fence with this one. It’s like saying traditional vs. modern or vice versa. The skill, to a certain extent, is to let your thinking shape the medium and not the other way round.

Mandy:
I prefer freehand to digital design when I want to be relaxed and digital design to freehand because it means I can get more done and learn how to photo-manipulate my friends into funny situations.

I feel most liberated when I'm...
Sarah:
Naked except for a waif thin flannel on my head in a Japanese Onsen surrounded by hundreds of people who I will most likely never see again in my life.

Mandy:
Shooting forwards at great speed on some rollercoaster.

Sarah and Mandy are hoping to hand over the reigns of Powwow with D&AD to a new group of students this year; any interested parties should contact the-future-perfect@hotmail.co.uk or go to thier website www.the-future-perfect.co.uk. Sarah and Mandy are also designing an upcoming poster for Don’t Panic. Watch out for it.