The Essential List: Pablo Marques
Lion, D&AD, Clio and One Show award-winning creative, Pablo Marques was appointed as Executive Creative Director at POSSIBLE’s London office in 2016. His stable of work includes groundbreaking and award-winning ideas for Honda, Google, Nike, Johnnie Walker and Beats by Dre.
But when he’s not performing his ECD duties at POSSIBLE, you’ll probably find him riding his motorbike, rocking out to Led Zeppelin or clicking his fingers at the Green Note blues bar in London. Get to know Pablo a little more in his Essential List below.
Travel
o Place of birth: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
o Hometown: London, UK
o Staycation: Rio de Janeiro. Living in that place is like being on holiday every weekend.
o Vacation: Anywhere with mountains and roads I can reach with my motorcycle. Every summer I take a week of holiday before Cannes and head down to the south of France on my motorcycle, by myself, through a very unintuitive path that takes me through about 10 countries all the way down to Slovenia before I make it to Cannes. It’s usually the highlight of the year for me. The focus you need to keep while on the motorcycle for 12 hours a day for nine days straight really washes away anything else from your mind. It’s the best forced meditation.
o Place of work: Hatton Garden, and no I don’t sell diamonds, unfortunately.
o Place of workout: What?
o Mode of transport: Motorcycles. I’d say ‘motorcycles, hands down’ but that would be irresponsible!
o Miscellaneous Travel Essential: Tyre repair kit
Culture
o Artist: There are too many to list. But the contemporary one that left the longest impression on me was Richard Serra. His stuff is great to look at, but walking through it is a special experience. His sculpture work really challenges your sense of proportion, it is quite unsettling.
o Musician: Led Zeppelin. Always and forever. Best rock band to ever grace this earth. Jimmy Page is a music god
o Commercials director: Jonathan Glazer
o Film director: Tarantino. Always. Even if just for the soundtracks
o Photographer: Diane Arbus for her pioneering celebration of the fringe and the odd.
o Film: Oh, there are so many for so many reasons. But, if I have to pick one, damn I love Pulp Fiction. The soundtrack, the lines, the all-out madness of it all
o Series: Sheeeeiiiit, That’s easy. The Wire. “It’s got dots. Deputy loves dots.”
o Commercial: Guinness’ The Surfer by AMV BBDO. Brilliance. The opening scene alone with the close up of the surfer’s face
o Music Video: Easy. Johnny Cash’s cover of Trent Reznor’s Hurt. Shot by Mark Romanek. It manages to reduce me to tears in its short four minutes. It is so sad, so real and so visceral. It’s a documentation of a full life of a man that created so much and that carries so much regret with him. June Cash appears in it. There is so much symbolism throughout the whole thing. She died a short few months after it and he died a few months after her and then a few years after that, the house it was shot in (Cash’s house and museum) burned down to the ground
o Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a ‘trilogy’ of five books. The most entertaining thing I’ve ever read
o Newspaper (off or online): Guardian and NYT
o Magazine: I don’t remember the last time I bought a magazine or went to a magazine website. Other than clicking on random internet links…
o Podcast: Like music too much. No time for podcasts!
Food and Drink
o Restaurant: Engawa
o Cheap bite: Something behind the office on Leather Lane
o Working lunch: Engawa
o Dish: Salmon and mashed potatoes (simple things done right)
o Snack: Coffee!
o Guilty Pleasure: Mango Sorbet
o Bar: The Green Note (Blues!)
o Tipple: Sake of the junmai daiginjo variety! Sweet, light and so pure hangovers are almost impossible
o Soft Tipple: Huh?
o Miscellaneous food: Köttbullar
o Miscellaneous Beverage: Coffee with unsalted butter in it
Kit
o Phone: iPhone
o Computer: Macbook
o TV: Macbook
o Headphones: Bose
o Camera: Leica M or Q.
o Sound system: Sonos.
o Pen / pencil: I don’t know what these are!
o Where you document an idea: Text Edit. I have about a hundred open and unsaved textedit files on my computer at all times
o Watch: iPhone
o App: Instagram
o Website: Guardian
o Blog: Wait But Why. Best blog on the Internet. THE WHOLE OF THE INTERNET!
o Work program: Sketch
o Digital work tool: Phone
o Analogue work tool: Rocking chair
o Grooming: Rarely!
o Miscellaneous Kit Essential: Wide brim hat!
