INTERVIEW | Dave Buonaguidi (aka Real Hackney Dave): Artist, Printmaker + Ad Agency Founder
warning: this one's explosive. on the dangers of chasing the money and why you should stop doing things you hate and only do things that bring you joy.
Dave Buonaguidi (aka, Real Hackney Dave) is an artist, printmaker and advertising agency founder based in Hackney (duh) who once played cricket for Italy. He is addicted to pink, Jaffa cakes and kissing strange dogs.
For 30 years, Dave worked in advertising. Starting out as an art director at some of the most well-known ad agencies, he eventually co-founded St. Luke’s – a revolutionary agency co-op where every staff member had shares in the company and a say in how it was run. Dave then went on to become the founding creative director of 4creative (Channel4’s in-house creative agency), before then co-founding the advertising agency Karmarama, where he would remain for nearly 15 years.
Dave’s artist career was kickstarted by his iconic ‘Make Tea Not War’ poster for the 2003 anti-war march, which now hangs in the Imperial War Museum.
A screenprinting course on a year-long haitus from adland later, Dave forged his signature style – bright, bold statements playfully overlaid on found material such as maps, letters and banknotes.
I met Dave at the Affordable Art Fair back in 2019, where he let me scatter the glitter on the Party Like It’s 1999 print I was buying. We talked about the world of advertising (where I worked at the time) and the power of words. He had a print for sale that said ‘I Want To Eat Biscuits With You’ and I argued that crisps were far more superior than biscuits. We then created ‘I Want To Eat Crisps With You’ and sold them in four different colours (ready salted red, salt and vinegar green, cheese and onion blue and prawn cocktail pink).
Here, Dave tells me what happens when you share a company with people who don’t share the same vision and values as you (spoiler: it’s not good), the dangers of chasing the money and why you should stop doing things you hate and only do things that bring you joy.
Q: When you were younger, what did you want to be when you ‘grew up’?
I wanted to be Huggy Bear off Starsky and Hutch. He had good clothes, nice cars and lots of good looking girlfriends.
Q: Tell us about your first job.
I worked in my dad's Italian restaurant making orange juice, grinding parmesan and cleaning glasses. I got that job because I am the son of an immigrant and it’s expected. I learned many things in that job. The power of food. The importance of the team. And the all incredible magic of the magical vibe that is created.
Q: Tell us about your worst ever job.
It will sound bizarre but the last two years at Karmarama, an ad agency I co- founded, were the worst ever. It had become a nightmare. We had done a deal with private equity and that forced a growth spurt that was untenable. The culture was flushed out overnight, we were flooded by a lot of people who would never had chosen to work at Karmarama. The promise of a sale brought out the very worst in the senior management. It became just like every other shithouse ad agency in the country. Lots of shagging, coke snorting and grabby-handed egomaniac management types. I couldn't stand it. I took it really personally, because it was once my place – and I couldn’t stand there watching it turn to shit.
Good people left the agency, the Japanese banking crisis hit lots of our Japanese clients and I could see exactly where it was all going. The wankers I was working with were stirring shit constantly, trying to undermine me and I started to hate them so much that I couldn’t even go to board meetings for fear of smashing their heads in.
Looking back, I was living a lie. I struggled to play the games expected in the corporate world, that's why I’d co-founded agencies that were different – like St. Luke’s, 4Creative, Karmarama and even Unltd-inc. But especially with St. Luke’s and Karamrama, once they became big and successful they ended up being full of wankers and the sorts of places we’d set them up to avoid becoming.
It was all a bit embarrassing to be honest. I felt ashamed of what I was part of. So then when I hit 50, with my life an absolute shit show, I decided to stop doing things I hated and only do things that brought me joy.
Q: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made at work?
I made thousands and thousands of huge mistakes. Presenting a pitch in sandals, hiring wankers (and knowing they were wankers), not smacking a few knob heads in the mouth that I should have done, making decisions for the benefit of money rather than integrity and values – I could go on and on.
But my biggest mistake was sharing my company with people who didn’t share the same vision and values as me. We turned what were two really magical and very different companies into bad ad agencies overnight. It was my fault and the fault of the people I’d employed. The difference was that they made a lot of money and I didn’t – and that was the lesson for me. Never do anything just for the money. Do it because you love it, and the money will come.
Q: Is there anything you wish you’d done differently over your career?
1. Punching a senior partner in the mouth on one company ski trip when he was being a sex pest.
2. Firing a creative director when he behaved like a jumped up prick with a client.
3. Snapping the neck of a short arse senior partner who promoted a senior team to creative director without asking me.
4. To be honest, I should also kick myself in the nutsack for setting up so many agencies hoping that the end result would be different. Stupid and naive.
Q: You’re now an artist, creating work to delight and bring joy, instead of creating work to satisfy brand and business goals. How does this feel different?
It’s totally different because I am the brand, the creative director and the client and I actually care about what I make. At no time over 35 years did I ever work with clients who genuinely cared about their brands above and beyond the money they were making (Nintendo and Monese being the only exceptions).
Likewise, most of the people I worked with in all the agencies (with only one or two exceptions) didn’t give a fuck about the clients, or about the consumers in any way whatsoever. Advertising is a self-obsessed business run by ego and all the trappings that that invites.
Now, care and joy are the only two agendas I have. It's very simple and very joyful, and the relationships I have with my customers are very important to me.
My mantra is: Be happy. Be generous. Make Happy. It’s a pretty good way to exist.
Q: How did you get to the point where this decision felt so right? And how did you manage to take the leap?
I was in a terrible crisis. But I was lucky enough to live and work in London, which meant I had choices.
I could choose what I did, where I lived, what I ate, what I wore, what I drove etc etc. I had more choices than 95% of people of earth and yet I was unhappy in every aspect of my life, and I felt ashamed.
Alongside everything that went on with Karmarama, my marriage was a total disaster too and both lives combined made my existence more and more miserable and toxic.
For five or six days a week, I would feel sick going into work and feel depressed going home at night, it was a really awful time. Finally, it all got too much at work and at home and I felt like I was standing in the window of a burning building. I realised I had two choices: burn or jump. So, I jumped. I resigned from my own business and was put on gardening leave. And within a week, I did the screenprinting course at Printclub London and decided to spend the year that I couldn't work trying to be an artist and change my life. It took a while longer than that, but I got there in the end.
The next five years were catastrophic. I lost everything twice, first thanks to the wankers that I left the agency to, and then lost a bunch to the person that I once married. As crazy as it has been, and it’s been really crazy, it was all worth it because it’s all good now.
Q: What’s your favourite thing you’ve ever created?
I don't really look at anything I’ve done with a lot of satisfaction. Once I have done it, it's done and it's chip paper – then I'm always thinking about the next thing.
But if I had to choose one thing, it’d probably be the LOVE BOMB I made out of a real 1000lb bomb from a harrier jump jet.
Q: Is there anything you wish you’d done differently over your career? If so, what?
Apart from punching quite a few people that needed a good punching. Sadly, probably not. It's been a learning experience that has taken me on a journey and brought me to exactly where I am now.
Q: Anything to get off your chest?
I have always felt like the odd one out. Like I didn't belong. Maybe that's the curse of the immigrant's child. I don’t feel Italian, Danish or English. I feel different and a bit disconnected. I spent all my time trying to fit in. Trying to please everyone. Trying to fix things. Trying to make things better.
I remember back in 1985 a new boss took over the company I worked in. At the time I was also doing cartoons for the Evening Standard. He told me I was a better artist than an adman.
My response was to think, ‘Fuck you! Motherfucker! I'll fucking show you!’
He fired me, and every time I set up a new business or changed jobs, I was like ‘look at me now BITCH!’
But looking back, he was totally right.
I never really got it, I was always the odd one out. I helped co-found some very interesting ‘odd one out’ agencies, but it was so fucking hard trying to navigate through the politics and wankers. I was living a lie, an act and when I realised, I just had to get out.
But he was right.
And I let my ego get in the way.
I will never make that mistake again.
dx
QUICKFIRE
Q: One work-related object you can’t live without?
My motorcycle.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever been given?
Keep fucking going. Keep fucking trying. Never fucking stop.
Q: Worst advice you’ve ever been given?
To hire a person who shall remain nameless. She was the catalyst for some good but a lot of bad at the agency, and has now allegedly been caught taking bribes at her new job.
Q: Your dream person to be commissioned by?
ITV2 and Love Island.
Q: The person you admire the most?
A woman I know. She’s gorgeous. I admire her a lot.
Q: Ever faked being sick to get off work?
Never.
Q: Any last words?
Just be nice.
Dave if you ever read this just want to say your bloody legend. Your Instagram posts that relay bullsh*t times in agency land, are some of the best around.