The Platinum Egg 2003: Olle Mattson.
Olle Mattson is two years old when his family moves abroad. For eight years, they live in South Africa, then later in Brazil and Peru. Not until he is 19 does Olle come back to Sweden, move in with his uncle in Lund and sign up for a course in Swedish as a foreign language. Swedish comes quickly, but academia is not for him. He is dyslexic and has always been more interested in drawing, painting, photography and sports.... His mother, who went to the College of Arts, Crafts and Design in the 1950s, suggests he apply to Beckmans School of Design. From this point on, things pick up in a big way. Following his studies, he starts at United, where he meets copywriter Calle Lewenhaupt, who will be his constant collaborator for much of his career. After a stint at Hall & Cederquist, Olle comes to Rönnberg & Co in 1986, and there he remains for many successful years. Olle is an art director with a unique perspective – he did not grow up in homogeneous Sweden and he still doesn’t really get this Midsummer thing the Swedes are on about – but feelings are universal, and he’s doing his best to find them and dive deep into them. In award-winning campaigns for Swedish State Railways, the postal service and the Centre Party, he succeeds in simplifying the message by boiling it down to an emotional bouillon cube – one that can be expressed visually. Sometimes he shoots the photos himself. After an intense decade at Rönnbergs, Olle Mattson is starting to feel like it might be nice to take it easy for a while. But as things turn out, not a very long while. He starts Mattson & Friends with Anders Tempelman and Johan Larsson. Eventually Mattson and Lewenhaupt get back together in the early 2000s, at the centre of a constellation called Calle & Olle. This was going to be a temporary arrangement, but it becomes permanent after successes for clients like Viking Line, the Swedish Cancer Society, Carnegie and Arvid Nordqvist.