Voxpop

I’d love to see the outcome of a Lady Gaga branding project. She’s art-directed her own outrageous superbrand, so it would be intriguing to see how she might turn her hand to a traditionally more conservative one – Andrex, Chelsea Building Society or the Conservative Party. Though you might be hard pressed to find a design group to match her ambition and extrovert personality. Then again, perhaps not.

Matt Dent, Director, Three Fish in a Tree

Frank Zappa would have been great. He nurtured many other musicians, both as members of his own band The Mothers of Invention, and as individuals, encouraging the broadest appreciation of what creativity might mean. He demonstrated the value of clear and intelligently co-ordinated thinking across a wide range of activities, enabling him both to define the scope of a project and to orchestrate the diverse talents involved. Not least, I admired his notion of ’conceptual continuity’, always tinged with a healthy sense of creative anarchy to keep ideas fresh.

Malcolm Garrett, Creative director, Applied Information Group

For me the interest of this kind of collaboration would be having no expectation of what the outcome might be, so I would choose someone like Beck, because of his ability to continually reinvent himself and create beautiful new music with a wide variety of collaborators.

Dan Moore, Partner and art director, Studio Output

I’d love to collaborate on a project with David Bowie – as a musical magpie he’d bring an eclectic approach to a design. Bowie probably knows more about branding than most pop stars, as he has reinvented himself several times. From David Jones to David Bowie to Ziggy Stardust to his ’plastic soul’ era and on – Bowie is willing to put his neck on the line. Perhaps risk-takers are just what branding needs to instigate some ch-ch-ch-changes.

Jamie Ellul, Director, Magpie Studio

A difficult question. Different people would bring different energy. If I had to choose one, I would go for Paul Simonon, a painter in his own right these days. His influence on the visual world of The Clash – from the name, the stencilled type, the graphics to the look of their clothes – played a huge part in creating one of the most visually iconic bands in the world.

Nick Renn, Director, Morning