20th Century Designer
Ken Cato is a pioneer in Australian design, world renowned he is the principle of Cato designs; the biggest design company in the southern hemisphere. Today Cato designs has offices as far away as Tokyo and London. Since the 1960’s Cato has continually challenged and has engaged the design field winning numerous awards and honours. Cato also has work on display in museums and galleries around the world. Cato is a member of numerous Australian associations including; Australian Marketing Institute, Design Institute of Australia, Industrial Design Council of Australia, he is also a Patron of the Australian Academy of Design.
He has transformed the traditional graphic design focusing on a new dimension to create experimental and concept driven methods of communication. Cato has worked with a multitude of clients including Grace Brothers, Coles, Bank West, Macquari Bank and Qantas. He has worked in areas from graphic design, packaging to creating major business identities and branding. Cato’s stunning visual communication has become world renown, evidenced by positive tangible results. Cato has worked on forms of visual communication that stretches everyday design to experimental idea-driven methods of communication.
In 1970, after working on solo projects (while still challenging himself professionally), he started Cato-Hibbert Design inc, with Himself and Terry Hibbert. Money was tight, but work did come in steadily to the relief of the pair. When in 1972 Cato got his first taste of internationalism when he visited studios in the US and Europe. Cato recognised his own company base lied in the Pacific basin and his own company today has since grown with offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Buenos Ares, Sydney, Perth ,London and Taipei. In 1982 Cato felt that the business had grown substantially but had hit a wall, as Cato wanted to seriously delve into the international market of design. So after 12 years he cast out into Aisa and he gained 25 design jobs from 25 countries. Cato’s design clientele spans internationally but he prefers to live in Australia. His head office reflects his dedicated and passionate nature and continues to dedicated himself to Australian design profession. Cato Partners today in the Australasia have 50 employees including specialists in branding & corporate identity, print & multimedia.
