Kat & zain

In their Mile End workshop, we sat down with Kat & Zain to talk about their creative influences and to reflect on the achievement of Paradox six years on.

Can you juggle?

Z: Yeah, let me find three objects.
K: Maybe nothing sharp?

*we took a break to marvel at Zain’s juggling*

Do you think you’d advise people to open up a coffee shop?

Z: After six years, if you’re going to do somethings unique then yes, if not then no. There’s a hunger for something that offers a little more. Loads of baristas have an amazing super power.
K: I think people have to open up cafes because of the life style and how businesses are set up here in London.

What would be your super power?

K: Flying I think. I’m not into invisibility that’s a bit creepy. Or teleportation, that’d be good. You can fly but sometimes you just want to get there faster. My actually superpower is making everything more complicated. His is saying yes to everything.
Z: Yeah and actually being able to do all of them. You’ve seen how many projects we’ve got on and how tight the deadlines are.

Is it a small business owner thing to have a big capacity for pain?
K: I think that’s why we’re small business owners because we can deal with pain.

How is it working together?
K: Kind of easy.
Z: We get this question a lot. When we were at the cafe together there were obvious disagreements etc. But we never set out to do only the coffee shop. We work very well together, the dream would be for both of us both to work here in the workshop together, not every day but some.
K: We get on with the things that we do well. And when he tells me something I’m doing is wrong, I ignore him.

What’s the creative influence for you both?

Z: I think travelling is one. When we go to a different city, we get inspired by exhibitions, design, architecture and coffee of course. You’re more atuned to the art than I am. We go into a gallery and I scan everything quickly but Kat looks at things for ages.
K: Even when you go back to look at stuff, I am still staring at the same piece of art.
Z: I’m a lot about the end goal
K: Whereas I’m about the journey. I think for me, it’s about culture. I think also, one of the reasons I haven’t done a lot of art is that I realised I had ADHD a couple of years ago now so I can only focus only a couple of things at a time. Also, I need it to mean something. Most of my art here are self-portraits and that was from a time in my life when that’s how I expressed myself. I take a lot of photos at the moment for Paradox.  It’s about needing to say something about the world and connecting people. Obviously things can be thrown away and whatever but we want to make existence easier. It’s not just for nothing, nothing is for nothing. 

K: Six years on, that first list that we made for what we wanted Paradox Design to be…we’ve ticked them all off. That is pretty astounding really. We don’t pat ourselves on the back at all but that’s pretty amazing. It’s been a successful business but business is hard.  

Z: It’s funny because you realise how integral the cafe is to our business. Especially last year when we came close to actually wrapping up the cafe. One of the  questions we’ve always had is ‘how do we get project jobs for the workshops to sustain us?’ But right now jobs for the workshop come in through DMs and messages through connections made at the cafe.
It’s the hub really. 

You didn’t want to just do the coffee shop?
K: We knew that coffee shops didn’t make money. 
Z: When we started, if we weren’t doing pop ups it was corporate events and they were soulless.

So you’re more interested in community events?
Z: Yeah they’re becoming more and more important now. Especially with us being outspoken about Palestine and stuff. 
K: Obviously the world is a mess right now. The last sort of three years now have been really difficult because of illness in my family so community is important. It’s not just hard for us, it’s hard collectively and everyone is going through things. Community is a thing I didn’t think about whilst opening a cafe but it’s something we can provide for people. We found that out through the pandemic. It was mostly me running the cafe and people just came in because they wanted to have a conversation. It made us realise just how much we were providing for people because you can just think ‘it’s only coffee we’re providing’ but it’s not. I’m getting a bit emotional. Obviously there are therapists, but the cafe  is a level below that where we just help boost people. 

Favourite architect and favourite artist?
Z: Hands down Zaha Hadid

Did she do the Aquatic Centre?
Z: Yeah! I studied interior architecture and one of my tutors worked for her. Not only was she a pioneer in plyometric design all based on algorithms and material exploration but she was a woman who won all these rewards in a male dominated industry. She was Iraqi and had an office in the UK. She inspired me because, being Algerian myself, she showed me you can make something of yourself and do really well. She was an incredible painter as well. I remember going to her exhibition and knew I wanted to do something like that.
K: I’ve been more inspired by street artists than anyone. There’s a guy called Conor Harrington who is an amazing painter. Being able to see art like that out in the open and knowing how long it takes to do it is amazing. If it was on a canvas they might work on that for days. I walk a lot so having art interwoven outside is incredible. 

London or bust?

Z: It can be shitty sometimes but there’s always something going on. There’s design festivals, things to inspire you here constantly. Yeah it’s nice to be away from the sirens and that when we’re on holiday but honestly, we miss it when we’re away. 
K: Lisbon is quite nice. 
Z: We get asked a lot if we would open another Paradox.
K: Hard no from me. Having another cafe doesn’t matter to me. What is enables is what I’m interested in but if you have five cafes you’re not having the same experience in all of them because you can’t be in all of them. So then you’re just enabling it for other people which is nice but you have to accept that it’s not going to be as good anymore.
Z:You water it down a little bit.
K: I don’t like watered down anything, except for squash.