‘Art Director’ is an unhelpful title.
It has nothing to do with Art and very little to do with directing.
Some think it’s about making stuff look cool, I think it’s about communicating at speed.
We work in a medium people are actively trying to ignore, so we can’t hang around.
Art Director’s can only communicate quickly if the understand:
a) Their basic toolkit; photography, film, illustration, editing, cropping, fonts, colours and the rest.
b) The world around them: how humans behave, the meaning of gestures, what’s fashionable, what’s unfashionable, the difference between someone looking excited and crazed, whether to it’s funnier to cast the tall skinny guy or the short fat guy, whether it would be more dramatic to fill the frame with sea and have a thin strip of sky or vice-versa?
I don’t know an Art Director who understands both better than Mark Reddy.
COLLEGE.
LONDON ADVERTISING PARTNERSHIP/COLMAN’S.
CAMPING GAZ.
McDONALDS.
SAATCHI & SAATCHI.
ALEXON.
BRITISH AIRWAYS.
‘HONEST DECENT AND TRUE’.
Above, a Saatchi’s era Mark sitting next to Ade Edmondson in the mid-eighties.
Well, Richard E. Grant playing Mark in ‘Honest, Decent and True’ after tagging along with Mark for a month.
He stole his kimono, broach and demeanour.
You can see the full programme below.
THE COI.
Part of a presentation for a road safety campaign, printed on a strip of tarmac, it’s about 3ft by 2ft, and is one of twenty, Saatchi’s didn’t do things by halves in the eighties.
SILK CUT.
Ideas for a tv ad from Mark’s notebooks.
Storyboard for Silk Cut tv ad developed with legendary photographer and director Brian Duffy.
HOLMES KNIGHT RITCHIE.
GLENMORANGIE.
HARVEY’S BRISTOL CREAM.
NIKON.
CHEF’S BEANS.
GROLSCH.
DOYLE DANE BERNBACH.
TREBOR.
TENNENT’S LAGER.
VOLKSWAGEN.
(Alternate, rejected picture.)
MOTORFAIR.
3i.
TATE GALLERY.
Ex and current DDB-ers say goodbye to their home of 25 years, Baker Street, as they head for Paddington and a merger with BMP. (Mark is at the front, dead centre.)
BMP. (REEVES ROBERTSHAW/DAVIDSON PEARCE/DOYLE DANE BERNBACH/NEEDHAM)
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.
VOLKSWAGEN.
MICROSOFT.
LABOUR.
ABELOUR.
SCOTRAIL.
(ScotRail outtakes.)
HELLMANN’S.
TAYLOR’S PORT.
Idea for a whisky client.
BLACK BUSH WHISKY.
MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS.
AYER. (Previously Leagas Davis Shafron Chick)
AQUA LIBRE.
CONQUEROR.
COURIER.
CREATIVE CIRCLE.
THE RIP-OFF AWARDS.
HEALS.
SCALLY WAGS BUBBLE BATH.
ILLUSTRATOR/TIN BASHER.
THE MILLENIUM DUDE.
BMP/DDB.
AMERICAN AIRLINES.
VOLKSWAGEN.
LONDON TRANSPORT.
OXFAM.
McCANN’S.
AMERICAN AIRLINES.
BBH.
XXXX EXTRA COLD.
BARNADO’S.
Rejected idea for Barnado’s logo.
JOHNNIE WALKER.
CHRISTIE’S.
AUDI.
ROBINSON’S.
ST. JOHN.
THE GUARDIAN.
WOLSEY.
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I was at McCanns in the 80s when Anthony Horowitz came after splitting with Mark. I often wonder what might have been if they’d stayed together. Not that they didn’t do well anyway (homage to Bruce couldn’t resist)
My fuckin’ hero. There I’ve said it.
Mine too. Dx
He helped me and Pat Holden years ago with our book – pushed and pushed us, for 4 months, then we got our first break at RKCR.
He’s a generous genius.