1 and 2? Well, it came in at just under four hours. Tell me about it? I tried cutting it. Maybe I could’ve edited out the pre-directing bit? Lost the chat about growing up; the nine months in walled hospital room with one wall missing or the time he appeared on national tv as a puppeteer. Or cut the bits about his endless list of non-directing jobs? Maybe trim the stuff about his previous bosses? But his previous bosses areRead more
Posts tagged: #Mark Denton
COPY SAFARI THOUGHTS.
Last week, Vikki Ross asked me to do one of her Copy Safaris. A stroll around London judging advertising in the wild, then posting on Twitter. One of the good things is that you don’t pick and choose, you comment on everything; the good, the bad and the fugly. One of the benefits of having to give an instant take, often on the move, is you can’t overthink it, you react more like the rest of the people on theRead more
PODCAST: Malcolm Venville
Whoever it’s with, whenever I do these podcasts, personal links seem to turn up along the way. Things I’d forgotten or been unaware of – Paul Weiland was once my landlord, I judged the One Show with Gerry Graf 15 years earlier, David Holmes drew a poster for me 25 years earlier. This isn’t like that, this time it really is personal (isn’t that the Jaws 2 strap line?) Malcolm and I started out together; he’d shoot pictures for free,Read more
PODCAST: Mark Denton saves The Creative Circle.
Should Liverpool win the Carabao Cup this season I’m sure they’ll be happy. But it’ll be a bonus. Their goal is to win the Premier League. Or maybe the European Cup. Creatives used to view Creative Circle Awards in the same way; delighted to win one, but their eyes were fixed on D&AD. Or BTAA. Or Campaign Press. Or Campaign Posters. Or The One Show. Or, a bit later, Cannes. In fact, my first ever advertising award was a CreativeRead more
YE OLDE ADVERTS.
Before we start, full disclosure: I’m not anti old ads. I quite like them. But weirdly, a surprising number of creatives leaders don’t. At least, they say they don’t in public, I’m sure in private they must have a cheeky flip through the odd One Show annual now and again? They put out phrases next to their profiles like ‘All about the new’, ‘Future facing creative’, ‘Forwards, not backwards’ ‘I never look back’. It sounds so cool. Frankly, it makes meRead more
MARK DENTON HAS A BOOK TO SELL!
A weird thought popped into my head on my way to record this interview. Weird, because I’ve been reading books on designers for thirty odd years and I’d never spotted it. Also weird, because it’s the opposite of the received wisdom. The thought was this ‘Good designers can work in many styles, great designers have a distinctive style’. As Art Directors and Designers we are taught to put their skills at the service of the brand. Let’s say you’re designing forRead more
Hands Up Who’s Heard Of Frank Budgen?
We’re smack bang in the middle of the age of collaboration. Any press release for a creative hiring now contains that reassuring phrase ‘Known for being collaborative’. (To me it always reads ‘We’re pleased to announce we’ve finally found a creative who will listen to us’.) The feeling the team had creating the work is as scrutinised as what they created. But collaboration means different things to different people. For most of the team it conjures up enjoyable meetings onRead more
THE LOOKY-LIKEY AMALGAM.
I few months back I recorded a podcast with Richard Shotton, one of the brightest people in the business. Whilst preparing I read Richard’s book, The Choice Factory, it’s great, full of fascinating insights and observations on human behaviour and how we respond to marketing. Whilst taking in all this intelligent insight an interesting theory occurred to me; why don’t we just create ads that people like? Granted, it’s no theory of relativity, but it’s odd that it’s barely aRead more
PODCAST: Me. (Pt. 1)
A lot of people have suggested that I do a podcast on myself. Aside from the obvious difficulties of trying to ask yourself probing questions, it felt a little bit indulgent, particularly as I did a whole series of them with my friend Ben Kay, (I think we recorded more episodes than the latest season of Game Of Thrones). But when someone who’s kindly agreed to be interviewed by me asks me to be interviewed by them, it feels rude to sayRead more
PG TIPS: Encounters with Monkey.
Over the last couple of months I’ve had quite a bit of feedback from colleges; ‘Do more posts that go through the decision making process, we like them best’. It’s flattering that the colleges are using my blog, but weird for me, because if I’ve got the choice of interviewing say…Dave Trott or talking about why I picked Futura over Baskerville or preferred the word kerfuffle more than brouhaha, I’d choose the former every time. But I’m going to try and post a fewRead more
INTERVIEW: Andy McLeod.
Why advertising? I was quite quick tongued, bright at school, without being very academically gifted or driven. I cared about ‘stuff’ in general, zeitgeisty stuff; trends, tribes, what was cool what wasn’t, what was funny what wasn’t. I liked art and English at school and not much else. Got not very good A-level grades, which led me to Bristol Polytechnic to do a two year course in Business studies with advertising. The advertising bit of it was 1 hour aRead more
BOSS No. 5: Mark Denton
Why advertising Mark? It all happened by accident. I was quite good at drawing as a kid and my Uncle had gone to Art School and had ended up as a Silversmith. The Dentons weren’t that imaginative (they all worked in the Family Scrap business) so ‘good at drawing’ meant that I should go to Art School too. My Mum thought I could get a job as one of those people who paint the patterns on the edge of platesRead more
GREEN BOOKS: Photos 3.
Another green scrapbook. (For the young people out there, a scrapbook is a kind of pre-internet, analogue way of bookmarking web pages, only heavier and, as it turns out, longer lasting.) This one is full of photographic reference. It’s from about 1993/4, when Satoshi Saikusa, Raymond Meier and Rolling Stone Magazine were all the rage. At least they were in my world. There’s a couple of images in there I’d forgotten all about. They are screaming tortured heads. Almost like Francis Bacon,Read more
PENHALIGON’S: The joy of reference.
After twenty top ten hits ’58 and ’62, Neil Sedaka’s hits dried up. His publisher gave him one last shot. Neil, anxious, sweaty, his weave starting to unravel, decided to order in every No. 1 record from around the globe. He played them over and over, analysing every detail. He then borrowed, or as we say in Advertising ‘was inspired by’ the melody from one, the hook from another a guitar sound from another and so on and soRead more
FINDUS FROZEN FISH: Copying is good.
I wanted to do that ad. Everybody who saw it laughed. Why the hell didn’t I do it? It was so bloody annoying. I wanted to create something effected people it had effected me. Basically, make them laugh. So whenever I’d get a brief I’d do something in that style, something that felt like it was from that world: funny models of animals making a single product point. Then, over at BBH, Chris Palmer and Mark Denton started producing adsRead more
SHORT FILM FESTIVAL: Ideas ruined.
‘Can you do me an ad for Rushes Short Film Festival? it’s to go in my Gongs magazine, it’s an opportunity!’ – Mark Denton. DISSOLVE TO THE FOLLOWING YEAR. ‘Can you do me a campaign for my Short Film Festival? it’s to go in my Gongs magazine, it’s an opportunity!’ – Mark Denton. (The Therapy Short Film Festival was one of a number of ideas Mark has had over the years to redistribute money he’s built up in his savings account.) LookingRead more
NIKE: There is no finishing deadline.
Simons Palmer was the home of the Nike poster, they produced endless great posters which produced endless awards. So getting a brief for one, even a little 6 sheet for the Rugby World Cup, was like getting a ticket to the ball. When I first got there I was handed this approved line written by my shiny new writer Mark Goodwin. I didn’t really get it to be honest, I’m still not sure whether I’m missing something? But I toiledRead more
O’CONNOR DOWSE: A successful ad.
It’s one of the first campaigns I ever made. The agency was Cromer Titterton, my writer was Alastair Wood, the typographer was Andy Dymock and the photographer was Duncan Sim. But the key person involved was the photographer’s assistant, a scruffy, curly-haired Brummie called ‘Malc’. We shot for three weeks to get the three shots above. Malc was treated like a 17th century slave. We shot in the freezing, windy Highlands of Scotland, at the end of the day DuncanRead more
POSTERSCOPE: Selling empty spaces.
‘‘I’ve just had lunch with someone who used to work at Simons Palmer, I told him he needed some advertising for his company, Posterscope, and you’d do it. You could do something good like that old Mike Shafron ad?’’ – Mark Denton.I remembered the ad well, the ads within it were great. But the more I thought about it the more I had an issue with it – the ideas within it were too good, who can think of ideas as goodRead more