GREEN BOOKS: New Yorker Ads 3.

Another batch of fertilizer. That’s not a euphemism by the way, just a reminder that ideas grow from ideas, they rarely appear out of the blue. I sometimes hear people say ‘I’m all about tomorrow, I never look back…I’m like an arrow heading towards the future’. It sounds bloody exciting. Then I look at their output, and it often feels so…so, soul-less  gimmicky…nothingy. Like it or not, the truth is that jobs, like most jobs, are less about inventing thanRead more

PODCAST: Sir Frank Lowe.

“Frank Lowe single-handedly cajoled a whole generation of writers, art directors and film directors into revolutionising British and world advertising.” – Sir Alan Parker. It seemed a bit over the top. I know he was very good and had a big impact on the business, but ‘single-handedly’? I guess Alan is his mate, so probably bigged him up a bit. Having just spent three hours nose to nose with Frank, I got a taste of what Alan was talking about. I can’tRead more

B&H, Part 2: The surreal years.

I used to walk past this poster every week for about a year. I was fifteen, my Art teacher had got hold of a life size billboard poster, a 48 sheet, or I should say 48 sheets. It was twenty or thirty foot long, and papered the entire corridor that lead to our classroom. We were all bemused by it at first, just a close-up of an electric circuit board? weird? Was it even an ad? Then we found the gold pack-shot.Read more