“Hello Dave, We’ve not met before. I’m an ad creative too. I felt compelled to write and tell you how much I’m enjoying your blog. I’ve learnt loads. (Now I’ve started writing this email I feel a bit silly!) Anyway, keep pumping your stuff from the loft out into the ether. It’s wonderful. Thanks, Oli.” I got that email in 2013. I wondered where this charming young man went to college or was on placement, so I googled him: ‘PartnerRead more
Posts tagged: #Tony Davidson
BULLSEYE!
I worked with Sean Doyle for roughly 12 years. One morning, about six years in, Sean threw a scruffy ball of paper over to my side of the desk – ‘I did us a logo’. It was like a miracle; Our names fit together perfectly, symmetrically, what were the chances? It was worth putting it together even if just to enter for awards. I turned the scribble into type. That wasn’t how Sean had imagined it. DYE was too dominant.Read 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
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
PODCAST: Tony Davidson Pt. 2.
The Wieden years. It’s weird, I only interview people whose work I really like, but whenever I lay their work out end-to-end, I’m always surprised at how much better it is than I’d remembered. It could be that there’s much more of it, the sheer consistency of it or that it appears better with the benefit of time and a bit of distance. All three are true of the work in this post. Tony does a good job of shiningRead more
PODCAST: Tony Davidson. (Part 1.)
Sometimes, it’s difficult writing about people you know. On the one hand, you don’t want to offend them with a flip remark, like ‘no filter between his brain and mouth’, or ‘certified nut-job.’ On the other, and probably worse, you don’t want to get all gooey with guff like ‘only about the work’ or ‘incredibly consistent* since day one’. So I won’t bother, I’ll just let you listen and make your own minds up. (*Except for ‘Captain Chaos’.) STUDENT. BMP.Read more
IN-CAMERA 1: Brian Griffin.
You grew up in the land of the Brum? I was actually born in the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, although I grew up in the Black Country in a town called Lye. Art College? I worked in engineering until I was 21, so as a mature student I studied at Manchester Polytechnic School of Photography. Did they teach you anything useful? How to lose your virginity and smoke. When did you take your first picture? As an amateur around 1965,Read more
ENGLISH HERITAGE: Wiggly lines.
I used to love those long copy Leagas Delaney ads. True, I never read the copy, but the theory at the time was that if you write a thousand words on, say, how a boot was made, you’d appear like a very well made boot. Showing a thousand words of copy was like a bit like a quality mark. But I liked them because they looked nice. Well, sophisticated, to be more precise. In a sea of price flashes, exclamationRead more