In 2008, Dave moved from Golden Square in Soho to Great Portland Street. I continued my 3 days a week until my daughter was born in October. A week into paternity leave, a major client exited and a bunch of us were made redundant.
Mr & Mrs Smith: 52
Only working three days a week left me with lots of time to freelance elsewhere. One client was Mr & Mrs Smith who needed copywriting for their their global travel guide, 52
Northern Foods: trade campaign
This company makes lots of food for big name brands. They wanted the world (and their staff) to know that acting like responsible global citizens was good for both life on earth and for business.
Some messaging was for signage in and around the Northern Foods factory as well as general CSR.
Cable & Wireless: Convergence
The C word was huge in 2008 and we created a spoof TV news story to tell the world how exciting C&W's tech was. We also did a print campaign of which sadly this is the only survivor.
Church ads: Commentary
These two ads are some of my favourite work done for the Churches' Advertising Network. They simply use sports commentary to tell the Christmas story.
Church ad: Bus stop Nativity
Two significant things happened in October 2008. I became a father for the first time and lost my job at Dave (all in the same week). While I looked frantically for work, the church needed a poster for Christmas. We asked figurative painter Andrew Gadd to help us and he pretty much came up with the idea.
The painting looked looked great in St Martins in the Fields on the launch day. Andrew and I worked together in a bookshop in Kensington in the early 90s when he was at the RCA and I was at Watford College
Even archbishop Rowan Williams showed up. This was a huge coup. From starting out on the extreme guerrilla fringes of the church with our Surprise, Bad Hair Day and Che Jesus posters in the 90s, we were now establishment.