In the summer of 2012 I was asked by Maher Bird to help them explore a number of different ideas for the 2012 National Trust campaign. My copywriter Sarah and myself, together with an energetic junior team, developed and explored a large number of integrated concepts. We covered everything from 48 sheets and press, to interactive digital 6 sheets and Facebook integration. Concentrating the exploration around the overarching brand concept of “TIme well spent”, we produced a large body of work, both online and offline.

I took over the design of the Tesco Organic programme in 2004 and ran it for the following 3 years, looking after the overall art direction, recipe design, food shoots and seasonal themes for six campaigns. The campaign was an enormous success — the programme generated an uplift of £3.5 million for Tesco Organic and customer participation of 32% from a targeted group of 250,000 organic buyers. We won a Precision Marketing Award in 2005 for the Tesco Organic programme.

We were asked by Shell International to pitch for an integrated campaign for their V-Power Diesel brand — involving both above and below the line concepts utilising the client’s strong Le Mans connection as the focal point.

Working closely with my copywriter we put together a strong creative route — concepts, adcepts and copy ideas for print and digital — based on the amazing statistics surrounding the Le Mans event and Shell’s participation in it, appealing to our core audience of petrol-heads and company car owners. Our pitch was presented to Shell, resulting in a contract for a large and lucrative body of work.

When it came to designing a photoblog for my extensive collection of photographs taken over the years, I began by experimenting with a number of low-key portfolio CMSs and photoblog templates. In the end I came back to WordPress, and chose an excellent locally designed open-source template, Grace Photoblog, for the basis of my design.

With the back-end structure already in place, I entirely re-skinned the theme and rewrote the CSS to my needs. I kept the graphic treatment minimal and the interface clean to allow the photography to speak for itself. The result is a photoblog I am very proud of, and for which I thoroughly relish creating content.

You can take a look at photogr.aphyx.com here.

Our brief was to persuade customers to visit Hyundai dealerships and test-drive the new Terracan — and convert those test-drives to sales. The reverse featured a map with Terracan features highlighted at various points on the road, and the whole pack was mailed in a waterproof “map bag.” The campaign was enormously successful, exceeding our target for test-drives by more than 50%, and won us a DMA Bronze award at the same time.

Drawing has always been an important part of what I do — whether snatched sketches on the bus in the morning, or long considered poses at a life drawing class. There are many times when it makes sense to push the keyboard aside and get to work with a pencil and paper, if only to see where it takes you. In the agency world Mac visuals are slowly killing the art of the scamp — a great shame as a simple scamp can take a client through the broad strokes of an concept better than any Mac visual.

Regular life-drawing classes keep my drawing skills honed and remind me of where I started this journey. They’ve also provided me with a large amount of inspiration and and a renewed love of the black chinagraph pencil.

Whilst at MBA we won the pitch for the launch of the Huffington Post UK site. Our aim to drive traffic and encourage contribution to their new UK site was achieved with a rallying call to “Blog all about it” and a thoroughly digital approach to the launch.

We invited people to actively participate by way of Transvisions in rail stations, inviting live Twitter discussions about the story of the day — as well as parallel press, banner ads, and full taxi skins.

I spent a few months at the end of 2010 and the start of 2011 engaging in a long-term identity project for one of Foxtrot Hotel’s clients.

After exploring the narrative and textural elements of several original ideas, the concept development continued on a single track — culminating in a modular graphic approach with a parallel custom photography track, which explored the story-based elements in full.

The design stage involved crafting a suite of highly scalable graphic elements and directing a number of model shoots, with the resulting body of work encompassing numerous solutions from interior design and posters to intranet layouts and desk calendars.

I’m a great believer in the subtle use of words and images in advertising. With so much visual noise around us it’s all to easy to add to that pollution, something which happens far too regularly.

Sometimes though, you just have to let that go and have some fun — working on the LOVEFiLM 2011 RAF campaign was one such project. Teaming with the copywriter Glenn Smith, we came up with the most down-and-dirty, need-a-shower-afterwards, groan inducing film based puns we could think of. Of the many concepts we worked through a Batman themed on stood out, and the Fatman Returns campaign was born. I also designed a high-end control version, a Christmas tree formed by twisting celluloid, which was sent out at the same time.

The campaign was very successful for LOVEFiLM, and I was very happy to be asked to work on the 2012 campaign ideas this summer for MBA.

As well as looking after the Tesco Organic campaign for three years, I was tasked with invigorating a number of FMCG and food brands with campaigns using bespoke photography. I put together some very experienced teams including photographers, home economists, recipe designers, stylists and assistants, often with a few models and the client’s brand manager thrown in for good measure.

The shoots had their own challenges. I always insist on entirely natural food photography, without use of tricks, as well as natural lighting. Sometimes the food would arrive pre-cooked, such as the Tesco Finest* shoot, giving us the extra challenge of getting it all looking as freshly cooked as possible. I’m always keen to stay ahead of the trends, highlighting local produce, detailing provenance, and promoting organic and sustainable ideas and methods where I could. Food photography has always fascinated me — such that I have recently started concepts for a local south London recipe book.

Our brief from Nestlé was to produce a highly informative and visually exciting mailing with which we could deliver a small one-cup sample sachet. We decided on an unusual twelve page roll-fold format which would enable us to take the consumer through the process of growing and producing coffee in a series of reveals.

The project was great fun to work on, and the results were very well received by the customers, achieving over 20% redemption – which also kept my client very happy too.

In 2008 I took a Copywriting for Advertising professional training course at the London College of Communication (formerly the LCP), run by copywriter Phil Woodford. Over three intensive days we covered writing copy for advertising and DM, culminating in a number of rapid concepting exercises involving a selection of real-world clients.

I threw myself into the final project, an integrated campaign concept for the charity SolarAid, producing both digital and direct solutions including copy and scamps. Highlighting the importance of bringing safe and renewable energy to rural communities in developing countries, I focused on the problems experienced by and benefits brought to one child. Pulling the cord would reveal the child at a desk, writing the very letter the recipient was reading, with the top of the pull cord transforming into a cable with a light bulb at the end. Your financial help could literally “switch on” the light.