My creative endeavour's began at Derby and District College of Art, and along with my eccentric colleagues I managed to complete the 16 mile egg and spoon race from Nottingham town centre to Derby to publicise the students annual Jazz Ball.
Needs must... so I signed up for ten weeks of servitude at Butlins Holiday Camp, Skegness. Working as a kitchen porter during the day, barman in the evening and cashier at weekends. I spent most of my earnings on a motor bike and Rollieflex camera.
While still at Art College I teamed up with Ian and we launched our own printing and design business in a garage.
We began by printing small format invitation and business cards on a hand operated Adana. Eventually upgrading to a Cropper Platen (Photo; left) and finally a Heidelberg Automatic Platen.
There were many talented students at our College and Kevin Coyne was one. He was once described by Andy Kershaw as "A national treasure who keeps getting better". We printed this very early Coyne poetry and drawings book way before he rose to international recognition as an artist and accomplished musician.
After college I found employment as a junior designer in a Nottingham "Advertising Agency" but I admit I found the local hostelries, and their history, far more interesting than the job.
So within a year I headed to London and was hired as an Art Director on triple my previous salary. The photograph on the left features three of my colleagues limbering up for the challenge to raise funds for the National Advertising Benevolent Society. We got generous support from the Milk Marketing Board and Noel Edmonds who personally chauffeured us to the BBC studios for an interview following the thirty hour stint. My colleague Barry, here in the sun glasses, is the subject of the Hendrix story featured below.
In my fifth year at the Agency my ad for the COI, Nursing Recruitment campaign, won a Design and Art Directors Award for photography. The photograph was taken by Colin Duff. The equally clever headline was written by Peter Roche. The ad was for, what were described then as, Special Hospitals, and preceded Thatcher's closure of these valuable facilities in favour of 'care in the community'.
I headed to Beirut and spent the first year basking in total indulgence before finally succumbing to the need for cash. I casually wandered into an office named Societe Nationale Impression et de Publicite with my Dada Annual wrapped in a plastic bag. After a lengthy trilingual interogation I was offered a one year contract on a very generous tax free salary. I was hired as an Art Director/Photographer. Of course I had never taken a commercial advertising photograph in my life. In the terms of my contract I was also required to build a photography studio and darkroom. Photo: The Cedars of Lebanon
Within the first month I was presented with a sturdy leather carrier case containing a Hasselblad camera and all accessories, together with a Linhoff Technica plate camera, (see photo), neither of which I had any idea of how to operate. Fortunately Librarie Antoinne had all the reference books I required. Allowing for disruption, like the 1973 War, various internal political conflict, the darkroom and studio project took almost a year to complete by which time I was seeking pastures new.
There was a brief interlude during which I was asked to convert the interior of a bar to a pub. The Lord Kitchener's was born (see left) and free drinks for the duration. I then teamed up with an English journalist to form a creative consultancy.
Note: The Sam Haskins semi-nude photograph whose work was featured throughout the pub.
I adapted this Boots brochure to feature an Arab mother and child. It was my first real attempt at a professional level of photography and all executed in colour.
I produced campaigns and publicity material for several regional airlines: Note the traditional Naskhi calligraphy used in the headline of the MEA ad.
In this campaign for Kuwait Airways, we were probably the first to use the more modern, angular Koufic Arabic calligraphy for headlines on ads. I also designed and produced an inflight brochure of which no copy exists.
SUN
Effective black and white small space ad campaign for Amstel Beer utilising display typography in the English text and the Arabic. Produced in French, English and Arabic.
I DRINK AMSTEL
Corporate brochure for Lebanese construction company based in Qatar. Using various supplied photographs and one weeks location photography, that included the Chairman's art collection, example illustrated here.
Another prestige corporate brochure for the Juffali Group. Printed in full colour, but unfortunately no colour sample exists. Shot over two weeks on location in Saudi Arabia.
Possibly the first ever published UAE travel brochure. All photographs supplied. Designed and printed with gate folds and five creases to form the semi-arch on the folded cover. The theme is evidently more cultural than todays Dubai offering.
Left: Campaign for Ligget and Myers cigarettes, featuring another of my photographs.
Right: Campaign for Dar Assayad. Lebanese newspaper publishers.
Bloody Beruit was an understatement....
The months following October were to be the most dangerous, as the civil war intensified central Beirut came under increasing shell fire and various factions began kidnappings and targeted assassinations. The worst fighting was around The Holiday Inn, inconveniently located only yards away from my printers. The one and only time I ran the gauntlet to check a job my taxi refused to go within two hundred yards of the building, it really was too close to call. I took the photo in my flat on Christmas day 75 during a total curfew, even the hotel bars were closed.
Undaunted I eventually found a desk space to rent in a design studio in Pimlico. I also partnered with an old friend I had worked with in the London Ad Agency where he was an account executive. With my portfolio of work and accumulated knowledge of Middle East markets it made sense to set up as specialists in this particular field. Our first client turned out to be Purnell's publishers who had just obtained a contract to produce Ahlan Wasahlan, Saudia Airlines first inflight brochure. This was dejavu and most fortuitous for several reasons. With the relative commercial decline of Beirut, due to the civil war, London became a sanctuary for many Lebanese and for their commercial interests. At the same time UK marketeers were able to find the services they would normally only find in Beirut, in the heart of London. We eventually moved to offices in the West End and expanded our staffing level to meet demand.
My friend Barry asked me to model for this ad, and co-incidentally some days later Jimmy Hendrix passed away. Ironically I also attended his last concert on the Isle of Wight. The ad was pulled temporarily and Barry was asked to come up with another headline, but politely declined. It was very shortly after this episode we both quit the agency.
My first assignment was to produce this Saudia Airline's Annual Report entailing two weeks of location photography, traversing the Kingdom from west to east. It was printed in colour, and was my first experience of the Kingdom.
An illustrated spread of Arabic poetry executed once again in crayon for Saudia in flight brochure, enhanced with classic Soulos calligraphy.
Things couldn't get worse. First the news that my office assistant had been shot and severely wounded. A few weeks later in the bar of the Hotel, a friend and myself were apprehended by Kalashnikov wielding men wearing hooded kafir's. We were removed from the premises and forced into a jeep with a manned machine gun mounted at the rear. I was relieved of my passport and a precious gold and silver ring that had been made for me by a silversmith friend on leaving London. We were then driven out of Beirut and put through a horrifying mock execution exercise, before they finally sped away. I decided then it was time to quit Beirut and arranged collection of a new passport from the British Embassy. My business partner lived across the green line so I informed him of my intentions and left a signed bank cheque for him to countersign to bring funds to London, where I'd thought we could operate from for the interim. He brought the cash to London and put it in his personal account. I was left completely penniless and had to rely on the generosity of friends. The ad on the left was quite prophetic as it was the last ad I designed and shot for Middle East Airlines before my own final great escape.
As illustrated here in this early promotion, we very quickly acquired an enviable list of blue chip clients.
PIPE LINES
A major commission for our client Caterpillar was to translate the technical literature across their whole range of machinery into Arabic. We then took the films used in the English language print run, reversed them reading right to left and applied the Arabic. The finalised printed brochures were then despatched to Switzerland for distribution.
Certainly, the most important client in terms of exposure for our Arabic branding expertise, was Beechams Overseas. Their product range covered everything in the consumer category from, Marmite and Bovril, Macleans and Aquafresh toothpaste, various shampoo and soap brands, to the Airwick range. Soft drinks including Lucozade, Ribena, Idris, Quosh, Shloer, Corona all of which we were called to work on.
Then we were approached by Rank Hovis McDougal to rebrand their Sharwoods range and various other products such as Mrs Kipling and the Paxo recipe leaflet featured here.
We designed and printed this prestige brochure in English and Arabic for London and Arab Investment Limited along with their Annual Report.
I quickly familiarised myself with Arabic script designing and drawing most of these logotypes myself. There were no computers back then so everything was hand drafted.
A proposal for the first cover of Saudia in flight brochure. This portrait of King Abdulaziz Al-Saud was illustrated in coloured crayon and rejected in favour of a bland gold embossed profile on green background.
Rolls Royce Silver Shadow 2
After a reasonably successful five years in business I was hit by yet more disappointment. My partner admitted to a financial indiscretion involving himself and an employee of one of our larger clients, prompting me to end the partnership and take overall control of the business. This had a negative impact on the turnover of my design business and I sought desperately to find another avenue of revenue. I contacted the son of my former Beirut based employer who, because of the civil war, had re-located his own business to Kuwait. I arranged a meeting in London where we agreed to form a UK based entity of his ad agency operation. We put in equal amounts of seed money and formed MEANS UK Ltd. The name being an acronym for Middle East Advertising Network Services.
Fortuitously, the furniture showroom's offices adjacent to my design practice were vacating and I stepped in swiftly to obtain the lease. I spent the majority of the seed money on a complete refurb, with contemporary furnishings, a telex, tinted glass partitioning and some decorative modern art. At the time I was aware the Wellcome Foundation had huge business in the Middle East, concentrated mainly on insecticide. I cold called the marketing manager and made a verbal introduction and proposal. On receiving a positive first reaction I was asked to make a creative pitch for their insecticide brand Pif Paf. I worked with a copywriter friend on the pitch and used my studio staff to do all the creative work, which included TV storyboards, press ads, direct mail and point of sale material. (Examples below)
We designed and wrote a monthly magazine for Dar Assayad publishing group featuring news and gossip from the Lebanese Advertising Souk. This, in some respects, led to my feature article in AdWeek the highly popular precursor to Haymarket's Campaign magazine.
Fortunately my Beruit based client Dar Assayad moved their advertising department to London so I continued to design their promotional literature across most of their titles which included this Fairuz launch/promotion. Another unexpected visitation was a young Lebanese calligrapher who I'd known briefly in Beirut, having arrived in the UK on spec, looking for employment. I immediately gave him desk space and set about applying for a work permit. I'd applied previously for one of our translators and had no problem, but in this instance, for some unexplained reason he was refused. He did eventually after some months obtain the right to reside and continued to work with us on a freelance basis.
