I have a confession to make; not everything on this site is from the loft.
Apologies to those of you who feel cheated.
I feel such a fraud.
The good news is that this post is 100% loft.
Not mine, my old partner Mike McKenna’s.
I started putting these green books together when Mike and I worked as a team at Publicis, back in the early 90’s.
They were our internet.
We’d split the cost of the pricey books from Cornelissen’s.
Being the art director, I did all the cutting, arranging and sticking.
As I was in charge of the cutting, sticking and arranging many had copywriter-unfriendly titles like ‘photography 5’ or ‘Typography 2’.
It meant when we divorced I was awarded full custody of them.
(Well, I got 10, he got two.)
What would a writer want with books full of photography and typography?
Nearly twenty five years later, in a post-divorce house clearance, Mike’s two have just turned up.
As I said to Mike ‘It’s a bloody shame about the divorce and everything… but every cloud…’
This one is ‘Ads 2’, a snapshot of everything I could cut out or photocopy from trade magazines and awards annuals from around 1992.
Consequently, Fallon McElligott appear on virtually every page.
David Abbott, Tim Delaney and Kishenbaum Bond seem to pop up on every other page.
On the one hand it feels like a time capsule from another age.
On the other, does advertising get much better than Kirshenbaum’s ‘Wake us when it’s over’ campaign for Charivari, Wieden’s ‘Make Believe History Of Black Star Beer’ or the endless stream of Porsche ads manufactured in Minneapolis by Fallon’s?
Enjoy.

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