While still at Art College I teamed up with Ian and we started our own printing business in a garage. We began by printing small format invitation and business cards on a hand operated Adana. Eventually upgrading to larger format machinery.
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. Legend or rumour has it that the Crusaders collected here to slake their thirst before setting off to The Holy Land.
So within a year I headed to London and was hired as an Art Director tripling my previous salary. The photograph above features me and 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 personally chauffeured us to the BBC studios for an interview following the thirty hour stint.
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'.
Here I am with Kathy Evans in Wadi Rum, travelling on to Petra and Aqaba. I also travelled with Kathy to take photographs in Quneitra, Syria after Israeli's raised the city to the ground before their withdrawal. See photo.
Eventually I had to find work, so found employment in a local "Ad Agency" called SNIP. I was hired as their art director /photographer. I was also tasked with building a studio and dark room. I was given a Hasselblad and Linhoff 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. The darkroom and studio project took almost a year to complete by which time I was seeking pastures new. My only studio photos were my friends wedding invitation featured here and a photograph for a Farley's rusk ad campaign.
There was a brief interlude during which I was asked to convert the interior of a girlie bar to a pub. Note the guy leaning on the wagon wheel, a feature of the interior design & darts area of the pub. The Lord Kitchener's was launched (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 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 staged photography and all executed in colour, in subdued sunlight on my office balcony.
I produced campaigns and publicity material for several regional airlines.
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.
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 colleague 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. In the circumstances 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, but not my last 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 a 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 by a silversmith friend as a parting gift. We were then driven out of Beirut at speed to eventually be 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 so as 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 departure.
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 of the late King 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.
After gaining the Wellcome business I produced launch TV commercials for the main brand, coinciding with commercials for a major Kuwait bank and Pumbrose (Halal) sausages. Unfortunately, and mainly due to my partners inadequate pan-Arab credentials, meaning he had no Network, this left us finally open to a classic swindle, perpetrated and orchestrated by three major players in the Middle East's advertising industry.
I received a call from the MD of a Paris based Mid East ad agency, who also happened to be the brother in law of my Lebanese partner. He invited me to his offices in Paris where he'd relocated from Beirut. I was not properly versed in the intrigues of transactional business dealings, so I took along my accountant, which effectively was a complete waste of time. It came as no surprise to me when he, quite correctly, pointed out that as my partners agency MEANS was constituted, it could not possibly fully service the Wellcome clients media needs. He suggested he might be able to help with better access to the media, so after a late dinner, he booked me into the Royal Monceau Hotel for us to convene the following morning. With all this bestowed largesse, I knew there had to be an angle, but I couldn't disagree with the essential logic of his argument.
The dust had hardly settled on my drawing board when I received a call from my partner in Kuwait telling me that he'd come to an arrangement with his brother-in-law whereby a young executive would be seconded to our office to assist with the running of our London operation, with a particular emphasis on the media landscape. It was also stressed that I should be as co-operative as possible. I was informed he was an intelligent guy, a Lebanese Christian who spoke French, English and Arabic fluently, was extremely Anglophile, sophisticated, informed and media wise. Now that’s a lot to live up to, so I was eagerly anticipating this messiah from the East.
I could not possibly have anticipated the speed with which things were going to change. Mr Smith, as my chosen sobriquet for my new colleague, was extremely proactive and seemingly diligent. His first recommendation was a name change for the business, and in my naivety I agreed. The new company was registered as an International S.A. and I was not privy to any actual paperwork. Mr. Smith gave himself the title of Chief Operating Officer and I was Managing/Creative Director of AlMona UK Ltd. or at least that is what was printed on my business card.
At the time, these machinations were way beyond my comprehension. So in fact, eventually, all I could suffice from this was we were two companies, London being a creative and production hub, and SA being a media billing hub, but in reality, and with hindsight, simply a device to spirit funds out of the UK into an off-shore entity. We eventually, after a poor start, employed an experienced English account executive from Dorland's, who I'll call James, to manage the business of the Wellcome Foundation. We also employed an English lady media planner who came with all the requisite credentials.
My design studio continued to give creative support to the agency, by which time I had also employed an art director to run my studio while I worked full time for the Agency entity. Our plan was to seek new business and build a presence at speed, and though I knew Mr. Smith and I chimed in terms of a shared ambition, I was less sure about our shared values. This was when things began to get frenetic, and there was an increase of energy out of all proportion to our size. We were pitching for new business at a rate that was probably way beyond our true capacity. On the plus side I was in a much better personal fiscal position, and my studio benefited from an increase in turnover. It wasn’t long before we had four major accounts, and we were pitching for new business on a regular basis. After the Wellcome business I was contacted by my old Sharwoods/RHM client who suggested I might like to pitch for the Ross frozen foods business, to which I eagerly agreed. Mr. Smith had little or no involvement in this pitch. I worked with a copywriter friend who wrote the jingle. We won the business and selected Lamberts to shoot our commercial. See below still from our TV commercial with text from the jingle.
Ross are ready, good and ready for you
By this time we were handling so much TV I needed someone to deal with the logistics and I hired an old art director friend to take charge of tv production. She was very experienced in the industry and in the time she worked with us was an exceptional producer. It also happened our billing and book-keeping had got badly in arrears and so we hired a full time book-keeper/production and billing exec. She came highly recommended by James having previously worked again at Dorlands. At about this time Mr. Smith had hired an additional senior account executive. This guy came with a good track record in Middle East advertising circles, was Anglo/Lebanese and would be responsible for all client contact, and particularly the Wellcome business. By then we were seven in the ad agency and five in my studio.
During my time at SNIP, more than a decade earlier, I was asked to design an exhibition stand for their clients Fa soap brand. Aware nudity was strictly off the cards in this territory I came up with the next best thing, as seen here. Twelve years later, I pitched a tv story-board for the same brand. The concept was to be adaptable across three product lines, being Fa soap, deodorant, and shampoo. After countless trips to Dusseldorf it was finally agreed we would shoot at Duns River Falls, Jamaica. Again using Lamberts we shot on 35mm film as opposed to digital for the very best image quality, and the fee was a record amount for making commercials in this market.
We very quickly opened an office in Beirut and following on an Advertising Age Conference in Cairo, which I attended, I was informed that we'd taken an interest in a local Cairo Agency by the name of Image. We were clearly expanding our territory rapidly. After about a year the launch campaign for our Pif Paf product had clearly run it's course and the brand manager called us to a briefing where we were asked to come up with three 15 second commercials for the main brand, and one for a powder product, see below. They were to be aggressive in tone and using the same strap line we had established in the launch commercial. Made by Sinclair Associates, also the production house I used for the launch commercials.
We used close ups of a roaring tiger, the jaws of a shark, and a striking cobra to convey in visual metaphors the effect of a mosquito bite. With the tag line, The Effect is Deadly.
We used a comical take on an office worker being bugged by a fly as he desperately tries to squat it and fails. Pif Paf comes to the rescue; The Effect is Deadly
We took a visual tour through areas of the home that were vulnerable to cockroaches including a cinematic run with the camera lens through a drainage pipe, ending with the radiating red for danger as illustrated here.
In this animated commercial for Pif Paf powder I selected the music track from Dragnet along with the voice (No AI used). Using animation as the vehicle to tell the story.
The Wellcome Foundation had various consumer brands in the market and we created ads and tv commercials for most of them.
Nocturne fabric freshener
Freshaire air freshener
Drapolene baby lotion, Nocturne and Freshaire press ads.
I took flight to Lebanon with a couple of weeks wages and a Nikon F camera. The first year I spent getting to know this Paris of the Middle East, both its nightlife, and its more bucolic offerings. I quickly befriended a group of local people and interesting expatriates working in journalism and film. This became a little more than an interesting pastime and I travelled the region extensively getting involved in some interesting escapades, for instance what was my connection with this Penthouse front cover and the bar brawl in Amsterdam. See Adrabia
