Context.
It’s the word that comes to mind every time I think about writing one of these intros.
What seems familiar today was once considered very left-field, risky or just plain crazy.
Each pushes the peanut along for the next generation.
Take the 1988 D&AD Annual, it’s hard to believe now, but all but one ad in the press and poster section had black headlines, the one that didn’t was Graham Fink’s Metropolitan Police campaign.
I was a generation behind Graham, so watched from afar as he and his writer Jeremy Clarke tried to push the peanut forward.
They made ads taking the piss out of other ads, (Hamlet), they got England’s Cricket Captain to stick two fingers up to the establishment after being arrested for smoking dope, (Hamlet again), and they were the first to blow a million pounds on the production of a single tv ad, (B.A.).
I had a great chat with ‘Finky’, hope you enjoy it.