Yuya is Chief Creative Officer at Dentsu and under his leadership, Dentsu’s creative teams work on projects ranging from product development, branded content creation, pure content creation, including TV programs and movies, content export, space planning and design, digital platform development, business strategy and consulting, and PR to traditional advertising. Yuya himself is also involved in government projects such as the Olympic Games and the National Stadium. He is also Director of Dentsu Lab Tokyo, an initiative to bring new forms of creation through technology by combining research, ideation, and development. International accolades for Yuya include gold, silver, bronze awards at Cannes, D&AD, One Show and Spikes, among others, as well as Grand Prix at Adfest. In 2005, he won the Creative Person of the Year award of the Japan Advertising Agencies Association. He has also been selected Campaign Brief Asia’s Creative Director of the Year for three years in a row. He is a familiar face as a judge at international awards such as Cannes, D&AD, Clio, Spikes and Adfest, and as a speaker at various conferences, including D&AD President’ s Lecture. Yuya is also a member of the D&AD Advisory Board as well as the author of the book ‘All Work is the Work of Creative Direction’.

Es devlin is an artist and stage designer. She is known for creating large-scale performative sculptures and environments that fuse music, language and light. Devlin has conceived touring stage sculptures for beyoncé, u2, adele, the weeknd and kanye west as well as two decades of opera, drama and dance worldwide. Her fluorescent red fifth lion roared AI-generated collective poetry to crowds in london’s trafalgar square in september 2018. The singing tree, a collective choral installation at the v&a museum in london merged machine-learning with sound and light in 2017; The 2016 mirrormaze in peckham, london, and room 2022 at miami art basel 2017 explored reflective labyrinthine geometries and narratives. Devlin collaborated with theoretical physicist carlo rovelli on an interpretation of the order of time read by benedict cumberbatch in 2018. Her practice was the subject of the netflix documentary series abstract: The art of design, and she has been named artistic director of the 2020 london design biennale. Devlin has been awarded the london design medal, three olivier awards and a ual fellowship. She has been named rsa royal designer for industry and was made obe in 2015. Devlin spoke at ted2019 on sculpting music, transience and technology. Her talk can be viewed here. Studio ES devlin is designing the UK pavilion at expo 2020 dubai. The poempavilion will continue the work in AI-generated collective poetry first conceived with hans ulrich obrist at the serpentine gallery in london in 2017.

As global executive creative director (and one of the few industry women at the very, very top), Colleen leads the eight-office global network of W+K alongside President Dave Luhr. For more than three decades, the fiercely independent shop has been telling beautiful, provocative stories and setting the bar for creativity. Colleen is leading the vision for the agency's future, where one avenue of evolution and growth will be defined by a deeper, more extensive set of creative chops. Colleen has been instrumental in establishing the first of many more proof-points that W+K is a culture for all kinds of creative people, including the rise of our creative technology group, The Lodge (which recently created this robot and an AI-driven Slack bot), and a content publishing group. Colleen joined the agency in 2013, and became partner in 2014. Before W+K, Colleen founded Socialistic, a social media content and design shop, where she served as chief creative officer and CEO. While at Socialistic, she won coveted accounts Red Bull and Fast Company, two of the leading content marketers in the world, and also led work for Showtime and General Electric. Prior to founding Socialistic, Colleen was the first chief digital officer for TBWA Worldwide, setting the network’s global digital strategy and leading digital efforts for Adidas and Pepsi. Her career has also included the roles of chief experience officer at JWT New York and chief creative officer at Organic, where she led creative on Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. She is currently based in New York, and spends time throughout the year in all eight W+K offices.

Susan Hoffman began her career at Wieden+Kennedy as employee No. 8, and has spent more than three decades making a lasting, unmistakable mark on the agency’s culture. While Hoffman stands only 18 inches tall, her creativity, leadership and talent are a towering presence – both in Portland, Oregon where she lives, and in the world of advertising at large. Much like the woman herself, Hoffman’s influence on culture cannot be ignored or even reasoned with. She’s created some of W+K’s most memorable work, including one Nike spot that pretty much ruined the Beatles for everybody. She famously opened W+K London and W+K Amsterdam, and has intermittently served as ECD for the Portland, New York and Delhi offices.

Michael graduated from University with a 1st in Visual Art and Marketing, then proceeded to work around the world with eight different jobs in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo and New York. Aged 28, he decided to create his own company, Johnson Banks. Today, the consultancy is established as one of the pre-eminent European identity and branding companies, regularly competing for projects against companies ten times its size and twice its age, with clients as far afield as Beijing, Doha and San Francisco. The success of the company has been reflected in the numerous awards that Johnson has collected over the past two decades, including 8 D&AD Pencils (one of them a very rare black one). Dozens of his designs are held in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and both the Guardian and Independent newspapers have recently identified him as one of Britain’s foremost designers. Michael served on the D&AD executive board for four years before being appointed president in 2003, the year that his project to celebrate forty years of D&AD (Rewind) was commemorated with an exhibition at the V&A and a Phaidon book of the same name. His first book, Problem Solved (Phaidon Press) has just been revamped for a second edition and he is researching two further titles.

Steve was Founder/ ECD of HHCL, which won Campaign Agency of the Year three times and was also Campaign’s Agency of the Decade. He was ECD at TBWA/London 2004 – 2006. And non-exec CD at Albion 2009 -2011; in both 2010 and 2011, Albion was shortlisted for Campaign’s Digital Agency of the Year. Steve has won most of the major creative awards, including the D&AD Gold Pencil and the Grand Prix at Cannes. He has spoken at over 90 conferences. In 2004 Steve wrote “Change the World for a Fiver”, which sold over a million copies worldwide. In 2008, he was included in Campaign’s Hall of Fame - the 40 most influential people in British advertising over the last 50 years. In 2011, Steve set up another game-changing company - Decoded, which has taught 10,000 people “code in a day”. Steve is also ECD at the SCA.

Typographer and graphic designer Margaret Calvert is perhaps best known for her work on the UK’s road signs, as well as the Transport lettering she designed in partnership with Jock Kinneir. Her first design job came while studying at Chelsea College of Art where Kinneir, her tutor, approached her to create signs for Gatwick Airport. Later, Kinneir would hire her to design a pictogram system for UK signage, with some of the icons based on Calvert’s own memories of her family’s farm. Calvert, who has been described as “the mother of modern-day information design”, has also designed several typefaces for Monotype.

I learnt from the best. Trott. Arden. Charles Saatchi. Tim Delaney,…I learnt from the best and am passionate to pass it on. Over the extent of my advertising career, l have managed to achieve all of what l set out to, and more, including the icing on the cake in 2014 when I received the D&AD President’s Award for “Outstanding Contribution to Advertising”, the first female recipient in 52 years of D&AD. I have been awarded over 200 entries in the D&AD Annual, 7 yellow pencils, 9 silver pencils plus a handful more as Creative Director for Club 18-30 and Nursing. As well as several Golds and best overall tv ad at Cannes. The majority of my years in advertising have been at Saatchi & Saatchi, where my mentor, the late Paul Arden appointed me Head of Art before being appointed joint Creative Director. I’m listed in D&ADs “Master class of Art Direction” book which represents the top art Directors of all time. I hate cats, and love nothing more than my iPhone indicating no new voice messages, texts or emails.

Alex McDowell is a production designer, producer and creative director that works at the intersection of emergent technologies and experiential media. He originally studied fine art and planned to become a painter, but became involved with London’s burgeoning 70s punk scene and designed covers for bands including The Clash and Iggy Pop. He went on to direct videos for various artists such as the Cure and Depeche Mode, eventually relocating to LA to design sets for the likes of Madonna and Aerosmith, and produce commercials for brands including Levi’s, Converse and Coca-Cola. He later moved into the world of feature film, working on The Lawnmower Man and The Crow, as well as a long list of blockbusters directed by directors such as David Fincher, Steven Spielberg and Terry Gilliam. He’s the founder of world design studio experimental.design, and in 2008 he established the World Building Institute, to give designers opportunities to explore narrative design

Designer Derek Birdsall was born in Leeds, and studied a foundation course at the Wakefield College of Art before enrolling at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. After a two-year stint at an army printing unit as part of his National Service, Birdsall began working for printers Balding + Mansell on a freelance basis as well as lecturing on the history of typography at the London College of Printing. In 1962 he helped co-found D&AD, and in the late 70s set up Omnific Studios with Martin Lee and Alan Fletcher. Birdsall’s work spans many creative disciplines, including his contributions to the world of book design, and his work with IBM and Pirelli.

Dan Wieden is the co-founder of Wieden+Kennedy, as well as the creator of Nike’s iconic Just Do it slogan. He spent some time working in PR before he moved over the ad industry, beginning as a copywriter at an agency in Portland. In 1982 he teamed up with colleagues to launch their own agency, W+K, which started in a basement room without a phone. Wieden has joked that he’d have to run to a payphone in the hallway any time he needed to take a call. Nevertheless the agency has grown to become a global business with offices around the world. Of W+K’s success, Wieden told It’s Nice That, “We developed a culture so weird and so sticky it would hurt your damn soul to leave the place.”

Neville Brody is an internationally renowned designer, typographer, art director and brand strategist. As founder of the Research Studios network and partner in each of our operations, his insight, methodology and appetite for excellence inform every aspect of our work. Today, in addition to lecturing and contributing to a variety of cultural and educational initiatives, Brody works both independently and alongside our designers on commercial and private projects – guiding Research Studios, our clients’ and inspiring the wider design community.

Spike Jonze’s decades-long career began in a Maryland BMX store in the 80s, where he started photographing BMX demos and landed himself his first role as a photographer for Freestylin’ Magazine. He went on to shoot for several BMX mags, as well as filming and editing skateboarding videos and promos, and later music videos for Sonic Youth, Björk, The Breeders and Weezer. In 1997 he made his first documentary, and in 1998 a TV ad for Sprite. His first feature film, Being John Malkovich, came in 1999. Over the 90s and early 2000s Jonze continued to create music videos, as well as adapting Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and then in 2013 directing sci-fi film Her. Jonze continues to be involved in the music world, directing Frank Ocean’s summer tour in 2017, and in 2019 a feature length documentary dedicated to the Beastie Boys. He’s worked with brands including Apple, Nike, Levi’s, Ikea and Squarespace.

Designer Michael Peters studied at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, and the Yale University School of Art and Architecture, before returning to London to work with Lou Dorfsman, and Collett Dickenson Pearce. He set up Michael Peters and Partners in 1970, and went on to work with major brands including the BBC, British Airways and Virgin, as well as the Conservative Party – whose logo he designed. The studio renamed itself Michael Peters Group in 1983, and went on to open offices in cities around the world before going bankrupt in 1990. Two years later, Peters set up Identica. According to Peters: “Good design is firstly a good idea. Then it has to be combined with everything else that surrounds it: good typography, photography, illustration.”

Sir John Sorrell and Lady Frances Sorrell are British designers and creative industry advocates who are major supporters of creative education. They set up Newell and Sorrell in 1976 - going on to work with major brands including British Airways and Royal Mail. The business became Interbrand in 1997. The pair also co-founded the Sorrell Foundation in 1999, and the organisation has supported thousands of young people across the UK - helping them to engage with creativity. The Saturday Club Trust is a spinoff of this, and gives 13-16-year-olds the chance to study everything from art and design to writing and talking on Saturdays for free. Both have held other influential roles, with Lady Frances Sorrell Chancellor of the University of Westminster, and Sir John Sorrell chairman of London Design Festival.

Sir John Sorrell and Lady Frances Sorrell are British designers and creative industry advocates who are major supporters of creative education. They set up Newell and Sorrell in 1976 - going on to work with major brands including British Airways and Royal Mail. The business became Interbrand in 1997. The pair also co-founded the Sorrell Foundation in 1999, and the organisation has supported thousands of young people across the UK - helping them to engage with creativity. The Saturday Club Trust is a spinoff of this, and gives 13-16-year-olds the chance to study everything from art and design to writing and talking on Saturdays for free. Both have held other influential roles, with Lady Frances Sorrell Chancellor of the University of Westminster, and Sir John Sorrell chairman of London Design Festival.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is perhaps best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, as well as the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium – a web standards organisation. He began his career at a telecoms company in Dorset, followed by a brief stint at CERN, some time at another computer systems company in Dorset, and then back to CERN in 1984 as a fellow. Five years later, and the World Wide Web was born - described by Berners-Lee as “an act of desperation, because the situation without it was very difficult”. In 1990, he published the world’s first website, which helped explain to people how to use a browser, set up a server, and create their own sites. As well as this pioneering work, Berners-Lee is a vocal supporter of net neutrality, and has worked with several organisations and companies to ensure the internet is fair and accessible. He’s the recipient of a long list of awards and several honorary degrees.

Designer Philippe Starck has created a huge range of objects over the course of his career, which has spanned architecture, product design, industrial design, furniture design, and many other creative disciplines. Having been influenced by his aircraft engineer father, Starck studied at Paris’s École Nissim de Camondo, and went on to set up his first company, which produced inflatable objects, in 1968. In the 70s he built his reputation designing interiors, and by the 80s was coming to international attention. He’s well known for his practical-yet-playful approach to product design, which has seen him design toothbrushes, luggage, watches and the iconic rocket-shaped Juicy Salif lemon squeezer for Alessi. Starck has been prolific, to say the least, over the last 50 years, designing several buildings in Japan, hotels, restaurants, yachts and, in 2020, the interior of the International Space Station’s housing module.

Sir Jonathan Paul "Jony" Ive, KBE RDI is an English designer and the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple Inc. He oversees the Industrial Design Group, and also provides leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) software teams across the company. He is the designer of many of Apple's products, including the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini and iOS 7.

Dave Trott is the founder of several ad agencies, including Gold Greenlees Trott, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott and Walsh Trott Chick Smith. He began his career at Carl Ally Inc in New York, before returning to his home city of London and taking up a role as trainee copywriter at Boase Massimi Pollitt – where his ‘New York style’ was apparently much appreciated. His way with words was evident early on, not least in his Lipsmackinthirstquenchin campaign for Pepsi, and then later through his campaigns for Cadbury’s Flake, Toshiba and Ariston - for whom he dreamed up the Ariston-and-on-and-on slogan. Trott was Chairman of The Gate – previously WTCS – for several years, although left the agency in 2014. As well as his work in the industry, Trott has authored several books exploring creativity including Creative Blindness (And How To Cure It).

Designer Michael Wolff is founder of creative agency Wolff Olins, as well as Michael Wolff & Company. He explored several roles before joining the creative industry, dabbling in architecture, fashion, interiors and exhibition stands, before meeting Wally Olins and founding Wolff Olins in 1965. Here, he’s credited as creating some iconic identities, working in partnership with clients including BT, Audi, Bovis and P&O. He left in 1983, going on to lead Addison, before setting up Michael Wolff & Company . “Having an idea is a block to having more,” Wolff has said. “If you have an idea, just throw it away. You think you’ll never have another on but you will… sometimes you just have to leave things alone.”

Director Paul Weiland has been responsible for hundreds of TV ads – including some much-loved Walkers crisps campaigns – as well as several films and TV shows. He worked briefly as a copywriter after leaving school, before launching his film career and quickly establishing himself as the go-to director for ads in the 90s. Beyond his creative industry career, Weiland has directed films including Mr Bean and Blackadder: Back & Forth. As well as receiving D&AD’s President’s Award, Weiland is the recipient of a BAFA and an Emmy, and in 2015 was awarded an OBE for services to advertising and the creative industries. “It’s the cherry on top of a career cake,” remarked the director, somewhat modestly, at the time. Weiland is also founder, Executive Creative Director and Director at Contagious London.

Mary is the Creative Director and founding partner of Lewis Moberly. Her numerous awards include British Design & Art Direction Gold award, three Silver Awards, the President’s Award and the DBA Grand Prix. Mary holds a Pentaward Honorary Award for exceptional achievement. In 1995 she became the first woman President of British Design and Art Direction. Mary holds an Honorary Masters Degree from Surrey University, has chaired the BBC Graphic Design Awards and The Scottish Design Awards. She was the 2013 President of the Cannes Lions Design Jury and in 2014 guest speaker at Design Thinkers Conference in Toronto. She is an independent consultant to Marks and Spencer where she founded the Design Forum, and has been a member of the Royal Mail Stamps Advisory Committee. Mary is honoured by the Women’s Advertising Club of London as one of “75 Women of Achievement” and is a Prince Phillip Design Award nominee. Her award winning work is diverse. It includes brand design for Johnnie Walker, Moet and Chandon and Waitrose and identity design for La Grande Epicerie de Paris, Grand Hyatt, LVMH, St Pancras and Gatwick Airport. Mary has been a keynote speaker at Luxe Pack in Monaco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the President Nelson Mandela Creative Conference in Johannesburg and the Fiat Conference ‘I Colori Della Vita’. She has been profiled in the Sunday Times and the Financial Times and is co author of Understanding Brands.

Tim Delaney launched his copywriting career at the age of 19, going on to become creative director at BBDO at 27 and managing director at 29. Legend has it he rung up the MDs of all his clients to get some insider tips on how to do the job. After his meteoric rise up the ranks, he partnered up with Ron Leagas in 1980 and founded Leagas Delaney. The agency has worked with major brands, including Harrods, the BBC, Bosch, adidas and Sony. “Everything has a story to tell and I want to write it,” Delaney once said.

American artist and designer Bob Gill began his career in New York, where he contributed illustrations to Esquire, Architectural Forum and Seventeen. He moved to London in 1960 and worked at Charles Hobson for several years, before founding design studio Fletcher/Forbes/Gill – which would later become Pentagram. In 1967 Gill returned to freelance life, landing George Harrison’s Wonderwall Music album cover as his first job. His career to date spans many disciplines including design, teaching, filmmaking, illustration and writing. His book, Forget all the rules you ever learned about graphic design. Including the ones in this book, remains essential reading for many designers today.

David Bailey is recognised as one of the world’s foremost fashion and portrait photographers, having shot everyone from The Beatles and Jean Shrimpton to Kate Moss and Damon Albarn. Bailey began his career in the late 50s, working as a photographic assistant before landing a contact with British Vogue – where he would continue to work as staff, and then as a freelancer. As of 2020 he’s shot 99 covers for the magazine. In the late 60s, Bailey created album covers for the likes of Marianne Faithfull and Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam). In 1976 he co-founded monthly magazine Ritz Newspaper, which is credited with introducing paparazzi photography to the UK. As well as his career in photography, Bailey has directed hundreds of commercials, short films, documentaries, TV dramas and feature film.

Designer Martin Lambie-Nairn began his career at the BBC in 1965, and worked as a graphic designer at several broadcasters and production companies including ITN, where he designed the graphics for the Apollo space missions, as well as the company’s logo. In 1976 he set up his own studio, which was renamed Lambie-Nairn & Company in 1990. The Channel 4 ‘blocks’ logo is perhaps his best-known work, although Lambie-Nairn also created a groundbreaking 30-second CG advert for Smarties. Other high profile projects came during his time as consultant creative director at the BBC, where he designed the iconic BBC Two identity. Lambie-Nairn went on to work at several other studios including Heavenly, ML-N and Red&White.

Creative director Paul Arden helped launch some truly iconic ad campaigns into the world – not least Castlemaine XXXX’s “Austalian’s wouldn’t give a XXXX for anything else”, and Silk Cut’s slashed purple silk. Arden worked at Saatchi & Saatchi for almost 20 years, and was appointed Executive Creative Director in 1987 after a 14-year stint at the agency. In 1992 he left and set up production company Arden, Sutherland-Dodd – which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes in its first year of business. As well as his work in the ad industry, Arden penned several books including It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be. In a 2008 obituary for The Independent, Dave Trott described him as, “irascible, awkward, tempestuous and sulky. He was also brilliant, original, electrifying and inspiring. He was going to do his job to the best of his ability no matter what. And his job was to make ads that knocked your eyes out.”

British designer Richard Seymour is the co-founder of hugely influential industrial design firm SeymourPowell, which he set up together with Dick Powell in 1984. The company has worked on a vast range of projects, which includes designing bras, trains, phones and bikes, and advising clients such as Nokia, Casio and Tefal. Seymour has described his business as “a truly fantastic innovation machine”.

Dick Powell, co-founder and director of global design and innovation company Seymourpowell, is the new D&AD Chairman. Powell is a past President of D&AD and recipient of the D&AD President’s Award for his outstanding contribution to creativity. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes alongside business partner Richard Seymour, and, along with the D&AD Executive, has sat on the boards of the Design Council and the Design Business Association. Dick was global design advisor to Samsung Electronics and is currently a member of the International Advisory Panel for Design in Singapore. He also holds the role of group creative director at Loewy, Seymourpowell’s parent company.

Sir John Hegarty is one of the most respected names in advertising, having created groundbreaking campaigns such as Levi’s Laundrette and Audi’s Vorsprung Durch Technik slogan. He started out as Junior Art Director at Benton and Bowles in 1965. Jobs at John Collings & Partners and Saatchi & Saatchi followed, and then in 1973 Hegarty co-founded TBWA. In 1982 he launched Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and saw its “When the world zigs, zag” philosophy take over the ad industry. The agency now has offices around the world. Hegarty has won a long list of accolades across the course of his career, including being knighted for his services to the advertising and creative industries in 2007.

Graphic designer John Gorham created a huge range of work during his 40-year career, spanning design, typography, packaging, posters and illustration – much of which was awarded. He largely worked as a freelancer, regularly collaborating with Alan Parker as well as Frank Lowe and Tim Delaney. Above and beyond his design work, Gorham taught at the Royal College of Art for ten years. Although he’s considered something of a forgotten designer now, Gorham’s work was undoubtedly hugely influential on successive generations of creatives. “Gorham’s style was all about the idea first, the idea, after that, the idea,” wrote Michael Johnson.

Art director Neil Godfrey is known for creating iconic pieces of work for brands such as Parker Pens and Birdseye, regularly working with copywriter Tony Brignull to create award-winning ads. Godfrey’s creative career began at Dorland, before he moved onto Collett Dickenson Pearce and then Doyle Dane Bernbach – where he remained for a decade before meeting Brignull. Together, the pair would go on to become D&AD’s most-awarded art director and copywriter respectively. “He was the acknowledged master of art direction,” wrote Brignull in Creative Review. “Every art director, every account executive, every client knew that when Neil did something it was right.”

Graphic designer Abram Games was born in London, and studied at Saint Martins School of Art before getting a junior role at design firm Askew-Young. After winning a poster competition hosted by London City Council in 1935, Games began creating some of his best-known work - including designs for London Transport. He was especially prolific during the Second World War, during which Games was official poster artist for the British War Office, creating around a hundred pieces of propaganda. Later in life he made work for British Airways, Guinness, Shell and The Financial Times, as well as cover designs for Penguin and emblems for the Festival of Britain. He remains one of the most influential British designers of all time, remembered for his ‘maximum meaning with minimum means’ philosophy. “I wind the spring and the public, in looking at the poster, will have that spring released in its mind,” he said of his work.

Film director Ridley Scott studied at the Royal College of Art before landing a job as a trainee set designer at the BBC. He set up film and production company Ridley Scott Associates with Tony Scott in 1968, which went on to make adverts for Hovis and Chanel No. 5. Scott directed his first feature film in 1977, The Duellists, and then in 1979 the cult sci-fi horror flick Alien. A long list of cult successes and blockbusters followed including Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. Most recently Scott directed The Martian, produced Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, and also made his TV directorial debut with sci-fi series Raised By Wolves.

Terence Conran studied textile design in London, and worked with Eduardo Paolozzi before joining the Festival of Britain team in 1951. He went on to set up furniture company Habitat in 1964, as well as The Conran Store in 1972 – with both going on to become international retail brands. Through The Conran Design Group, Conran and his team also produced restaurant and hotel interiors as well as homeware, and the designer was responsible for the creation of several high profile restaurants in London and beyond. Over the course of his life Conran received a long list of awards, including a 1989 D&AD President’s Award.”He not only changed the way we lived, he changed the way we ate, he changed the way we looked at design,” wrote John Hegarty in an obituary for the designer, who died in 2020.

Sir Frank Lowe started out in the mailroom at J Walter Thompson, but quickly moved up the ranks to become Chief Executive at Collett Dickenson Pearce. In 1981 he co-founded Lowe Howard-Spink – later becoming Lowe & Partners Worldwide – which worked with major brands including Hovis, Stella Artois and Reebok. After an explosive falling out with Interpublic, which bought Lowe Worldwide in 1981, Lowe set up Red Brick Road and audaciously poached Tesco from his former agency. He remains the only account person to have received the D&AD President’s Award. “Aside from achieving sales success, any advertising entering people’s lives uninvited should always ensure that they leave them a little better or richer for their visit,” said Lowe.

Italian designer Marcello Minale was born in Tripoli, and studied art and architecture in Naples before completing a stint at Young & Rubicam’s Rome office and moving to Finland to work for agencies Taucker and Mackkinointi Uiherjuuri. In 1962 he moved to London, later setting up his own studio, Minale Tattersfield, with partner Brian Tattersfield. Together the pair worked with everyone from Kodak and Nestle to Natwest and Armani. Minale was the recipient of more than 300 design awards, and was described in a DesignWeek obituary in 2001 as “enthusiastic about design and never short of an opinion.”

Graphic designer Brian Tattersfield studied under Bob Gill at the Royal College of Art before joining Young & Rubicam as an art director. In 1962 he set up Minale Tattersfield with partner Marcello Minale, landing a redesign of Harrods’ visual identity as their first major project. The studio also worked with brands including Kodak, Nestle, Natwest, Armani and Harrods. Tattersfield worked at the firm for 30 years before retiring in 1995.

David Abbott got his start writing copy for Kodak, followed by a job at Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York, then London, and then a role as Creative Director at the agency that would become French Gold Abbott. Abbott Mead Vickers was founded in 1991, and the agency created iconic work for the Economist, Sainsbury’s and Volvo. Abbott was known for his clever use of language, which he deployed to create some of the most memorable ads of all time. WCRS founder Robin Wright claimed he was “the best single copywriter in the history of advertising”.

Designer and art director John McConnell studied at Maidstone College of Art, where he honed his craft skills - working on everything from lettering and silverwork to stonecutting and screenprinting. He was fascinated by the world of graphic design, but ended up working at a Baker Street ad agency for a short while, before joining Tandy, Halford and Mills and focusing on packaging design. After going freelance, McConnell’s work began to draw attention - with his work for Biba winning a D&AD Silver Pencil. He went on to work at Pentagram, and for clients including Clarks, Polaroid, Boots and Faber & Faber. According to McConnell: “The creative process is paring back all the time. If you can’t defend it, get rid of it.”

American photographer, filmmaker and creative Bob Brooks was responsible for some of the best-known ads of all time – think BT’s JR Hartley and the Smash Martians. He helped establish D&AD in 1962, having come to London from New York’s Madison Avenue the year before. Brooks had worked at Ogilvy and Mather and Benton & Bowles, but in 1964 decided to set up his own photography studio, where he shot work for The Sunday Times, and The Observer. Several years later he co-founded the Brooks Baker Fulford production company – where he directed some of his best-known ads. “Brooks shot some of the 20th century’s most memorable, warm and funny ads,” wrote The Guardian, in a 2012 interview with Brooks.

Art director William ‘Bill’ Bernbach is considered an absolute icon of adland, credited with changing the face of the creative industry. He worked briefly in the mailroom at New York’s Empire State Building in the 30s, but his quick way with words soon earned him a promotion to the in-house advertising team at Schenley Distillers. Roles at the William H Weintraub Advertising Agency, Coty, and Grey followed, before Bernbach got together with James Edwin Doyle and Maxwell Dane to set up Doyle Dane Bernbach – which would create Volkswagen’s iconic Think Small and Lemon adverts, as well as work for Avis and Polaroid. At the agency, copywriters and art directors were brought together for the first time, establishing a model that ad agencies still follow today. “The most powerful element in advertising is the truth,” said Bernbach, who passed away in 1982, age 71.

John Webster was creative director at Boase Massimi Pollitt, and widely acknowledged as creating some of the UK’s most memorable adverts including Cadbury’s Smash Martians and Sugar Puffs’ Honey Monster. He won an enormous amount of awards over the course of his career, however evidently Webster wasn’t too interested in collecting them – which meant they’d arrive in boxes and be stacked up in the BMP reception. “The people John wanted to impress were not in Cannes – they were in Stoke Newington, Liverpool and Sunderland, on the bus, in the supermarket, in the playground,” wrote Dave Trott in a 2006 obituary in The Independent. “He was a typically eccentric Englishman. He approached multimillion-pound campaigns as if he were tending prize leeks in his allotment.”

Sir Harold Evans was a hugely respected journalist and former editor of The Times and The Sunday Times – where he worked from 1967 to 1981. He was known for breaking stories such as the unveiling of double agent Kim Philby, and leading the exposé of thalidomide as well as the subsequent Sunday Times campaign for compensation. In the early 80s Evans relocated to the US, where he continued his journalism career, founded Condé Nast Traveler, and authored several books. Later in life he became editor-at-large at Reuters, and chairman of the European Press Prize jury panel. A 2020 obituary published in The Guardian described Evans as “the most admired newspaper editor of his generation”.

Filmmaker, producer and writer Alan Parker started his career as an office boy in an ad agency post room, but spent his time off dreaming of writing adverts. A job as copywriter was the next logical step, and Parker went on to work with Collett Dickenson Pearce before changing tack to become a director and producing a pair of short films for the BBC, one of which, exploring the story of two evacuees, won a BAFTA and International Emmy. In 1976 he directed his first feature film Bugsy Malone, followed by Midnight Express in 1978, and Fame in 1980. He continued directing throughout the 80s and 90s, winning 19 BAFAs, ten Golden Globes and six Academy Awards.

John Salmon has been described by Frank Lowe as one of the three greatest copywriters of the late 20th century, having worked on iconic ads for Parker Pens and Heineken. He spent time at both Doyle Dane Bernbach and Collett Dickenson Pearce - where he infamously ‘fired’ Ford as a client, for meddling in the creative process. The Times has described Salmon as “a gentleman among mad men”.

Jeremy Bullmore began his career in the 50s as a copywriter at JWT, although he went on to fill a number of roles at the agency including Head of Television and Chairman, and then later Director at WPP. Bullmore has written extensively about advertising and brands, penning a regular advice column for Campaign, essays for WPP, and several books. Campaign has described him as “quite possibly the most admired man in advertising”.

Designer Alan Fletcher is a pioneering figure in British graphic design. He studied at Hammersmith School of Art, the Central School, the Royal College of Art and Yale University before becoming an assistant to Saul Bass. In the late 50s he was working with clients including Pirelli and Time and Life, while also teaching at the Central School. In 1961 he set up Fletcher/Forbes/Gill with Bob Gill and Colin Forbes, with the studio’s success and deft handling of type and image landing them clients such as Reuters and Penguin, as well as a feature in Vogue magazine. In 1971 the studio became Pentagram, where Fletcher would remain as Partner for two decades. In 1991 he left the company, and worked on his own projects as well as becoming Consultant Art Director for Phaidon. “In life, as in his art, he cut to the chase: reducing options and finding the shortest distance between the idea and the finished article,” wrote Philip Thompson in a Guardian obituary for Fletcher in 2006.

Designer Colin Forbes is best known as one of the five founding partners of Pentagram, which he set up together with them in 1972. The studio’s unique structure, which sees partners work independently and in collaboration, was evidently largely Forbes’ vision – and he continued to chair the partners’ six-monthly policy meetings for 18 years. In 1978 he moved to New York to set up the studio’s office there. Prior to establishing Pentagram, Forbes was head of The Central School of Arts and Crafts’ graphic design programme, and also the founder of Fletcher/Forbes/Gill. In 1991 he was awarded the AIGA medal. The AIGA has described his work as “simultaneously self-explanatory and intriguing”.

Colin Millward began his ad industry career in the 50s, working at Colman Prentice & Varley before joining Collett Dickenson Pearce as a creative director, in 1960. He’s credited with helping to galvanise a new kind of “well-crafted and gently humorous advertising”, as Campaign has described it, as well as coming up with the idea of using Bach’s Air on a G String for Hamlet. In 1976 he received the inaugural President’s Award from D&AD, although Millward sadly left the ad industry the following year. “He taught us how to see, think and try harder,” said director Sir Alan Parker in a 2004 obituary published in Campaign. “His standards were higher than anyone’s in advertising before or since.