work

Right then, here’s a few examples of my work to have a look at. I’ve not put loads on, as it began to look a little cluttered. However, if you feel that what you’re looking for isn’t here, give me a call. Chances are I’ve done it and I’ll have something to show you. In each case, click on the image to see it in more detail or to go through to the relevant website.

Frontline Developments MG LE50

Just lately I’ve been working on a project that’s something of a dream job for me. Via Steve James, a designer friend and fellow petrol head, ( not one of those really irritating Jeremy Clarkson, “POWWWEEEEEERR!”, kind of petrol heads, I hasten to add, more of an “Ooh, I love classic cars me.” kind of petrol head ), I was introduced to Frontline Developments and their stunning MG LE50. It’s a fabulous combination of  classic MGB styling  and modern, state of the art engineering, luxury and, importantly, the ability to start up and run every morning without a tool kit and jump leads. Oh and it’ll do 160mph too.

Together, we worked from scratch to create advertising and promotional material for the LE50 that reflected this unique blend of  classic sporting heritage and cutting edge technology. We think it’s just as attractive as the car itself. What’s more, the press ads have performed equally impressively.

 

 

Lovely, eh? The car’s pretty nice too.

As a bit of a ‘stop press’ moment in the LE50 story, we were told that an opportunity had arisen to place a full-page ad in ‘Good Homes’ magazine. I felt that our existing ads weren’t really the best fit for the publication so I wrote a new one, tailored to suit a property magazine.

It came out rather nicely, we thought.

 

Oh, and now they make a roadster too.

So I wrote another.

bb4250 MG magazine 297 x 210mm


 

Editorial

Since doing the LE50 stuff, I’ve had the opportunity to write lots more car-related copy. This makes me very happy indeed as cars are a bit of a passion, (my father was in the motor trade throughout my formative years and I’ve been a bit wrapped up in them ever since).

A rather lovely publication by the name of Simply Abu Dhabi approached me about becoming their motoring editor. After quite literally seconds of deep deliberation, I snatched their collective hands off. Here are are a couple of excerpts from some of the articles I’ve been writing for them…

 

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Lykan Hypersport

 

Lambo

 

Crikey. I like writing this stuff.


Barton Portraits

Julian Barton is a professional photographer with an exceptionally swish studio in Dubai. We’re friends from years back and he recently got in touch and asked me to take care of all his copywriting. He contacts me from the sweltering heat and breathtaking scenery of Dubai and tells me what he needs. Then I put it all together in my office in Stockport.

All right for some, isn’t it?

Anyway, here’s a brochure I wrote for him. Just click on the link below it and you’ll be able to go through the full brochure, spread by spread.

 

 
Click here for full brochure
 

Takes a lovely photo, doesn’t he?

 

 


 

Victoria Warehouse

Victoria Warehouse is a massive, massively cool venue right at the heart of Manchester.

Obviously, when they wanted to advertise the venue itself, the exhibition space, bar and hotel it’s home to, they wanted a massively cool writer to do the honours.

By some kind of misunderstanding they ended up with me.

Here’s what I did with it.

Victoria for Andy

If you’d like to have a look at the whole site, (and you really should, it’s great), just click on the image above and you’ll go straight through to it. You’re welcome.


Quantiv

A little while ago, Quantiv asked me to write their new website. They’d already been working with Design Embraced to create a clean, modern look for the site. Now they needed some clean, modern words to go with it. I spent a few hours with some of the Quantiv team, ( lovely people ), to get a feel for the company and come up with a tone of voice that best expressed Quantiv’s approach and their way of doing business. I think it all came out rather well.

Just click on the image to go and have a look round the site. It’s ever so good.


Eight:48

Now this, strictly speaking, isn’t really a piece of work. Eight:48 is a design publication in the ‘Creative Review’ vein. A little while ago they asked me to write an article for their ‘future of design’ issue and it came out so well that I couldn’t resist putting it on here. Lovely illustration, isn’t it? Obviously, there’s a slight problem with this image in that it’s far too small for you to read the article. However, I reproduced said article on my blog so all you need do is click here and you can go and read it, should you so desire. I think of everything, don’t I?


Mediaburst

I’ve worked with mediaburst for some time now. They first got me in to rewrite their old website but, after a few discussions, we decided to rebuild it from the ground up. Here it is. I wrote it, ( with significant input from Mediaburst’s frighteningly youthful M.D. Gary Bury ),  Stiff Rowlands are responsible for the design and it’s all been put together and made to work by Phil Thompson. All very, very clever people. And me.

The task here was to write a site that explained mediaburst’s fairly complex product range, kept the reader interested and persuaded them to sign-up online. Not the easiest job in the world, ( come on, how often have you thrown your credit card details at a website? ),  but we did it.


Cheshire Bus

When I was brought in to work on the Cheshire Bus account they had a “Hotline” that no-one ever ‘phoned. My thought was that a bus “Hotline” sounded a little worrying, like maybe you were concerned that a bus may catch fire or plough into your home so best not call it eh?  I changed it to the “Cheshire Bus Line”, commissioned some cute little cartoons and produced a press campaign that increased call volume by a percentage you wouldn’t believe. No, really. You wouldn’t.

 


Manchester Airport

The people at Manchester Airport asked me to write a brochure for their new World Freight Terminal and presented me with an encyclopaedia’s worth of completely vital information. I picked out the bits worth reading and made them into a brochure. Then I picked out the bits really, really worth reading and made them into headers on each spread. That way, if you particularly enjoyed reading lots of stuff, you could. If you just wanted the highlights, there they were.

 


Christmas Email

This is the little email I sent out for Christmas 2009. Many thanks to Tim Sinclair who put it together for me in about an hour

Obviously it was based on the ballpoint pen image that I’ve used on all my stationery, business cards etc.

Very good that Tim, isn’t he? Oh, and I should mention that Tim did the original pen. He didn’t just come along and cut a bit off it for the Christmas card. That would’ve been a doddle really wouldn’t it?


Northern Cutter

A mate of mine is a barber, ( not a hairdresser, a barber. He’s very touchy about that distinction for some reason ), with a lovely little shop called The Northern Cutter in Affleck’s.  So when my friends at LOVE created the excellent new Affleck’s website, I wrote him a little piece in exchange for a couple of free haircuts and something for the weekend.


Nescafé

Now this stuff is absolutely ancient but I thought I’d put it in as I haven’t got many examples of long copy that I can put my hands on. I was asked to write a short history of coffee for Nescafé reps to use as a bit of a conversation piece when trying to sell their coffee in to Vending companies. Written completely straight, it made for a deathly dull read so I tried to have a little fun with it. Oh, and please excuse any typos. It was the very early days of my freelancing and I wasn’t allowed the luxury of preaf rooding stuff before it went to print.

 


Fun

Now and again, something will catch my eye on telly, in a magazine, wherever and I’ll imagine an ad that might be appropriate to the situation or would just give me a laugh. Very occasionally I’ll even go the trouble of making said ad. On even rarer occasions I’ll stick them on the site. When I do, this is where they end up.

That one came about when, having seen the 27th ‘Cash My Gold’ ad of the day, I wondered just how much further we could go with cashing stuff in. A while later I was playing with ‘xtranormal’ and decided to make it into a little film.

 

God, that was a quiet week.

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"I was just saying how good it was to work with someone who I knew would nail it. Thanks, Andy"

Steve Byrne, MD, The Gate Films http://thegatefilms.com

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