Brown’s ‘Man Sized Serifs’ makes D&AD
Rare has made the D&AD Annual with an acceptance in the Direct Mail category for the writing of the ‘Man sized Serifs’ PADC Awards poster. The poster was written by Steve Brown, with art direction by Rare CD Brett Wheeler.
Wheeler said they were thrilled to make it into the Book, widely regarded as the world’s toughest to get into. He said it was a joy to do some ‘old-school’ art direction with Brown’s long copy.
“Credit for this poster must also go to Mitch Mitchell (now at The Brand Agency), who worked on the original concept. When he left we needed a writer who had been around long enough to write about Gordon’s era, so we employed Steve”.
In terms of totals Australia came third overall at D&AD, with a total of 37 In Book acceptances, of which 10 are Nominations.
Read all about Australia’s performance at D&AD here.
20 Comments
Great ad. And thanks to Gordon and Vaughan, a great night.
Well done Rare. Good to see a cat among the pigeons
Well done Steve and Brett
Glorious. Well done Rare, Steve and Mitch.
What fantastic result. To be recognised for the craft of writing by a jury of this calibre at a show as tough as D&AD is a huge achievement. So who wants to do this years campaign?
Hope proper dues are given to a Mr S Browning as this is a direct rip off of a vb’s elephant tears campaign; hopefully Perth creatives may now give long copy ads a go and aspire to reach the heights of those before. Remember Mitch, you learned from the best.
A rip off 10:20pm?? What, because it has a headline and a lot of copy set in three columns? I think you’ll find the odd hundred or so award winning ads of the 70s and 80s followed that very same format. This ad is a tip of the hat to that classic era of advertising.
No 10:20, it’s not a “…direct rip-off…” of Steve Browning’s Silver AWARD-winning ‘Elephant Tears’ press ad for Chippers (1996).
They’re both long copy (and both beautifully written) but that’s where the similarity begins and ends.
Your accusation denigrates the fine achievement of Steve Brown in this instance.
Martin Trevaskis
A rip off… because they’re both long copy ads? WTF? What an uneducated statement to make.
Well done Steve, great writing.
10.20, your comment is idiotic, you obviously know nothing about creative advertising. Go sell cars or something.
well deserved recognition for brilliant copy. It also goes to show how important the art direction is in bringing it to life. Well done Steve and well done brett.
Huge congrats guys.
My God, getting in the D&AD annual for Writing Craft. Let’s take a moment to think of all the thousands of copywriters around the world putting fingers to keys each day. Take a moment to think how much of this copy is judged at high-calibre award shows like this. Sounds obvious Steve, but you have written copy that has been officially deemed better than anyone else’s in the world.
That, in my mind, is massive.
Nice work…. looks suspiciously like one of your 30 sec scripts
Clients looking for an agency that can actually deliver well-written copy take note.
Steve Brown totally rocks.
Nice to see Steve’s family being so proud of their boy.
12.52: I think this is great for Steve and nice for Perth, but calm down! The category was “Direct” and it was for “Writing – Addressed Direct Mail Low Volume 501-10,000”. Not “Writing for Advertising”.
Marty gets the Grand Prix for funniest post of the year
12:52 here – Sorry 9:09, i guess i just got a bit excited…but you know what, it doesn’t matter if it’s a $5m cinema ad or a 501-10,000 mailer, it is still a form of ad. So i would argue Steve was ‘Writing for Advertising’. Have you ever won any awards for copywriting, in any form or category 12:52?
9.09. Checked with my Mum. It wasn’t her, but she cracked the shits for not telling her about the award and sent me to my room. Bummer. Sorry about all the nice comments…my fault. I spread the word that if I got enough of them Brett would give me a whopping big pay rise! Cheers.
I heard he would give you a whopping big ‘something’ but I’m sure it wasn’t ‘payrise’