1979

Yes as hard as it may seem, thats me in 1979 in the art studio where it all began for me. I have hair and no beer belly!

This was the year that started my career within the art business. My best friend at school had already secured a job in an art studio and was doing very well and loving every minute of it. We used to play squash together as well as having a drink and hanging out, when one day he said to me there was a vacancy in the art studio for a messenger and that I should apply.

That I did and landed the job. So I was the messenger boy for A Good Studio (as it was called), based in Soho in London circa 1979... I loved it too and soaked up the energy within the studio from everyone who worked there.

We had a lot of laughs and many jokes were played at my expense as the new boy. I loved it!

The studio was mainly focused on the advertising business and had accounts with Lasky's, the large electrical store based in Tottenham Court Road off of Oxford Street as well as other large high street retailers and many smaller clients.

So working amongst a team of around 15 or so people, there were paste up artists, illustrators, cartoonists and others in involved in the various array of services for producing advertising art.

It was better than going to art college as I was on the front line and could see how things were done, short cuts etc and other ways to get the job done and out the door. I learnt a lot while I was there.

I even progressed into printing for the studio, known as PMT printing or Photo Mechanical Transfer, a process of fast developing onto photographic paper. This was used for the paste up artists when they required font and text that they had pasted up on a board, to be reproduced a s a final print to create the paste up that would then go to the commercial printers for inclusion as the advert for the newspaper or magazine.

This was before the days of the computer although the Apple Mac was just around the corner and would change the nature of the business for ever!

It was a great couple of years, I was young and foolish and loved London with all my heart. My parents were born and grew up in London, so it was like being at home for me.

When I look back at that time I have no regrets what so ever. It was my first rung on the ladder so to speak and it gave me so much in terms of experience and also to learn from my mistakes.

So it is wonderful that I can say with pride that I am in the art business and love it with a passion.

My best friend? He has had an amazing successful career and continues in the advertising business to this day. He now lives in and has become a nationalized American Citizen. We keep in touch and I hope soon that I will be able to make the trip to California to see him and his loverly wife. (If your reading this Kev, I never did say Thank You for getting me the job at A Good Studio, thanks mate!)