Tony Kaye/Creative Circle
Tony Kaye is a director whose work dominated the UK advertising scene of the 80s and 90s.
Here are four of his many amazing ads:
Along with an article he wrote in 2002 that explains him rather well.
If you’re around my age you’d have started in the industry revering him and his work. He produced so many great ads for so many varied clients in such a diverse range of styles that anyone would have given their left arm to work with him:
In addition, he was also pretty crazy (by most definitions of the word), holding the prints of his ads to ransom if he didn’t agree with the client’s cut. He then popped off to LA to direct American History X and had a much publicised feud with its star, Edward Norton:
I recall a team at AMV who made a campaign with him. It didn’t go so well, but that didn’t deter them from sending a request for him to sponsor them for the New York Marathon. The reply, which said ‘GO TAKE A FLYING FUCK OFF WESTMINSTER BRIDGE’, was blown up and hung on their wall with pride.
Now Creative Circle’s President, Ed Morris has directed a profile of the man himself, who seems to have mellowed a great deal now that he’s in his seventh decade:
And while I’m on the subject of Creative Circle, next year’s awards are going to be made of other crushed awards that have been sent in as part of an amnesty (so far, Pencils, Lions, Arrows and Clios have been sent in):
So if you have any old awards/trophies that are collecting dust, send them over to CC. And they don’t just want advertising trophies; they’ll also accept swimming, cycling, ice skating, archery, even ballroom dancing. Who knows, perhaps your old swimming badge will end up in a gutter next to a pissed creative! Send yours to Creative Circle, 90 Long Acre, Covent Garden, WC2E 9RZ, or email jeremy@creativecircle.co.uk and he’ll send over some lucky lackey to pick it up.
Very creative…
Love that idea: an award made up of all the other awards crushed up, brilliant
Here’s another one of TK’s brilliant ads – arguably the most powerful of them all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmujTqWWXg0
Didn’t fallon in america do something like that crushed up award thing a while ago?
Don’t tell me your heads stuck up Tony’s arse too Dave?
Didn’t Fallon do something similar a few years ago where they got their creatives to donate awards which were melted down into new name plates for their offices. There’s a video of it somewhere showing how brilliantly creative they are. Juan Cabral surprisingly didn’t donate any of his lions.
Sal’s Mum, I don’t think the awards thing has anything to do with Tony Kaye.
Jeremy Green, who runs CC, came up with it, I heard yesterday.
I like the idea of one scrappy little awards scheme standing against all the fat cat award schemes.
And, as I say, all that has nothing to do with Tony Kaye.
They did, Number 3. And thanks, I was scratching my head trying to remember who that was.
He did a treatment for us about 3 years ago. One page long, no pictures, kooky as hell. Would have loved to work with him but Daddy said no.