A Big Wheel of Madison Avenue Signaling Success

After my work on the Concord Watch campaign, and having left the Wall Street Journal, I was tapped for other illustration projects at Ogilvy. Ross Sutherland, among the most talented Creative Directors I have ever worked with, kept me busy in the late eighties. It is only now, in pulling together pieces for this post, do I realize how generous this A/D was to me.Ross hired me on a number of occasions. One of the assignments I had involved the art of signing, or sign language. It was a campaign for IBM when computers were starting to go mainstream in a big way. I only have these graphic remnants to show here...Another ad we did together was for AT&T. It shows the brilliance of this Ad man, in my opinion. Ross got his hands on an ancient copy of the Boy Scouts manual, so I could get familiar with the Semaphore system of signaling. I produced a bunch of b&w illustrations (the color was applied by the agency, Ogilvy and Mather) depicting scouts utilizing their flags. I'll present this to you as the entire double-page spread, then a couple of details that express the heart of the ad and its brilliant copy. Finally, a close-up of the worthy scouts who volunteered for this action.Lastly, I must relate a personal anecdote. Ross's deputy A/D knew I was preparing for my next ad in the Black Book. She pulled me aside one day and said, "Why don't you get him to write your next ad for you?" I was quite taken aback by the idea, and not sure if it might be pushing my luck. But, I did ask him, and the result was the following prodigious piece of advertising. Aside from the Concord watches, we've got some star-power going on here: Peter O'Toole, and two hedcut portraits I produced for the Journal, Frank Lloyd Wright and Gloria Swanson.I am humbled that this big wheel of Madison Avenue deigned to pay me such an honor! If you're out there reading this, Mr. Sutherland, a big shout-out from Kevin Sprouls ----THANKS!