Celebrating 50 years of brilliance

1961. It was the year crowds flocked to the cinema to be enchanted by Breakfast at Tiffany’s and West Side Story. The E-type Jaguar announced its arrival with a roar, redefining expectations of style, power and desirability. While the Beatles played to a screaming Cavern Club, people’s daily lives were soundtracked by 45s like Hit The Road Jack and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Parents wrapping must-have toys such as LEGO, Stratego or Ken Carson (Barbie’s boyfriend) were reaching for Scotch® Magic™ Tape. And an agency called David Clark Design Group Ltd opened its doors for the first time.

In 1998 we were working with Sun Microsystems. Our challenge at the time was to leverage their relationship with the F1 McLaren team. Two things strike me with this work. One is quite how successful McLaren are with their F1 team, and the copy is great – we make a virtue of the fact that the Woking team can swap files and work in a live environment with the teams at tracks around the world! Oh the things we take for granted today!

The work was a DM pack created for release a week before the final GP of the season in 1998. And yes, McLaren did win! It was Mika Hakkinen with a points tally of 100. Schumacher was second in the Ferrari with David Coulthard third in the other McLaren.

This is the first entry in the agency’s original job book, opening with the job number 61 to mark the occasion. In 2001 the number had climbed to 26975.
The job number for our 50th Celebration is 41000.

That means we’ve averaged 820 jobs a year or 68 a month. Quite amazing. Fortunately we moved to a computerised system many years ago. However this book is a delightful reminder of our history.

From 1975 to 1985 Design Group was the European Design Studio for the Walt Disney Company. We brought Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and many other Disney characters to life on Athena posters, clothing, board games, sticker books and transfers. If you were one of the children clutching a Disney lunchbox on your way to school, chances are we designed it.

In 1975/6 when the FT wanted to wow the world with their launch of the Clipper Race to Australia, we created this memorable campaign, capturing the elegance and drama of the event.

We were also the FT’s creative agency for several years in the early 70s. In that time we redesigned their corporate identity and even designed the livery for their dispatch vans.

Since 1961, the agency has had 5 different names and several logos. But the company registration number hasn’t changed, and nor has our belief in brilliant work. We’ve worked with hundreds of clients and completed thousands of projects. And we’re proud of each and every one of them, so you’ll find a few of our favourites on this site.

We’ve also featured a couple of things launched in 1961 that have gained iconic status. They highlight how some things have changed, and prove some things never change. We’ll be adding to these over the months.

In 1961, the E-type redefined what a sports car should be. Even Enzo Ferrari was moved to call it ‘the most beautiful car ever built’. Underneath the seductive curves, technical innovation abounded. Advanced construction borrowed from the aircraft industry and independent suspension taken from Jaguar’s racing cars revolutionised handling.

It was one of those rare moments when form and function fused to create an icon.

Over the last 50 years the fabric of British society has changed drastically. However we still lust after the E-type (or any sports car) for all the same reasons we did in 1961 – prestige, excitement, physical thrills.

With 50 years’ working with clients, we have a strong instinct for the aspects of a brand that will endure, and the vision to see what could evolve.

In the 1990s, FMCG giant Lever asked us to bring our packaging design expertise to a number of its high-profile brands. We cleaned up the packaging of household names including Persil, Radion and Jif (now Cif) to achieve greater on-shelf standout in this competitive sector.

Match the young to old BBD faces for a chance to win a bottle of bubbly in our new game.

Names don’t get much bigger than Shell, and in the 1990s we were tasked with the redesign and implementation of the Shell Select logo. In a project that spanned the globe, we implemented the new look across all the elements of the forecourt and shop, from main signage to sandwich packs. Our work and this logo were quite literally seen by people throughout the world.

As mentioned before, Bright Blue Day was the European agency for the Walt Disney Company in the 80s and early 90s. We were responsible for creating and approving all manner of illustrations and artworks that went onto everything from lunch boxes through to clothing.

This stunning illustration was created in the 80s – and as a reminder this is before computers were about. The illustration was created for a snakes and ladders game, and it is quite easy to see the squares in the illustration. No manipulation, no mistakes, do it wrong and you do it again! It was painted with Gouache paints. Overlays we added for the graphics. This piece is proudly kept in the archives.