Slow, slow, quick quick, slow.

Bookbinder's tools.

Over the last few years I’d seen that many clients don’t want the services of a full service advertising agency. More and more were going directly to ‘suppliers’ such as photographers, recording studios, etc. Many more had their own planning and marketing departments - and simply wanted someone to transform their plans into workable ideas and see them through to completion. So, OystercatcherTF was set up as an ideas hub and a bridge between marketing managers and a network of suppliers. Essentially it’s something I’d been doing all along - come up with an idea that solves the problem and bring in expertise - photographers, writers, motion-graphics - as needed to bring the project to completion.

At the beginning, it made sense to initially offer the core services I’d offered before as an art director; film, print and identity. But after years in advertising, often working at a frenetic pace, I was surprised that a lot of the work that came to me was book design - generally a much slower craft. Not slow in the sense that it meant I could slow down the pace - no, I still work very fast - but slow in the same sense as ‘slow food’, ‘slow radio’ like the BBC’s “Tweet of the day” and ‘slow film’ such as Nicholas Barker’s lovely “Tokyo Dreams”, Norwegian TV’s twelve hours of live log burning. That slowness and taking time is something I’d played with while on holidays on Falster in Denmark - the slow rhythmic passing of bicycles. (The music is “Hollow Talk” by Choir of Young Believers from the TV series “The Bridge”.)

(First published September 2017)