Art & Copy is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray, it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry.
Exploding forth from advertising’s ‘creative revolution’ of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in Art & Copy were responsible for ‘Just Do It,’ ‘I Love NY,’ ‘Where’s the Beef?,’ ‘Got Milk,’ ‘Think Different,’ and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them.
Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.
John Haynes OBE wrote and published his first book, on building an Austin 7 Special, whilst still at school in 1956. He wrote two more ‘Special’ builders’ manuals while doing his National Service in the RAF. The first ‘proper’ Haynes Owners Workshop Manual, for the Austin Healey ‘Frogeye’ Sprite, was published in 1965. Based on a stripdown and rebuild of a project vehicle with extensive use of step-by-step photographs – a process that has not changed to this day – the manual set the standard for many generations of manuals to follow.
Since Haynes Publishing was founded in 1960, approximately 150 million Haynes Manuals have sold throughout the world, over 1 million in the UK last year alone. There are around 300 UK car manuals in print at present with 130 plus UK motorcycle manual titles – not to mention equivalent ranges in the USA, France and Sweden. The process of writing a car manual takes 20 to 30 man-weeks. Authors work in pairs, which shortens the origination time and avoids them going crazy in the middle of long projects.
As a home-mechanic-come-DIY-spanner-wielder I have often used a Haynes manual for simple jobs not worthy of a trip to a garage; removing door trim, changing headlights, simple maintenance etc. And for these tasks the clarity and instruction is second to none.
Professional mechanics often scoff at these ‘bodger’ manuals and I have to admit I’d be dubious about tackling anything serious like a gearbox rebuild using nothing but a Haynes manual. The over-used phrase ‘re-assembly is the reverse procedure of steps 1 to 5’ scares me a little!
With my father being a retired Technical Illustrator I’ve been brought up to appreciate the finer details of this work and have always admired the skill involved in creating these masterpieces – I could stare at a Haynes Manual for hours!
Haynes Publishing have truly understood their success and popularity and worked it to good effect – manuals have diversified from their automotive roots and you can now find a Haynes Manual for parenting, health, the Apollo 11 space mission, computers, military equipment, home DIY – you name it.
Selling directly in America, Canada, France, Sweden and Australia. Manuals have been published in a total of 15 languages – English, French, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Czech, Finnish, Polish, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Greek, Danish, Spanish and Russian. The unique branding of the Haynes Manual with it’s bright colourway, outlined typeface, illustration and rigid layout has become recogniseable the world-over.
The brand is so popular there is now a range of merchandise from T-shirts to mugs, pencil-cases to flip-flops!
This is the true future of Haynes. I feel the days of the home-mechanic working on a modern vehicle, with complex electronics and sensors, is almost over. This combined with the Governement scrappage-allowance could spell the end for the DIY-mechanic wanting to keep an old car runni…
Happy birthday to the humble three point seatbelt – 50 this week!. An invention that has saved millions from injury and death since its invention in the 1950s. A fantastic example of design that changes out lives (literally).
Volvo introduced the first production three-point belt in 1959. The first car with three point belt was a Volvo PV 544 that was delivered to a dealer in Kristianstad on August 13, 1959. The three point belt was developed by Nils Bohlin who earlier had worked on ejection seats at Saab.
Until the 1980s, three-point belts were commonly available only in the front seats of cars; the back seats had only lap belts or diagonal belts. Evidence of the potential for lap belts to cause serious internal damage when in a collision has led to a revision of passenger safety regulations in nearly all developed countries requiring that all seats in a vehicle be equipped with three-point belts.
In the UK compulsory seatbelt use in the front seat of a vehicle, which came into force on January 31, 1983, although car manufacturers had been legally obliged to fit front seatbelts in vehicles since 1965, which leads me on to one of my favorite adverts ever – Jimmy Savile and the Clunk-Click Campaign . . .
I think for my next blog I may dig out my Tufty Club Handkerchief . . .
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