Description:
Career archive of Alan Waldie (1940-2016) Art Director, Group Head and Board Director at Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP) (1966-1981) and Senior Creative Vice Chairman at Lowe Howard-Spink (1981-1996).
The collection includes story boards, sketches, photographs, proofs, showreels, posters and awards certificates and trophies.
Level: Collection (Fonds)
Reference: HAT21/571
Alt Ref No.: HAT21_571
Extent: 2 plans chests
Agency: Collett, Dickenson Pearce (CDP); Lowe Howard-Spink
Admin History:
Born in 1940 Alan Waldie attended Farnham School of Art from the age of thirteen, after which he moved to London to become a junior visualiser, a role in which he was required to know the positioning of a coupon in any given advert. His ability in art, in particular fashion drawings, soon led to a position as a senior visualiser at G S Royds, where he worked on the Courtaulds fashion account.
In 1964 he became the first creative to join Peter Marsh at Allen Brady & Marsh (ABM) where his skills with coupons were used to their fullest extent. The 1960s saw a creative explosion in London which gave birth to several new and innovative agencies, one of which was Collett Dickenson & Pearce (CDP).
In 1966 Wadie joined CDP and the fifteen years that followed saw him produce many award-winning campaigns, including Heineken 'Refreshes the parts' and his surreal work for Gallaher's Benson & Hedges Gold special filter. His bold 48 sheet posters that baffled and amused the public, were created from his reasoning that 'the harder they were to understand, the longer the people would stand and look at them, which is the result you want from any ad.'
In 1986 Waldie was persuaded to join a breakaway headed by Fank Lowe. Lowe Howard-Spink enjoyed meteoric growth and success of which Waldie as Senior Creative Vice-Chairman was very much a part.
Alan Waldie was a judge on most advertising award juries, and won many of them; most notably the Gold Award at D & AD for his 1978 Benson & Hedges commercial 'Swimming Pool'.