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Review by Nick Asbury

The knotty relationship between writers and designers was the subject of an entertaining evening hosted by Mike Reed. Dan Radley, a senior writer at Start Creative, bemoaned the fact that good conceptual writers still tend to gravitate towards advertising. Anelia Schutte, formerly a senior writer at Lloyd Northover and now at The Writer, contrasted the monogamous writer/art director relationships in advertising with the design industry’s kerb-crawling approach to sourcing copywriting, usually paying by the hour and then coming back for more if satisfied. The client perspective came from Jon Staines at Orange, who noted that few of the creative directors he encounters come from a writing background. He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the words ‘copy’ and 'copywriter', asking what was wrong with 'writing' and ‘writer’. Finally, Paul Cardwell of Doner Cardwell Hawkins injected a healthy note of scepticism, arguing that too many writers spend their time fiddling with apostrophes instead of tackling the big ideas. He also achieved the admirable feat of standing in front of a sizeable audience of 26 members with a board reading ‘Writers are wankers’ and still managed to get a warm round of applause.

posted by David @ 1:15 PM