Design Notes - Deborah Barnett

Creative Direction Today

31 March 2009

In my pursuit of design excellence, I have benefited from the words of my predecessors, purposeful people who built the design and advertising industries from scratch, with their everyday efforts to promote their clients' products and business offerings. Embodied in his words, David Ogilvy, a giant of perfect graphic solutions and transcendent copy-writing accompanies me as I turn my attention to my clients' endeavors.

David Ogilvy is one of my favorite influences, inspiring a persistent examination of the effects of brand, marketing, advertising and customer-facing communications.

Born in Surrey England, David Ogilvy achieved a scholarship to college but he wasn’t able to finish his education there. Instead, he took to learning from his innovative pursuit and analysis of direct sales experience. He left school to sell stoves door to door, and garnered an invitation to his first ad agency appointment by writing a sales strategy, "The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker".

Ogilvy was made a Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) in 1967. He was elected to the US Advertising Hall of Fame in 1977 and to France's "Order of Arts and Letters" in 1990. He chaired the Public Participation Committee for Lincoln Center. He was appointed Chairman of the United Negro College Fund in 1968, and trustee on the Executive Council of the World Wildlife Fund in 1975.

He brought his considerable passion for analysis to problem solving in advertising and brand and remains a permanent fixture in the minds of designers, marketers and advertisers today.