Recently Found Images Prompt Admen Partner to Stage Exhibition

In 1982, schoolboy friends Dave Topliss and Cliff Warner were both art students in the North West. Cliff was studying Fine Art in Liverpool, Dave was studying Graphic Design in Manchester.

A series of recently discovered images capturing the post Toxteth riot streets of Liverpool, 28 years ago, prompted Dave to contact Cliff with the thought of creating an original exhibition of the images. 

This joint creative collaboration, fuses influences, techniques and elements that reflect the mood of the early 1980's decaying urban landscape.

The resulting creative work, Liverpool 82, is now on view at the Brewhouse in Burton-on-Trent, and the images will form part of a new Artist's Gallery that will be included on the Admen website in the near future.

Dave remembers his visits to Liverpool and the effect that they had on him: " I was a regular visitor to Liverpool in the early 1980’s. I was fascinated with the architecture of the city, grand monuments of past wealth and prosperity of this once busy shipping port. The Liverpool 8 area held even stronger fascination. It was like being transported back in time. These streets could have been the blitz torn streets of the 1940’s. My memories of this period are still strong. I remember the deserted streets, and the tense awkward silence that fell over the city like a couple after an argument with no sides wanting to be the first to break the silence. The partly demolished buildings, exposing cross sections of each room that was once a home, wallpaper, mirrors and pictures still hanging on the walls like an abandoned dolls house. I have vivid memories of the effect time had taken on each building - peeled away collages revealing faded memories of a glorious past. The smell of damp brick dust and sweet rotting timbers heavy in the autumn air, briefly purged from ones nostrils by the biting wind sweeping up from the Mersey. I felt angry and sad that decent people were living alongside these ruins and the rats in the roads. It hit me like a bullet between the eyes that the Toxteth Riots had not been the race riots the media had fed the nation, it had been a class riot."

"Taking the images was not without risk. The locals viewed any new faces on the block with suspicion, and rightly so. National newspapers had sent journalists into the area undercover, posing as students to twist the truth and fan the flames of the embers of the riots. Cliff watched my back as I quickly composed the shot in my camera and moved on, not wishing to draw attention to our actions. Questions and hostile accusations were understandably inevitable, but once it was understood that our business was genuine, we were accepted and allowed to continue. I always respected the straight talking honesty of the Liverpudlians.

""Because of the people, little rays of colour lit this bleak backdrop. The image of the three children summed this up. They simply asked me: 'Take our photy then mister?' No questions asked, no confrontation just a bemusement that anyone would want to take a photograph of their playground. 28 years on, where are they now? Did they get the future, the breaks they deserved?"

"In 1983 I was back in Burton, and started working freelance for a local advertising agency called Admen, at which I am now a Partner. Many of the streets and buildings in this exhibition are long gone. Liverpool is undergoing welcome, long overdue regeneration, but on the outskirts of the city centre boarded up buildings still remain."

"Back in 1982, we were a country at war, a country divided, rich and poor, North and South. Unemployment was spiralling and unforgivably an underclass was allowed to develop. So looking at these images after 28 years it is easy to draw a comparison with today, have we come full circle? Or has nothing really changed?"

Liverpool 82 is on at the Brewhouse, Burton-onTrent until the 10th of July.

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'CLEVER' TV AD CAMPAIGN - A FIRST FOR BURTON AGENCY

Burton-based advertising and graphic design company, Admen Partnership, has put the finishing touches to a new spring TV advertising campaign for the UK’s leading paintbrush brand, Harris.

The campaign - the first ever commissioned by Harris in its 80 year history - is due to break in the Central TV region next week (8th March) and will run for three weeks in the lead up to Easter, which traditionally marks the start of the DIY season in the UK.

Renowned for cutting edge product design and reliability and the holder of a Royal Warrant since 1961, Midlands-based Harris is using the 30 second commercial as a brand building exercise. Called ‘Clever People’, the advert stars four of the company’s most innovative brushes which are seen being used in different scenarios by different characters to demonstrate the unique personality, creativity and versatility of the British manufacturer’s modern range.

The campaign will have a high-profile TV launch in the centre break of Coronation Street on Monday, 8th March and will also be available for viewing on Admen and Harris' websites.

Harris is one of Admen Partnership’s long standing clients with a relationship that spans 24 years. During this time the agency has devised and implemented a variety of advertisiing campaigns, promotions and incentives for Harris’ retail customers, as well as developing and producing packaging and POS for in-store displays.

Work undertaken by the company covers graphic design for: advertising, packaging, branding, corporate identity, brochures, leaflets, exhibitions, websites; and illustration work including 3D modelling and product styling, plus a full media buying service.

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Burton 1 London 0

Burton-based advertising and graphic design company, Admen Partnership, has completed its first piece of creative design work for a prestigious new client - one of ‘The Prince’s Charities’.

The brief to create a brochure and folder for The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health (PFIH) was awarded to Admen on the strength of recommendation and their creativity, and was awarded in favour of a London agency.

An essential tool in aiding vital fund-raising activities, the new PFIH brochure and folder design had to be in keeping with the quality that is synonymous with all the work produced for 'The Prince's Charities' - a group of 20 not-for-profit organisations of which The Prince of Wales is the President.  The group of charities - 18 founded personally by the Prince - represents the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the United Kingdom and each year raises over £120 million.

Padma Moorjani of PFIH said: “I have worked with Admen in the past and have always been impressed with the creative side of their approach. They demonstrated a keen desire and real ability to get under the skin of the project and really understand what we were trying to communicate.”

Comments Steve Bourne, Partner in Admen: “We are very proud to have been chosen to work on such a high profile design project for The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health. It is particularly rewarding to have won the business in competition with a London agency. It proves that if you are good at what you do then size and location should be no barrier to competing nationally.”

The team at Admen have been producing high quality graphic design for a number of national and local clients for 28 years from their base on Branston Road in Burton-on-Trent. Clients include Harris, the UK’s best known paint brushes brand, Briggs plc brewery process engineers and The Brewhouse Arts Centre. Work undertaken by the company covers graphic design for: packaging, branding, corporate identity, brochures, leaflets, exhibitions, websites; and illustration work including 3D modelling and product styling, plus a full media buying service.