Award-winning art director Ray Barrett dies
By John Tylee
Ray Barrett, the multi-award winning art director who became one of Britain’s first black agency creative chiefs, has died aged 57.
Having spent more than three decades working in UK advertising, he passed away in Toronto, his home city for the past five years.
He worked almost until the end at The Conversation Farm despite a long battle with ALS.
More commonly known as Lou Gehring’s Disease, ALS is a progressive disease that causes muscle weakness, paralysis and, ultimately, respiratory failure.
His career resulted in a string of awards including two Cannes Gold Lions as well as D&AD and Campaign press and poster silvers for work on Nike, Bass, Kimberly-Clark and Prudential.
During that time he also served with Jonathan Mildenhall as joint chairman of the IPA’s Ethnic Diversity Group.
Michael Scher, The Conversation Farm’s founder, said: “Ray fought hard to keep his sense of humour as well as his sense of purpose and continued to exercise his most exceptional mind right until the end.”
After studying for a degree in fine art, Barrett began his agency career at FCB and was appointed creative director of DDB Court Burkitt aged just 26.
He moved to Ogilvy & Mather as head of art before becoming a creative director at WCRS.
In 1996 he linked with two other ex O&M senior staffers to launch Barrett Delves Fletcher Matthews, an agency that subsequently evolved into Barrett Cernis. Justin Cernis, Barrett’s former business partner, said: “Ray was passionate about good work and would never stand for anything mediocre.
“He was always challenging and strategically focused and never shied away from telling clients that what they thought was OK work would mean nothing to consumers. And he had a smile that could light up a room.”
Barrett Cernis closed in 2005 after Barrett’s decision to quit the agency to take creative command of Manchester’s BJL. However, he left after just a year in the job to join the Toronto-based Hey Harry Worldwide.
A memorial evening for Barrett will be held in London later this year.
They need to start a website or association that features all black creative talent in advertising. I never even knew a black creative directors existed in advertising until I saw a NIke Ad featuring Jimmy Smith ! Im just now reading about Ray! How sad is that. The industry needs to develop more people color, especially on the creative side of things. Its like cooking the same bland food and serving it for dinner over and over to clients. Cant tell you how many agencies ive visited or meetings ive attended and the entire room is al white men. The sarcastic and redundant white humor u seen in advertising is old. The advertising world desperately needs some spice. Generations after Generations come and go and there is no change at all. What a sad story.
ReplyDeleteThe reason you didn't know about all the black creative talent in advertising, is because they're not allowed at the table to start.
ReplyDeleteIf even the 4As, the American Association of Ad Agencies, is saying THEY haven't been able to change the conversation since the 1950's, then it's never going to change without massive outside intervention:
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/09/08/4as-president-nancy-hill-challenges-building-diverse-workforce-and-difficult
Listing black creatives isn't going to help. Cyrus Mehri or Jesse Jackson stepping in to demand holding companies release diversity stats, like the tech companies did, MIGHT.
Just don't be surprised if you discover there are less than a dozen black Creative Directors across America in total.