I've been working as an advertising art director, copywriter and designer for over 20 years. I've worked full time at agencies including J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam and Cossette. I even worked briefly for Young & Rubicam in Adelaide, South Australia.

For the past 14 years, I've been a freelancer working with a wide range of Toronto agencies as well as with direct clients.

I've worked on everything from banks to beer to automobiles, in all media. And that work has been recognized in numerous domestic and international awards shows. They include Communication Arts, New York Art Directors Show, Toronto Art Directors Show and The Marketing Awards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was essentially a fund raising campaign for a new hospital. We created a series of outdoor boards directing people to a website to learn about the complexities of treating three or more medical conditions at the same time. A huge problem as the general population ages. In order to ask for donations, we needed to first make people aware of the issue. The campaign did the trick and the site got a lot of hits. This was primarily an outdoor campaign, though there was also a newspaper component.     Paul Ruta was the writer.

 

The thumbprint on the tire tire was an early idea I had for this campaign. I remember my partner, David Wallen, and I working for some time to come up another idea equally as strong. Then David saw the image of the flying man in a photographer's portfolio, I believe. Perfect! We ended up buying the rights to the image and using it in the campaign. I was working at Cossette at the time. The work was later featured in Archive Magazine.

 

I worked on McDonald's for a couple years with Mike O'Reilly while employed full time at Cossette. Mike was actually on vacation when I worked on this particular spot. After I shared the idea with my creative director, Jack Neary, he offered to write the copy. I love the simplicity of this spot and I think it turned out quite well. Steve Gordon was the director.

I came up with this idea while working freelance at Arnold. I remember being excited by the simplicity of the idea and also by how it made the United Way logo more meaningful. Unfortunately, a previous employment commitment didn't allow me to stay on through final execution, so additional credits for art direction go to Edd Baptista. This idea was used in a number of different executions. Ron Thomson was the writer. 

For more non-profit work click here: http://clarke-smith-non-profit-work.posterous.com

Telus was originally known as Clearnet. And I worked freelance at Taxi on this account with Donna McCarthy for over a year. Though the overall look of this campaign had already been established, with each commercial, Donna and I worked to give the creatures a more active role in the communication. We created a number of spots, but this was my favorite. This spot also ran in movie theatres. I remember seeing it once in a theatre and hearing people cheer after. That was pretty cool.

Inside reveal headline: Now they can be yours with the stroke of a pen.

Cover:

Inside reveal:

The client believed there's brand advertising. And then there's retail. He didn't believe you could have both. When I showed him this concept I thought he was going to hug me. A strong retail idea that flowed out of the brand campaign. It generated a lot of traffic into dealerships. I was freelance at TBWA and both the art director and writer.

It isn't too often you get to be in the Communication Arts Advertising Annual. Thank you Marconi. And thank you Mike O'Reilly and Tom Goudie. They were the writers responsible for this concept. This was the first ad I art directed at Young & Rubicam. It was a great way to start an over six year stint at that agency.

This communication ran during the NHL playoffs in Toronto and Vancouver. The brief was clarity of picture on the new range of Samsung televisions. The zamboni idea was a clear winner at communicating this. The other two executions took the notion of clarity one step farther by showing how real the game can be on a Samsung television. There were many iterations of this campaign in outdoor.

 

 

 

Subway domination was also part of the media buy. Philip Rostron was the photographer / retoucher and did a great job. This was a freelance project for Cheil Canada. I was both the art director and writer.

Drew Frohmann and I were working freelance at Leo Burnett when we created this ad. I can't remember who came up with the idea. I just remember working on creative for a number of rounds before we had something the creative director liked. Now I'm glad we did. I think the ad only ran in the US and that year Procter & Gamble voted it "Print Ad of the Year". Ian Campbell was the photographer and I think he did a fine job.

A strong and simple television spot for under $50K. Thanks to Clive Desmond for sound design. Also great editing by Matthew Kett. I was the art director and writer.

 

 

 

Ron MacDonald and I worked freelance on this project for an agency called Promonade. We desperately wanted to do something fresh in this category. The campaign wasn't so much about selling paint as it was about selling the power of colour. Benjamin Moore had a lot of unique paint colours. I always liked this campaign and it was well received.

For a time, this was my portfolio website. http://clarkesmithportfolio.ca