A creative's tribute to Tony Hart
In the Summer of 2008 Red C Marketing were invited to Pitch to become a roster agency for the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC)...
One of the ideas we presented in the Pitch owes a great deal to Tony Hart. It was an idea that would see several Art Directors, and myself, creating designs that involved us sticking down feathers, cutting strange shapes out of foam and generally using whatever we could find to bring our idea to life.
Week after week Tony Hart would inspire thousands of children throughout the UK to simply explore their creative side. He was a man who told us that we could create art out of anything. You didn’t need fancy paints or expensive brushes; you could create art at the beach with seaweed and shells or gather some twigs from the garden and arrange them to create a mini masterpiece.
The CWDC Pitch involved a few late nights, and as we stuck, cut and tried to outdo each other with who could create the most realistic computer out of foam; it reminded me of my school days being inspired every week by Tony Hart.
One of the features of Tony Hart’s shows was The Gallery. Here the artistic talents of Britain’s schoolchildren were displayed to the nation with the background sounds of what can only be described as ‘Elevator Music’.
Like the thousands of kids who sent their works of art in I would watch every week in hope that one of the many pieces I had sent in would appear on screen. Sadly my artistic talents were never put on display in The Gallery, but these early tastes of defeat only made me want to become even more creative and use whatever means necessary to convey my ideas.
Even as a Junior Creative, Tony Hart’s influence was around. My Art Director and I once spent an afternoon slicing our way through countless magazines to bring an idea to life. The resulting collages never made it beyond the eyes of our Creative Director, but even he was impressed with our efforts and joked that it was like having a pair of Tony Harts in his Creative Department.
A big thanks from me.
To learn today that Tony Hart had died at the age of 83 really brought lots of fond memories back from my childhood. In fact if you visit the guestbook that is online, you’ll see that Tony Hart inspired a whole host of people.
I think his fellow artist Rolf Harris summed it up perfectly when he said, ”He brought huge creativity to his TV programmes Vision On and Take Hart, particularly using unexpected sources and materials. He enthused and inspired a whole generation of kids into creating their own works of art, simple or complex.”
He certainly did for me.
Julian Gratton, creative director at Red C
See Graton's full blog here