Stephen Talbot Advertising
Stephen Talbot Advertising was launched in 1979. In that year,
Ian Dury was hitting us with
his rhythm stick, the Austin Allegro
was the fifth best selling car in Britain and Trevor Francis became the first million pound signing.
Thirty years ago, creating adverts and design for print was a laborious affair involving, visualizing, typesetting, paste up and camera ready artwork. Turn around time was measured in days sometimes weeks and often dependent on the ability of the agency to queue jump at the typesetters, the availability of a motorbike courier and a good relationship with the local chapter of the NGA (National Graphical Association) printers union.
Thirty years have passed and typesetting machines are museum pieces, motorbike couriers are delivering pizzas and footballers
are earning a million a week
but Stephen Talbot is going from strength to strength.
A new management team and fresh creative impetus ensures STA is still creating hard hitting, results driven advertising but this time we’re using the latest state of the art graphic design tools and turn around time is counted in hours.
Design history
30 years of advertising 1979 – 2009
1979
The company was founded by Stephen Talbot who had previously worked for the Crewe Chronicle.
Our first offices were above the Leek United Building Society at 27A Market St Crewe. There were 3 staff; Steve, his wife Sue and Designer Phil Boulton. It was sparsely equipped with a desk, drawing board and typewriter.
There were just three clients to begin with; a furniture shop, a carpet shop and a photographic retailer. There were no computers, no photocopiers and no mobile ‘phones.
Visuals were presented to the client as felt pen drawings. If the client approved, the visual was turned into camera ready artwork using rub down lettering, line drawings and typesetting (which was a photographic method of producing typed words).
Black and white photographs had to be reproduced as images comprising thousands of minute dots (half tones). The component parts were then cut out and pasted or spray glued to a piece of board ready for the newspaper or printer to use as finished artwork.
1984
Motorola’s first commercial cell phone, the $3,995 Dynatac 8000X was produced
Apple releases first Macintosh computer, featuring bitmap graphics and fonts such as Chicago.
1985
Aldus, formed by Paul Brainerd, develops PageMaker software. Brainerd coins the phrase “desktop publishing”.
1986
We moved to Scope House and staff numbers increased to 5
1987
We acquired our first Mac. In those days it was used purely for typesetting.
1989
Physicist Tim Berners-Lee develops the world wide web, along with HTML and the concept of website addresses.
By the early 90's we had 3 designers (As was usual for small UK agencies in those days, we were working on drawing boards, not computers).
1990
Photoshop version one released by Apple
1992
Chris Furness our MD first joined the company from the Crewe Guardian as an account executive.
1997
STA move to new premises in High St Crewe.
We now had three account execs and three designers all working on Macs.
1998
Apple announces the iMac. A ‘self contained’ computer and monitor, it was encased in translucent ‘Bondi Blue’ and ‘Ice plastic’.
1999
Sarah joined STA as finance manager.
Later that year we merged with a Northwich agency - Allan Johnson Advertising (AJA).
2000
STA returned to Scope House, taking on a number of AJA staff in the process.
There were now eight staff.
2002
Gemma Coast joined from Clive Christian as studio manager.
2005
Rob Capener joined as account manager and graduate Ant Goddard was taken on as a graphic designer.
2006
Due to a burgeoning client list it was decided we needed more prestigious, spacious surroundings and so we moved to our current offices in the grounds of Crewe Hall.
Apple Computer introduces the MacBook Pro, their first Intel-based, dual-core mobile computer.
2007
Stephen Talbot retired and the company was taken over by Chris and Sarah Furness in a management buy out.
iPhone released for sale
2008
The iMac range of desktop computers introduced
2009
Today, STA’s clients include The Potteries Shopping Centre, Nantwich based Chatwins, Gordale Garden Centre on the Wirral, Liverpool based Clare James Automotive Group, Crewe based Lyceum Theatre, L C Charles, Railway Children International charity and The Crewe Heritage Centre.
