By Christopher Medford

Automotive in the blood. 

I have got a serious case of automotive enthusiasm, it has gotten to the point that I have run out of people to talk to about cars, it is a serious issue but something that I can live with because I know that my unnatural obsession about the subject may be to my advantage over the average joe. 

My obsession begins back in the midlands when I was too small for my feet to touch the pedals my father used to let me sit on his lap and steer his White Daimler XJ sovereign into the driveway. When I wasn’t watching him taking apart cars, we would be watching the F! with the volume too loud. 

From an early age the mechanical process of the combustion engine wasn’t a mystery and the same principles that make it work can be applied to anything else in life. Everything is a process, while everything has its place to make it all run smoothly. In a nutshell patience is vital and don’t take short cuts, because there is nothing called a short cut for all there will be is something that you will have to go back and fix.

I am no mechanic but getting my hands dirty and working on machinery. Even if its maintenance like giving my car service, changing the oil, spark plugs, brake pads or modifying to improve driveability and performance, is good for clearing the mind. Just as long as you know what you are doing. There is something very zen about being methodical stripping down and putting things back together. With the added bonus that the car still works afterwards. 

It’s tempting to make every campaign in my book a car brand. It’s tempting to blindly go to an agency that has car brands that I like. I find that creatives thrive when they work on a brief when they’re the target audience or it’s for a brand that they’re associated with in their personal lives. But it’s even more interesting when we work on a brief that is with an unfamiliar brand/target audience and we’re still able to bring our experiences into it.

One of the campaigns I currently have in my book is for Jaguar. I’m doing the tedious task of trying to appeal it to the young and upcoming generation of drivers. In my mind, it all makes sense to link Jaguar to an aesthetically inclined younger audience due to their shared interest in looks. Especially because they don’t know that the price is a lot more affordable than they thought. It’s a matter of iteration of posters, feedback, and painfully describing my idea to mentors as to why it works. Having dyslexia means I have a very creative mind, but it also means that what makes sense to me doesn’t immediately make sense to everyone else and that my inability to pin down in it words what that idea is makes it even more difficult.

Alas, I’ll take a drive after I battle my idea out to calm my nerves. If you work for an agency that owns sweet car brands, HIRE ME.

On a side note, looking to start a project car when I’m in a better financial state just because we all know project cars are a black hole for money. But I am aiming to build a Porsche 944 with a 13b Rotary engine. Something that has intrigued me for a awhile but I feel putting a rotary engine inside the car that inspired the RX-7 would be something to piss off purist enthusiasts and something that I would enjoy.