Laurence Blume career history

Aged 50, Laurence has been a professional copywriter since 1981.

He gained a Graphic Design degree from the London College of Printing (now London College of Communication) and, with his partner, won the advertising assignment section of the Design and Art Direction Student Awards in the second year of that scheme's operation.

He started his professional career at the Saatchi and Saatchi subsidiary in Edinburgh, Hall Advertising, where he won his first creative award for work on the Scottish Health Education Group.

He moved from there to Foote, Cone and Belding in London, and within 3 months quit to join the London office of TBWA, writing award winning advertising for the COI.

In 1984 he moved to Boase Massimi Pollitt, then widely recognised to be the finest creative agency in the world. During his five years at the agency he was declared by The Observer, along with William Hague, to be one of four young people who had 'Made It At 25'. He won a string of awards and commendations for his work at BMP, rising to the position of Joint Creative Director.

He left the agency in 1989 to join the Board of the London office of global agency group DMB&B.

The following year, with the birth of his first child, he left DMB&B and joined the private UK agency Burkitt Weinreich Bryant, where he produced award winning work for clients including NEC and Norwich Union.

In 1994, Laurence joined Still Price Lintas, spending five highly successful years there and at its successor agency Ammirati Puris Lintas, as a writer and Board Director.

During this time, he worked almost exclusivey as a TV writer, developing award-winning work for, amongst others, the BBC, Sure, Vision Express and Rover Cars.

In 1994, as a present for his children, he set up the sprawling Ben and Jack's Fantastic Homepage, now recognised as one of the UK's very first personal web homepages.

With his 40th birthday hoving into sight, Laurence took the plunge and left employment behind for good in 1999, setting up the Big Lessons creative consultancy with former Saatchi Creative Director Adrian Kemsley.

In 2001, finding no UK-based, heavy duty, marketing-focused copywriting service offered online, he purchased the sector's premium domain and launched freelancecopywriter.co.uk . This was acquired by Big Lessons Limited in 2004. Laurence drafted the definitive Freelance Copywriter Terms and Conditions document, now widely used by other copywriters as the basis for their own business terms.

The following year, the company launched Great Sales Letters, the UK's first advance-payment online service for commissioning format-bundled sales letters.

In 2006, Big Lessons acquired the web domain copywriting.co.uk from its then owners as a platform for Laurence's 'all copywriters now' biz-blog brand.

Laurence lives in London with his wife Louise and sons Ben and Jack.