Laurence Blume career history

Aged 52, Laurence has been a professional copywriter since 1981.

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

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

He moved from there to join the London office of TBWA, writing award winning advertising for the COI.

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

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

With the birth of his first child, he left DMB&B to join 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 the BBC, Sure, Vision Express and Rover Cars.

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

Laurence left employment behind for good in 1999, setting up his own creative consultancy with former Saatchi Creative Director Adrian Kemsley.

In 2001, seeing no UK marketing-focused copywriting service online, Laurence purchased the sector's premium domain and launched freelancecopywriter.co.uk . The business 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 sales letters.

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

Laurence lives in London with his wife Louise. He has two sons: Ben and Jack.