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Advertising From Late 60s 70s Birmingham And Black Country Nostalgia

Severn Advertising Kidderminster.

Peter Donnelly began his career in advertising at Severn Advertising in Kidderminster in the late sixties.

Advertising Birmingham Late 60s


axminster carpets
Axminster Carpets


A Carpet For All Seasons


Debrett Wilton
Debrett Wilton

The Severn Advertising brochure from around that same time must of been quite impressive PR material at the time and includes die stamped cut-out panels and tracing paper overlays.

Severn Advertising


Severn Advertising

Severn Advertising Kidderminster

Severn Advertising Kidderminster

Severn Advertising Kidderminster

Severn Advertising Agency Kidderminster
Petes sat on the floor in this shot!

Severn Advertising Kidderminster

Severn Advertising Agency Kidderminster


Following on from Pete's stint at Severn advertising he set up business with colleague Bob Burns and moved to premises in Lye then a larger space in Cradley Heath. It was around that time that photographer Peter Davies joined the company and they relaunched as Donnelly Burns Davies.


Donnelly Burns Davis Photographers

International Paint

Helix International

Helix manufactures of stationery who actually patented the drawing compass were based in Lye, West Midlands In the 1960s, Heres an copy of an advert designed by Peter late 70s 80s

Helix
Helix International

The good news is Helix, one of the Black Countries great companies is alive and well and are currently based in Kingswinford, West Midlands.


Barnett

The Barnett Sports good company was originally based on the Ettingshall Industrial Estate In Bilson and is known worldwide for its famous Black Widow Catapult and Crossbows, this is a really early advert from the 70s.

Barnett
Barnett, Bilston.

Britax Sunroofs

In 1978, Britax company bought Weathershields, a Birmingham sunroof manufacturer. The Britax brand was applied to sun-roofs.


Britax
Britax

Claude Hooper

Claude Hooper is a well-established interior design consultancy designing show homes for the UK property industry. 


Claude and Peter Donnelly were very good friends back in the day and this advert with illustration by Pete captures Claude's wonderful character.

Claude Hooper


Carl Bradley

Carl Bradley Stourbridge
Carl Bradley Stourbridge
Barlow Fasteners
Barlow Fasteners

Carpet Manufacturing Company Kidderminster
Carpet Manufacturing Company Kidderminster

Williamsons Cash & Carry Quinton
Williamsons Cash & Carry Quinton

Hammonds Hinckley
Hammonds Hinckley

Debrett Wilton
Debrett Wilton

Axminster
Axminster Carpets

Design & Artwork By Peter Donnelly | Helix | Wilton | Claude Hooper | Carpet Industry | International Paint | Severn Advertising Agency | Donnelly Burns Davis | Lye, Cradley Heath, Bilston, Stourbridge, Kidderminster, Worcester, Quinton, Birmingham

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Location: Cradley Heath, UK

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The Telegraph

Peter Donnelly's prize-winning essay offers a brilliant example of how local, and often unprepossessing, backgrounds can provide the material for an outstanding colour story. All his photographs were taken within a few miles of his home in Birmingham, Brierley Hill, at Blackheath, Bilston and Cradley Heath. He took them over a period of several months while on weekend walks along the deserted banks of the local canals. "Most evenings I never met a soul," Mr Donnelly recalls. "There was an air of isolation, and often desolation, over the whole scene, and this is what I have tried to capture in my photographs." The camera used was a Pentakon F and the film Agfa and Kodachrome.
by Dr Carl Chinn MBE
Peter Donnelly was born in Birmingham, educated at Corpus Christi junior school, Stechford and later at the holy rosary, Saltley. While at the Holy Rosary he took and passed a drawing examination for Moseley school of art at which he spent several years tuning his artistic talent.

On leaving the art school he joined Birmingham printers, Sam Currier & Son in brook street, St Pauls square, as an apprentice commercial artist. After completing his apprenticeship he left Sam Currier and worked at various printers and advertising agencies gaining valuable experience before starting with his working associate Bob Burns (typographer). Donnelly Burns Graphic Design studio was in Chapel Street, Lye before moving to larger premises in Cradley heath then Harborne.

Before starting the business Peter entered and won the Sunday Telegraph national photographic competition. He submitted an essay of photographs illustrating the demise of the Birmingham and Black Country canals with fellow photographer Norman Fletcher. To Peter and Norman, Midlands photographers and photographic societies seemingly had ignored the once great industrial arena that surrounded their everyday lives.

What an arena! what powerful exiting subjects for the camera; neglected canals, weed and web woven towpaths, old worn out narrow boats – redundant and half submerged in silted murky brown waters; steam trains rattling, hissing and bumping their waggons into line and the rail men who worked the line at that time.

Old foundries, run down factories and scrapyards – the industrial flotsam of a once great manufacturing region. Many six o’clock early morning starts were walked and many miles covered by Peter and his camera.

Now over 60 years later, photographs taken during those early excursions are being published - looking back at the time, long before the surge of change and reconstruction 1962 - 1965