Martin Cleave / Creative

A concept-driven, hybrid-skilled, smart-thinking senior creative — art & copy

About

I’m a hybrid senior creative with nearly three decades of global experience. Highly conceptual, with a keen eye for craft and design, I develop ideas and concepts, create visuals, write copy, build messaging frameworks, and storyboard narratives. I bring a potent mix of old-school skills and up-to-the-minute thinking to everything I do. 

I’ve helped clients build effective campaigns and experiences for both their customers and their people — from digital to print, DM to B2B, experiential to social, global product launches to precision-targeted sampling mailings, and most things in between. All in service of getting the right messages to the right people.

Knowledge

Skills

Creative direction, art direction, concepts, copywriting, design, pitches, campaigns, messaging, strategy, narratives, scamps, visuals, shoots, typography, motion design, scripts, storyboards, project management

Channels

Digital, direct, press, outdoor, brand, video, animation, ident, in-store, social, challenger, experiential, activation, event, email, landing-page, b2c, b2b, intranet, internal and external campaigns, client-side

Sectors

Healthcare and pharmaceutical, technology, financial, automotive, FMCG, energy, retail, entertainment and drinks, education and training, travel and tourism, telecoms, learning, non-profit

key clients
Some kind words
  • A great creative professional. Martin has successfully led a number of creative projects for us over the years. I’ve always found Martin to be an incisive thinker with a capacity to just get his head around the complex and deliver beautifully simple and elegant creative solutions. Working with Martin is always an enjoyable collaborative experience.
    Andrew Chaplin
    Planning Director @ MOI (B2B Marketing, Technology sector)
  • Working with Martin is a delight. A clear thinker with an eye for cut-through creative, he is a safe pair of hands for any task. He questions briefs and delves deeper to get a feel for a brand, and tackles every job – large or small – with the same resolve. As an art director, he utilises strong design skills to execute his concepts to a high level, while hitting deadlines and budgets with ease. On a personal level, he is consistently cheery and an excellent lunch companion.
    Diana Rosie
    Author and Copywriter @ Freelance
  • Martin is a brilliant Creative Director, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. He just gets it, which is the biggest relief for a Client Services person. Always calm and in control, and nails the creative route time and time again, barely looking ruffled as the client repeatedly changes the brief on him. He’s a great mentor to the more junior members of the creative and client services teams and a very interesting person to chat to – well-travelled, well-read and with a great sense of humour, something that is a definite requirement in today’s creative agencies.
    Joanna Hannam
    Business Director @ Freelance
  • I can’t recommend Martin highly enough. He’s a talented senior Art Director with a keen eye for design. Able to work as part of a team or independently, his flexibility makes him perfectly adaptable to any agency set-up. He’s client-facing and more than capable of leading a team. He’s also an ‘ideas man’ – his skills enabling him to track projects through from concept stage to final delivery. I would work with him again in a heartbeat. Snap him up now before someone else does.
    Andrew Watkinson
    Creative Director @ ArnoldKLP & Cake
  • I first met Martin at Maher Bird when he came in to freelance. As ever, we were frantically busy, but he was the epitome of calm and professionalism. He quickly grasped whatever brief we threw at him, came up with a solution and executed it beautifully. He’s an artist, you see. No, really, he studied at the Royal College of Art, so his scamps really are something else, and he has an incredible eye for detail. He’s also good fun and an absolute pleasure to have around. I liked him so much that when I left MBA I immediately asked him to freelance with me.
    Sarah Pilkington
    Owner @ Stow House and Copywriter @ Freelance
  • Martin has a designer’s eye and an art director’s brain, so every layout and every detail is a pleasure to behold. Importantly, though, Martin prioritises communication and understands the need to sublimate his other talents in support of getting the message across. Beyond all that, though, I found his integrity and work ethic quite remarkable — really special in fact.
    George Boyter
    Artist (formerly Creative Director @ Dunnhumby Cinnamon)
My other work
creative @ just a little milk…Photography @ photogr.aphyx.comwords @ nautipuss.com