Mark Neal Communications
Creative Art Director & Graphic Designer with over 30 years experience in commercial design. Mark's 6 year apprenticeship began at 17 in London based studios. He rose from studio & production assistance, to management. Design assistance & project management progressed into designing. Art direction was learnt by assisting, before art directing himself.
The last 3 years of Mark's training was at Bill Smith Studio, renown for music industry packaging. There he worked on music projects for EMI, Virgin, BMG, Factory, Mute, including Mike Oldfield, Kate Bush, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, King Crimson and Inspiral Carpets. He produced an award-winning calendar and nurtured projects for The Royal Shakespeare Company.
His reputation was established and he started his own studio - Dusk Digital, in 1992. He proceeded to create over 150 album covers along with posters, marketing materials and film graphics.
Sixteen years on, and rolling with the changes, Mark teamed up with Ciaran Henderson to create Dawn Digital, embracing digital communication especially for web and serving a more diverse range of businesses.
Always the innovator, Mark was an early adopter of computers. As far back as 1990 at Bill Smith Studio, where traditional typography & compositing made multi-layered graphics expensive and time consuming. Mark pushed through the computerisation of Bill's studio.
Today Mark is happiest when he is stretching technological boundaries to expedite and enhance his graphics. He revels in building and tuning computers, and finds a well optimised computer to be greater support than a studio full of people. This welcoming of new technologies spills into his work, and clients benefit from his technological adventures.