Darren Endicott
Art Director / Account Manager
“I love a challenging brief, I love underpinning the solution with good thinking, and I still love the feel and smell of print.”
You could say I’m a child (or a nephew) of the Advertising boom of the 1980s. My uncle, only 12 years older than me, was the Creative Director of a successful Soho-based agency called Timms, Triefus, Maddick, my uncle was the Maddick in it.
Heard of the Lions of Longleat? We lived on the estate only metres away from the animals. Longleat Safari Park was the first drive-through safari park outside Africa, and the location of the longest-running Doctor Who exhibition. I ended up working in the Doctor Who Tardis at weekends and got to know the guys who put the sets, creatures, and costumes together for the exhibition. Then, while at University I got work experience with them in their Ealing Film Studios home.
My first job was in a Bath-based ad agency, followed by a long tenure at Future Publishing. I was on the era-defining Business 2.0 when I was asked to relocate to London. If you fast forward a few years and cast your mind back to the ‘lads mag’ era you’d find me working for the now defunct Ice magazine, where I was the art director.
My next move was to Australia and after short stints with a couple of publishing houses, I was offered the opportunity to work on the launch of Future Publishing over there. After almost 6 years I returned to the UK in 2009 to get married, and started working for Ink Global, specialists in in-flight magazines. I was part of the team that launched Metropolitan, Eurostar’s first in-train magazine, a really exciting time as the title was conceived as an intelligent magazine wanting to appeal to fashionistas, business people, romantic weekenders and daytrippers travelling between Paris, London and Brussels.
I then joined Think Publishing, a content marketing agency overseeing the business and professional division. In 2019 I went freelance and was working for British Airways’ High-Life magazine at Cedar, which, to cut a long story short, is how I ended up at Parker Design, where my years of experience in print and editorial have come in handy when working on projects for our Travel (Exodus, Travelopia) and Education (University of Manchester) clients, amongst others.
Over the years, I’ve designed a little bit of everything and won some nice awards along the way, which doesn’t define me but is always nice.
When my 9-year old daughter allows me to have some time away from her, I enjoy running and regularly take part in 10K to marathon distance races. Music is another of my passions, you can find me at home playing the guitar (a little) and slowly rebuilding my vinyl collection.
Latest Projects
Corporate video content
IFoA
Digital performance report
IFoA
Charity brochure design
Cambridge Past, Present & Future
University prospectus design
University of Manchester
Performance report design
IFoA
Marketing brochure and translation
United Insurance Brokers Ltd
Welcome gift pack
Sage
