I created a range of promotional material for Silk Cut based on the instantly recognisable branding. The High Street brand is characterised, by its distinctive white packet, with the name in purple. It was fun working on the livery for the Silk Cut Jaguar Le Mans car. It's not everyday that you get to customise the helmets worn by the drivers.

The brand was made popular by a surrealistic advertising campaign launched in 1984, in preparation for a ban on named tobacco advertising. The first advertisement for Silk Cut showed a purple silk cloth with a single cut running through it. The name of the cigarette brand never appears on the advertisement with recognition created by use of the well-known brand colours. Nor are any other objects linked to smoking visible, such as packs of cigarettes or smoke. The only hint that the advertisement concerns a cigarette brand at all is the mandatory health warning at the bottom. The first advertisement represents a wordplay on the brand name Silk Cut. This was based on a series of works by Avant Garde artist Lucio Fontana

The campaign was a huge success making Silk Cut the best-selling brand at the beginning of the 1990s.

CLIENT: Gallaher Limited
AGENCY: Light & Coley