John Messum joins HMDG

Hurrell Moseley Dawson & Grimmer (HMDG) has appointed John Messum as Creative Director.

John has been with the agency for the last six months as head of art and also working with clients, leading the agency’s pitch for ancestry.co.uk and creative directing Auto Trader while also helping run the department day-to-day.

He was until May 2008 part of a five-strong management team in London working on advertising and design projects at Farm and its sister agency Leith in Edinburgh following their acquisition by Cello.

Previously, he had helped found Leith London in October 2001 and before that he was Joint Head of Art at Saatchi & Saatchi overseeing national and European brands including Lexus, Sony and P&G (Oil of Olaz, Pampers and Ariel) and NSPCC.

John started his career in 1988 at Saatchi & Saatchi and for nearly ten years he worked on many famous UK campaigns such as Silk Cut, for which he received Silver and Bronze awards at the Cannes Advertising Festival; and British Airways, for which he won six Campaign Press Silver awards and a Silver nomination at D&AD. In 1997 he was hired by HHCL & Partners as Head of Art working on the launch of British Airways’ low cost airline GO. He most awarded campaign was for the Nurses Recruitment campaign through S&S, which won three pencils at D&AD, a Gold at Cannes and a Silver at The One Show.

John Messum said: I’m very excited to be joining HMDG. The agency feels vibrant and there’s a good momentum at the moment, lots of pitches and great work. I look forward to helping the agency grow further faster next year.”

“John has made a huge contribution to the agency since he has been here,” adds Nick Hurrell. “We are delighted that he has decided to move in.”