Stratton Craig is 25 years old – and so am I

by Stratton Craig

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A full 25 years ago (or should that be one score and five?), it was 1987 – the year that the first Street Fighter game was released, The Simpsons made their debut on the Tracy Ullman Show, and Queen Elizabeth II formally opened the DLR. It’s also the year that Stratton Craig was founded, and the year that I was brought into the world and given an unusual name.
Now we’ve made it to 2012, an entirely new century let alone a new decade, and both the company and I find ourselves reaching that milestone 25th birthday. When I first realised that I’m as old as the company I work for, in all honesty I was a little unnerved. However, I’ve realised that it’s a very good match: Stratton Craig began in the town of Bath, and my first word was ‘bath’ (after a very humid first holiday in Spain). We’ve both (sort of) grown up together, moving from town to city and making new friends on the way, and we now find ourselves in central London, enjoying our success in copywriting and fitting in wonderfully with everyone around us. The comparison is eerie!
The art of copywriting has changed significantly over the last 25 years, and I’m lucky to be able to remember a time before the internet really took hold and revolutionised copy – a time when many documents were still written by hand, and computers printed out text in one font onto reams of paper with perforated edges. I think my parents still have some of that paper in a cupboard somewhere. The advances that we’ve seen in design and technology since then are truly stunning… with the exception of Comic Sans, of course. The way text looks is now just as important as the content actually written, evidenced in the huge rise of brand identity, custom blog templates and the sheer number of typefaces in existence.
As a writer for Stratton Craig, I work on projects that would have seemed impossible and almost crazy a quarter of a century ago. If someone had told my parents on the day I was born that someday we’d be able to organise our entire lives and do all of our shopping online, they’d have been laughed out of the room, and yet now I regularly write copy for websites that allow us to do just that.
Even as we celebrate our achievements and successes to date, the future looks even brighter. This year, both the company and I are taking on new challenges: at the same time as Stratton Craig advances ever further into copywriting for digital and social media, I’m attempting to brush up on my Japanese and develop a fledgling career in stand-up comedy. Who says you can’t teach a 25 year old new tricks?
Here’s to the next quarter century – thank you to our many clients from everyone at Stratton Craig. We look forward to working with you all again soon, and make sure you come back for my 50th anniversary blog in 2037.

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