The Platinum Egg 1987: Kurt Lundkvist.
Kurt was born in 1934 near a cow pasture that later became the Stockholm suburb of Täby Centrum. His mother and father worked on a farm. On the back of the farm’s milk production forms, Kurt drew cartoons and portraits. His love of art and design took him to Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, first to night school, then full-time studies in advertising and artisanal book production. In 1959, elder sage C.F. Hultenheim told him..., “Kurre, I’ve heard John Melin is looking for a new art director. That’s the job for you!” The agency, Svenska Telegrambyrån in Malmö, was built on the American model, with creatives taking the lead. Kurt embarked on his advertising career in the best possible company. Along with Per-Henry Richter, he created Sweden’s first two-page spread ad. The client was Svensk Uppslagsbok, an encyclopaedia. The spines of all 33 volumes stretched across the entire spread in full scale, complemented by a brief headline: “Free!” It was graphically effective and centred the product as the hero. In 1966, after a few months at Doyle Dale Bernbach in New York, the heart and soul of creative advertising, Leon Nordin induced Kurt and a few selected creatives from Telegrambyrån to start their own agency in Malmö under the name Arbman 2. There Kurt staked out the design, typeface and positioning of the new charter travel company Vingresor so distinctively that, many years later, when the agency forgot to include the Ving logo on an ad, everybody knew who it was anyway. Kurt has been called “the complete creator”. “He intuitively makes all the puzzle pieces fall in place: copy, images, function, aesthetics, surface and proportion.” Kurt Lundkvist worked with leading copywriters, including Per-Henry Richter, Lars Wannberg, Lennart Bengtsson and Leon Nordin. Among his countless prize-winning jobs are work for Lyckholms, Felix, Sonab, some Fazer film spots in which Lars Amble wolfs down an entire chocolate bar as soon as a friend turns up, HTH and Crescent/Monark.
After the Platinum Egg: Kurt Lundkvist stayed with Arbmans in Malmö. In 1988, he was elected chairman of the Swedish Advertising Association, and in 2018 published a book, Öga mot Öga (Eye to Eye), together with Lars Falk and Claes Bergquist.