The Platinum Egg 1995: Lars Forsberg.
Lars was born in 1955 and grew up in Lysekil. Initially, he dreamed of being a secondary school Swedish teacher, but two years into the university course, he ran across a full-page ad in Expressen for something called “Copyprojektet”, an ambitious initiative to do something about the dearth of promising prospects coming into Swedish advertising.... Through Copyprojektet, Lars met his future partner Björn Schumacher and six other talents chosen from over 800 hopefuls who applied. Among them were future Platinum Egg recipient Calle Lewenhaupt and Paradiset dignitary Björn Rietz. Lars, Björn S and Calle L were all hired by the United agency. As newly hatched “Chicken Scholars” in 1985, Forsberg and Schumacher produced a pamphlet titled (more or less) “Swedish Advertising Sucks”. Thin-skinnedness found a new public face afterwards, as many older industry colleagues fumed – which Lars later said he has a certain degree of understanding for. By this time, Lars and Björn Schumacher had already started a tiny agency that gained cult status, Blyerts, which was acquired by Hall & Cederquist in 1986. At H&C, Lars cultivated fruitful, long-term relationships with titans Johan Sten and Lars Hall. Award-winning jobs streamed forth from “the temple on Kaptensgatan” like a river in spring flood for clients like the Federation of Swedish Farmers, NK, Svenskt Papper and the Centre Party. Between 1988 and 1992, according to Resumé, Lars was in a class of his own among Swedish copywriters, winning a total of 64 awards at the Golden Eggs, and in 1994 he won the Golden Writing Award for best written communication of the year, the first time the prize was awarded.
After the Platinum Egg: In 1995, Lars switched to freelancing and started working with art directors like Torbjörn Lenskog, Henrik Nygren and Björn Kusoffsky. Eventually his jobs in the cultural sphere took over, and he became the editor of antiquarian book magazine Bokvännen and Biblis, the magazine of the National Library of Sweden. In 2005 he moved back home to Lysekil, but he has continued to work with colleagues in Stockholm and at Happy/F&B in Gothenburg. Lars also conceived and wrote the copy for major exhibitions on Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, Ingmar Bergman and more on behalf of clients like the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Institute and the Nobel Foundation. By 2022, his interest in rare books finally took over entirely, and Lars revived the legendary antiquarian book dealer Björck & Börjesson.