It is with great sadness that ACID announces the death of their great friend and graphic designer Mr. Simon Morley. Simon had been fighting against cancer throughout this year and he finally lost his brave battle recently.
Simon, through his company Coppertop Creative, was the ‘man behind the ACID brand’. He created everything that you associate with ACID – the strong ‘warning’ colourway of black and yellow, the logos, the exhibition graphics, the newsletters and so much more. Initially, his job was to make Intellectual Property a ‘user-friendly’ subject that was easy to understand – a tough task, but skilfully and brilliantly executed.
Dids Macdonald, ACID’s CEO said “Simon had a rare creative ability to make the often-described ‘grey’ subject of intellectual property ‘sing’! More importantly, through our close working relationship, lengthy dialogue was rare because intuitively he could interpret our brief into visually strong and compelling messages, consistently. ACID will always be in his debt.”
Jane Stephenson, ACID’s Membership Development Manager adds “I first worked exclusively with Simon on the re-design of our 68-page IP Guide. This was a complete baptism of fire for me because I had little experience of graphics and sometimes I was overly optimistic on what could be achieved! During the years that we worked together Simon, with great patience, passed on a lot of his extensive knowledge which meant that I can now confidently edit and arrange production of the ACID e-mail and quarterly newsletters and also control the maintenance and creation of the ACID websites. None of this would have been possible without Simon’s valuable input. We will all miss his considerable skill and talent but most of all, his great sense of humour and witty banter.”
In 2006 it was time for ACID to have a more sophisticated style and with a fairly sketchy brief, we left it to Simon to create. Quickly he metamorphosed ACID’s initial ‘look and feel’ to represent an organisation which had earned its colours and was more representative of the sectors within which we work. This gave us a greater sense of unity and the increase in our website traffic has been phenomenal.
Simon’s work ethic matched his professionalism and ACID can never remember him missing a deadline (some of which were impossibly tight) but Simon always got the job done. Even to the extent of returning to the office one Christmas Eve when ACID’s printers contacted him to say that urgent files had become adulterated.
Simon always thought of others. He adored his family and was very proud of his daughters Kiri and Jenny, whom he would mention frequently. He had a passion for hockey and in his spare time was involved in Clifton Ladies Hockey Club where he coached and also cheered-on Jenny when she was playing. He also kept us up to date with Kiri’s University life in Canada and her volunteer trips to Africa. Our sympathies go to Simon’s Wife Val, daughters, Mum and sisters - and also to ‘the beagle boy’ who will be missing his long walks on Cleeve Hill.
