Lucas van Vuuren

For Lucas Janse van Vuuren, life had humble beginnings. Raised in a coalmine just a few kilometres from the gates of hell itself, young Lucas beat the odds the day he killed a fellow child-miner. Throwing the sad little body to the watch-hounds, Lucas escaped from the darkness, hitchhiked to a nearby airport, and stowed away to Cape Town. Van Vuuren put himself through the AAA school of advertising, paying his tuition fees with raw bullion dug from a seam in the coalmine. Advertising seemed like a logical career path for a newly-minted murderer.

Three years later he emerged as a graphic designer, the beautiful butterfly to his sad, twisted, soot-covered caterpillar of a child-slave. Lucas quickly realised that art directors tend to end up sucking champagne out of awards trophies with a curly straw, while designers tend to end up sucking on leftover teabags for their nutritive value. He immediately found himself a job at Joe Public Cape Town, latching onto the creative hothouse led by Pepe Marais with lamprey-like tenacity. His days as a destitute student were over and he quickly settled into his life as a destitute entry-level art director.

Lucas worked at Joe Public for a few years on accounts such as Cape Union Mart (winner of the 1994 international worst acronym award), Ocean Basket, Tuffy Plastic Bags and many other famous brands that you use regularly.

Then, in a spectacular example of poor decision-making, he moved to Johannesburg. Employed first at the newly-opened Joburg branch of Joe Public, and then later at Black River FC, van Vuuren eventually grew tired of the capital city, opting to fly back to the South African Health&Racquet Club (Cape Town) in 2008.

Ever since then, he has been steaming ahead at The Jupiter Drawing Room, a place he has grown to consider as a location at which he works. He is a regular winner of many awards, and some of them are for advertising. He has been instrumental in the creative development of brands like Hyundai, Windhoek Beer, Design Indaba, American Swiss, Musica, and many, many more that this writer doesn’t care to try to remember right now.

That’s right. The Lucas van Vuuren Express is coaled up and shunting down the lines into new territories of creative excellence. He’s a high-flying, high-diving, high-concept machine who takes brands made of water, and turns them into wine. That’s right. He’s a miracle-worker. And his breath smells like crisp spearmint. Not peppermint, that cheap crap. Spearmint.

So don’t delay! Call him today.