1986: FOUR WORDS THAT SUMMED UP A PHILOSOPHY

THE BRILLIANCE of this poster, which was created by Saatchi, lies in two opposing directions. First of all because of the "It is" arm of it. In 1986 it was startling to be a politically independent newspaper. Many of the others were dominated by tycoons.

We were independent because it was impossible to say which party we supported and also we were not owned by a tycoon.

The "Are you?" was also brilliant. I had never thought of the readers of The Independent as belonging to a particular socio-economic group, the only thing that mattered was that they should be independent-minded. It was an attitude we were going after - people who were prepared to take risks with their thinking.

The two things came together in a slogan of four one-syllable words andto my mind it has never been bettered.

The writer was founding editor of The Independent