Batter-up, originally uploaded by moleitau.

Passed away recently. Very sad news, and a real shock.

I met Martin a few years ago when I was working at Nokia, and after some initial crossing of swords (who was this marketing dude, and what did he want with design?) we found ourselves getting on famously.

Martin was always ready for an unscheduled adventure. The picture above is from a business trip to New York when we snuck away from day-long meetings to go and face 75mph baseballs from the batting net machines on Chelsea Piers.

Instead of the ‘traditional’ dinner after a long marketing board meeting, he took a bunch of (fairly-traditional) Nokia marketing people to the BFI screening room to watch a documentary (“Dark Days”) about people living in tunnels beneath Manhattan.

Martin was a man in love with human culture – all of it, and he loved being involved in making it – advertising and marketing being the vehicle he used to do so (mostly).

I wish I’d had longer to enjoy watching him do it.

He will be sorely missed.