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Big headlines. Big visuals. Yet these are supposed to be press ads when they look more like posters in disguise. Whether or not this is a development to be welcomed is an open question. The worst that can be said of this trend is that it is reflective of a dumbed down education system in general and a failure to provide proper training to young creatives in particular.

A creative director recently asked one of his young teams to write him a paragraph explaining their latest idea only to find they couldn't do it. Another creative chief in a small agency claims he has given up trying to find a young copywriter and is now doing most of the writing work himself.

Colleges are producing "concept

creatives whose lack of craft skills older creatives often have to compensate for.

Of course it's easy to mourn copywriting's golden age - assuming that there ever was such a thing - and to lament declining standards. But for every beautifully crafted and succinct long copy ad by David Abbott there were dozens of others that were flabby and lazy. Indeed, it's hard not to agree with John Hegarty, the chairman of this year's press awards jury, that long copy just gets in the way. If you can communicate with an arresting visual and a headline, you've done the job, he argues.

It may be that copywriting is not so much a victim of declining educational standards but of a technology-fuelled, fast-paced and visual world. Information overload has forced agencies to go for high visual impact to make their messages stand out from the clutter.

Such is progress and the industry must keep pace with it. But it would be tragic if the teaching of craft skills gets trampled in the rush or that there may never be another Timberland print ad or a Tim Delaney to write it.