at the start of 1980, clarke began to paint in oils again after a period of working primarily graphically and in acrylic, and created his first constructions, in wood and steel, and designs for furniture. noticing the similarity between the reticular, constructivist-derived symbols that dominated his work and the light-metering computergrams from the olympus om system cameras, he produced a series of painting titled "time lag zero" for the headquarters of olympus optical (uk). its unveiling at langan's brasserie by patrick lichfield for the fifth anniversary of olympus's presence in england was filmed by granada television as part of a documentary on clarke and his work, released by itv as "time lag zero: impressions of brian clarke". later that year, a major commission for paintings, a wooden construction, and a suite of stained glass windows for the olympus european headquarters building in hamburg was executed, for which clarke was given 'complete freedom of the design of the entrance hall for the new building', and, starring in a series of adverts for olympus and for polaroid, he became a household name in the uk and the united states. the complexity of the stained glass designs for hamburg necessitated the development of special diamond cutting and sandblasting techniques to accommodate the graphic, non-structural role of the lead in places, and marked the start of clarke's manufacturing his windows in germany rather than england.