ADC

The ADC Awards: Behind the Iron Curtain Pt. 3
Posted on 2008-Apr-21 at 12:51
Brandon Burns
New York Correspondant
ihaveanidea

The mystery of advertising awards shows is ﬁnally revealed. Each week I will post an interview of one of the jury members from this year's ADC Awards, giving you an uncensored peek at what really goes on, what the judges are thinking, and how they decide upon which works to bestow the prestigious ADC cube.

Dana Arnett: Design Jury Chairman
VSA Partners, Principal
24-7designheaven.com, Creator

The majority of ihaveanidea readers come from the ad world. The Bernbach- praising, Cannes-Lion-chasing ad world. So why are you getting ready to read an interview with the Design Jury Chair? Well, I’ll let Mr. Arnett tell you himself:

“Strangely enough, advertising and design are inseparable. Designers are trained to express an idea over a number of pages. Ad people are often defined by a single piece. But good design makes good advertising, and good advertising rarely exists without good design.”

It’s true, folks. You’ve all heard the adage: A good ad is X% idea and X% execution. Well, whatever percentage values you want to fill in, execution is still a huge deal. And execution often means design. Great ideas fall flat due to bad typography, photography, illustration, layout, and a myriad of other things. All of these are things that the top designers do well. These are also things the ADC holds near and dear to its heart. And Nancy Vonk agrees (read her interview here).

So, what’s the design work looking like this year?

“I think the level of work is looking great. Japan and China are the most impressive. Tasteful integration of a fine art approach along with a hand crafted quality - such an intelligent and gifted approach to the way they execute things. The work from the UK shows intelligence and humor, as always.”

Any trends poping up?

“Over the last five years, I’ve seen a return to classical use of typography. There was a period of infatuation coming out of the post-script age. Some of that romance has worn off and there’s kind of a lot of really tasteful and thoughtful uses of typography and classical type.”

Well, I don’t know what the post-script age is, but I think I want to take notes. I think this guy is basically giving me a blueprint of how to execute a great ad! Any more advice for us?

“I’d hope that more work could be more relevant. With so much content and noise, a designer’s [or advertiser’s] real job, if not opportunity, is to cut through the clutter and create some truth in relevant positioning. We need to step back and go ‘hey’ again, let’s get real.”

So, Dana, how do we start to move forward?

“For starters, I think we can’t be fooled that [the work submitted] is the absolute best and brightest. It’s great work, but I would really like to get some trend analysis, bring 10 or 15 19-20 year old people through here who really sort of represent what’s really going in the world now.”

I’d like to see some of that stuff, too. Everyone knows that, while inspiration can come from within, there’s tons more inspiration to be found in the world around us. It would behoove us to take a gander at all of it.

Until next week…