ADC Awards, Advertising, Design, Digital/Technology, Illustration, Motion/Film/Animation, Photography January 19, 2016

2015’s Most Cube-worthy?

ADC 95th Annual Awards Jury picks their favorite work of the past year

ADC has assembled a phenomenal group of men and women to serve on the various juries of the ADC 95th Annual Awards. These industry superstars are not only known for their own considerable creative gifts, but also have an eye for amazing work created by others.

As we approach the judging of excellence in idea and craft in advertising, design, illustration, photography, digital and motion, we had this year’s jury tell us what work wowed them throughout 2015.These selections haven’t necessarily entered the Awards, but if they did, they’d have at least one champion in the jury room.

“I really enjoyed the unskippable preroll ads by GEICO. I think The Martin Agency did a great job at playing with this classic ad format, some of the best digital work tends to happen when you use the limitations of a platform and make them work in your favour. Great idea, lovely execution.”

Jouke Vuurmans
Partner & Executive Director, MediaMonks (USA)
Digital Jury

“It’s a tie between a campaign CRCR directed for Travel Portland and Simogo’s devilishly simple but super clever game, SPL-T.“

Erica Gorochow
Freelance Director, Designer & Animator (USA)
Motion Jury

“Adam & Eve/DDB‘s ‘Shoplifter’ work for Harvey Nichols was so fresh! A clear idea, great attitude and cool execution.”

Sarah Watson
Chief Strategy Officer, BBH New York (USA)
Advertising Jury

“One idea I really loved this year because it was so simple, smart, and well executed was The New York Times“Build A Better Sandwich” feature. So many publications (including ours) have done sandwich stories photographed with floating layers to show the composition, but theirs utilized HTML5 to picture the sandwiches whole with the layers revealing upon scrolling. My favorite ideas are ones that feel so obvious and yet so clever that when you see them…you just go ‘Doh! I wish I thought of that!'”

Piera Gelardi
Founder, Executive Creative Director, Refinery29 (USA)
Design Jury

“GEICO’s unskippable ads still gives me belly laughs, and I’ve given it my fair share of YouTube views.”

Leigh Reyes
President, Chief Creative Officer, Lowe (Philippines)
Advertising Jury

“Something that has inspired me lately is a local project by Uniform for Finnmark Rein. Norway has a a lot of reindeer herded by the indigenous people of the north. In 2015 there has been a really nice design project introducing massive improvements into tracing, quality, design, display and packaging and finally moving this into the high-end food segment where this great meat belongs. As a buyer of a specific piece of meet, you can find out who has herded the flock, what the reindeer has eaten and the flocks movement during the seasons over the large mountain plateau of Finnmarksvidda. I think this is a beautiful example of a thoughtful and meaningful experience with a potential for a significant impact for both the local community and commercially.”

Kjell Reenskaug
Experience Design Director, Partner, Bleed (Norway)
Design Jury

“There are quite a few stellar pieces I wish I did this year. My clear favourite of the lot is Deutsch NY‘s ‘Art Heist For Good’ for WATERisLIFE. It’s brave on so many levels and it provides sustainable solutions for the water crisis.”

Nkanyezi Masango
Creative Director, Y&R Cape Town (South Africa)
Advertising Jury

“I’m lucky enough to work for an agency that produces an immense number of ‘i wish i did that’ ideas. One of my favourites this year was a piece that the Jordan team did to celebrate the brand’s 30th anniversary. It was called ‘The Last Shot’ and it was a fully-interactive LED half court that allowed everyday fans to relive Michael Jordan’s greatest moments, in his shoes.”

Stefanie DiGianvincenzo
Creative Director, AKQA (Australia)
Digital Jury

“The creative team at Barneys New York launched The Window, a print publication inspired by their editorial site. I found myself becoming increasingly fascinated with every page I flipped which contained bold yet sensitive and iconic design balanced with strong imagery. Besides setting a high bar for the luxury brand’s design aesthetically, there’s an inspirational alchemy to the way the word and picture come together in this particular publication.”

Nathalie Kirsheh
Design Director, Details magazine (USA)
Design Jury

“Of course there’s GEICO’s ‘Unskippable ads’.”

Anne-Cécile Tauleigne
Executive Creative Director, JWT Paris (France)
Advertising Jury

“If I had to name just one, it would be the redesign of The New York Times Magazine.“

Astrid Stavro
Creative Director, Design by Atlas (Spain)
Design Jury

NewYorkTimesMagazineRedesignCovers1.jpg.CROP.original-original

“It’s hard to say what the single coolest thing I’ve seen this past year was — I’ve seen so much amazing work! Droga5‘s ‘Fueled by Everything’ for Toyota was really fascinating. It reminded me of my grade school science fairs. Its approach to discovery and creative problem solving through hypothesis was really refreshing, regardless of the outcome.”

Melatan Riden
Design Director, TBWA\Chiat\Day (USA)
Digital Jury

“I feel like the coolest stuff these days is a mashup of smart+strategic+fresh+honest+surprising that adds up to a kind of zietgeist-y alchemy — and makes people not only want to stop and pay attention, but also “own” a piece of what they see — by sharing it, commenting on it, remixing it, reimagining it, or using it as a sort of merit badge on their feeds and with their friends.”

“I hope that ADC still lets me be a part of the jury when I say that the Poo-Pourri music video, ‘Imagine Where You Can Go’, with its virtually unskippable hook and 12 million views on YouTube, is one of the smartest things I’ve seen this year. It’s a perfect amalgamation of totally true human insights, a crystal clear product message, a super confident sense of humor about itself (that I think a lot of brands could learn a little from) and it’s packaged in a crazy amazing pop hook that even T. Swift could get with. The people that spun this potentially soul-crushing brief into this playfully energetic work are literal geniuses, I think.”

Lu Chekowsky
Senior Vice President, Brand Creative, Comedy Central (USA)
Advertising Jury