MANILA – DM9JaymeSyfu, Nexus, and Plus63 Design Co. bagged top awards at the fifth adobo Design Awards, which honors the best and brightest talents in contemporary creativity.
There were five Gold winners, 14 Silver winners, and 42 Bronze winners in this year’s competition.
DM9JaymeSyfu bagged the Lucille Tenazas Excellence Award for its ‘Smart TXTBKS’ campaign, which transformed SIM cards into condensed workbooks that could be read on old-model mobile phones. The campaign also won Best in Show, Design for a Purpose, and a Gold in the Game / Application category.
Plus63 Design Co. won Best in Show, Design for Good for its ‘Kindred App‘, which also won Gold in the Game / Application category. Noticing how people would use social media to search for blood donors, the team came up with the app, which connects blood donors and recipients.
Plus63 Design Co. also earned a Silver for ‘Back Alley Barbershop’, and two Bronze awards, one for ‘Your Local’ and another for ‘Design Co.Mission’.
Nexus bagged three Gold awards: One for ‘Honda “Hands”‘ in the Animated Video category, one for ‘Bombay Sapphire – Imagination Machine’ in the Outdoor/Ambient category, and one for ‘V&A Memory Palace’ in the Interactive category.
There were two winners in the Open/Theme Category, Design for the Future, which calls for creative pitches to promote socially relevant design. This year’s winners were Wunderman International Philippines’ ‘Life / Door’ in the Professional Division, and De La Salle – College of St. Benilde’s Ma. Therese A. Valmonte’s ‘LRT Foodtrip: A Mobile Application‘ in the Student Division. Both entries earned Bronze awards.
TBWA\ Santiago Mangada Puno got five Silver Awards and eight Bronze Awards, with ‘Tree Lungs’ getting two Silver Awards for Best Design, Illustration and Best Design, Environmental /Spatial.
JWT Manila got six awards, including three Silver Awards for ‘Chaplin’, ‘V’ and ‘Lake’, and three Bronze Awards for ‘Beach’, ‘Bike’, and ‘Seed Notes’.
BBDO Guerrero’s ‘Mountain Dew 360’ got a Silver for Best Design, Digital Imaging and a Bronze for Best Design, Press & Poster.
Leo Burnett Manila won five Bronze awards – one each for ‘Origami’, ‘Aid Couture’, ‘Hooray 3’, ‘Body Combat’, and ‘Flux Design Labs’.
Lowe Inc. earned a Bronze award for its ‘Red Cross “Fork” Poster’, while Campaigns and Grey earned two Bronze Awards for ‘Rubber Cut: Tire Donation, Rafting’. IXM also earned two Bronze Awards, one for ‘Seiko Astron “All The Time”‘ and another for ‘Muntinlupa “Trashémons”‘.
Ace Saatchi & Saatchi’s ‘ZZZ – Static’ earned two Bronze Awards for Best Design, Press & Poster and for Best Design, Digital Imaging. Team Manila earned three Bronze Awards for ‘Nike Lebron X Team Manila’, ‘Mapa Manila’, and ‘Flying Ipis “Give Ipis A Chance” Album’.
Canon Marketing Phils., Inc. also earned a Bronze Award for ‘Festival of Colors’. In the Best Design, Publishing – Book Design category, De La Salle – College of St. Benilde’s ‘The Benilde Book 2014′ won a Silver award, while McCann Worldgroup Philippines’ ‘ICAB Adoption Literature: Mummy and Hunny Bunny ICAB Adoption Literature: Destiny’s Delivery’ earned a Bronze award. R. Jordan P. Santos’ ‘NBDB The Book of Beginnings and The Book of Endings’ also earned a Bronze award.
In the Best Design, Short Film category, there were two Bronze winners: Go Motion Productions’ ‘Mini X Cusi’ and 88 Storey Films’ ‘Unsilent Night’. Meanwhile, Blackpencil Manila’s ‘How Not to Instagram’ got a Bronze in Best Design, Music Video/ Audio Video.
In the Wearable Design category, there were also two Bronze winners: Y&R’s ‘GenerosiTee’ and DDB Philippines’ Project Hope Floats. This year’s winners also included freelance entries from Lady San Pedro, who won a Silver for ‘Facades’; Daryl Feril, who won a Bronze for ‘DFS Galleria S/S 2013: Passage to Paradise’; and Raxenne Dosher R Maniquiz, who earned a Silver for ‘Bratpack Peg Catalog May 2013’ and a Bronze for ‘Bratpack Peg Catalog November 2013’.
Tough jury, higher stakes
With top names in advertising and design on the judging panel, the stakes were higher than ever in this year’s competition. New York-based design practitioner and educator Lucille Tenazas said, “This was a really tough jury. There was a good balance of people who paid attention to the content and also people who paid attention to the aesthetics.”
Joining her are some of the creative industry’s most accomplished names: Team Manila designer Jowee Alviar, bag designer and SoFA co-founder Amina Aranaz-Alunan, industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue, Associate Creative Director for Design of TBWA\SMP John Ed De Vera, graphic designer AJ Dimarucot, Executive Creative Director of JWT Manila Dave Ferrer, architect Tobias Guggenheimer, Executive Creative Director of BBDO Guerrero Dale Lopez, illustrator Dan Matutina, sculptor and artist Leeroy New, animator Armand Serrano, photographer Jay Tablante, communications specialist Brian Tenorio, and design educator Dean Joey Yupangco.
For Tenazas, the entries that qualified as worthy of consideration were “things that were both poetic and pragmatic.” A recipient of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Medal, Tenazas explained that she looks for thought-provoking work that lingers beyond the ten-second response. “A lot of the times we are drawn to something we look at it, we’re bowled over by it but then it doesn’t stay long with us… I actually like things that pose questions. that do not necessarily provide the answers, but they provoke these kinds of questioning,” she said.
The 2014 winners were revealed on March 28, 2014 at an awards ceremony held at Ayala Museum in Makati.
