Focal Point was tasked with designing the 2017 AAF Spokane American Advertising Awards. Read about the inspiration behind the creative and our journey in bringing a BIG BAND SWING to the process.
As one of the big highlights of the year, everyone here at Focal Point looks forward to partaking in the American Advertising Awards (ADDYs).
As members of the Spokane chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the ADDYs represent the very best in advertising and design from our region. Winning an ADDY award helps validate our commitment to top-notch creative strategy for our clients (and they’re a hell of a lot of fun!).
This year, the AAF reached out to us about designing the collateral for the prestigious event.
We enthusiastically agreed.
THEME
To keep the awards show fresh and fun, the AAF leadership changes the theme of the event each year. Past years have included 007 (Bond), Great Gatsby, Oscars, and more of the like. For 2017, they decided on “1940’s big band” for the soiree. For us as designers, the theme was great in that it offered a lot of flexibility in style and aesthetic.
INSPIRATION
To get inspired for what we were to create, we scoured the Internet for big band posters from the last 60-70 years. We browsed through our own library of industry magazines for elements and layouts that lent itself to the era. The pop-style posters we discovered for the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Glenn Miller were great examples of the direction we wanted to take, only with more edge, exemplified by design pioneer Saul Bass. Our initial concepts included a variety of design styles, ranging from art deco to futurism. Color palettes also varied – with one vibrant pairing, another muted palette, as well as monochromatic options. But in the end, an old adage proved true: less is more.
Execution
Our take on this theme was minimalist, focusing on the use of band and musician silhouettes comprising one primary, striking visual. It had texture, shape, and contrast – all of the makings of strong design. As we created all of the collateral, which included posters, save-the-date postcards, tickets, social media visuals, on-screen and presentation slides, and the actual awards themselves – we brought in new elements and silhouettes that carried the theme throughout the campaign while keeping it fresh and different.
Highlight
The coolest piece of the campaign to produce was the agency leave-behind, which could be anything we wanted (within budget) that would serve as an invitation to Spokane/regional advertising agencies to participate and submit work to the ADDYs. Given the theme and the time period, we designed it as an LP record sleeve with the event poster inside to look like a record. The sleeve featured a stylized 40’s era catch phrase “flip your wig”, encouraging folks to lose themselves in what is sure to be a memorable event.
Bringing our concept to fruition took a lot of work from AAF | Spokane executive director Jennifer Fanto, who worked with a Spokane-area screen printer to print the sleeve, while she herself hand-cut and assembled them! This, combined with in-kind sponsor National Color Graphics to print the poster (record) insert, produced an amazing finished product.
Conclusion
The jury is still out, as the big day comes this Saturday, March 11. So far, the collateral and event promotions have been met with great approval, with friends from Spokane agencies and AAF members lauding the work. It’s been a great experience working with the AAF on such a cool event, and hopefully, we can take home a few ADDYs in the process.
Stay tuned to find out if we take home any hardware from the event!
