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Posted: November 24th, 2009 | Author: admin | Services: Uncategorized | | 2 Comments »
Identity: Best of the Best 2007
Identity: Best of the Best 2006
The Article about Identity: Best of the Best 2006 in Identity magazine
What is Identity: Best of the Best 2006? It is 970 design projects of logos, trade marks and corporate identities from 153 participants of 24 countries in the 5 continents. It is the immaculate work of the international jury, comprising experts of the highest level: David Hillman (Pentagram, UK), Michael Gais (QWER, Germany), Gary Horton (Attik, UK), Jason Smith (Fontsmith, UK), Margo Chase (Chase Design Group, USA), Toshihiro Onimaru (Graphics & Designing Inc., Japan), Bill Gardner (Gardner Design and Logolounge, USA), Steven Addis (Addis, USA), Sergey Serov (Golden Bee, Russia). How did the contest occur, which rules has it been held to, and what are its results and the plans of the organizers for the future? Well, you have the unique chance of not only seeing the best works in the ten competitive nominations, but also of learning about the ‘machinery’ of the competition, about the things usually left unspoken of.
In Search of Perfection
As one of the agents in the Russian design market, ArtGraphics.ru studio, being the founder and the publisher of the Identity magazine, has many times taken part in various design contests. Our specialization lying in the field of corporate identity, we mainly took part in the nominations dealing with logos and corporate style, or otherwise in specific competitions within this field. Every time amazed by the selfless work of the people, who organize these events – so much needed by the entire advertising and design industry, yet we were not fully satisfied with the format and the results of these contests. Indeed, there cannot be such competitions, the results of which would not rouse disputes and censure, just as there cannot be the ultimate truth in a jury’s decision. However, despite some of our own contest achievements, the format of the events did not seem to us the only possible. We saw the main problems connected to the sometimes somewhat subjective decisions of the jury. In some contests the competence of some members of the jury could be doubted, in some other it would actually happen that members of the jury would award themselves, or would take turns to award each other. The absence of the real competition could be felt, which was brought about by the fact that the major most powerful designers and design agencies would usually refuse to take part in such contests. It resulted in the low prestige of the festivals, specialized contests and their awards – both in the design community and among the customers. Initially, we had an urge to improve the existent contests. In particular, issue No. 2 of the Identity magazine we published the article ‘Show or Business?’ and identified some of the problems of the existent contests and proposed ways to solve them. First we just talked to the organizers of almost every contest and recommended them some format change, but after a while we started believing in the possibility of offering something principally new to the market ourselves.
The New Format
The jury at Identity: Best of the Best was decided to consist only of the highest competent experts, whose extreme competence and the immaculate reputation would allow to ensure the objective decision-taking and to get the so much necessary credit of trust to the new-coming contest. We knew only one such expert in Russia – Sergey Ivanovich Serov, whose role in developing the designer’s profession cannot be overrated. There, naturally, are other qualified and extremely decent Russian specialists, yet the contest was initially planned as factually international, therefore it would be illogical to introduce a significant number of representatives of, unfortunately, not yet the most ‘designer’ country of the world into the jury.
As a result the international jury of Identity: Best of the Best 2006 comprised such global design experts as: David Hillman, partner to Pentagram (UK); Michael Gais, founder and Creative Director of QWER (Germany); Gary Horton, Chief Designer of Attik (UK); Jason Smith, founder of Fontsmith (UK); Margo Chase, founder and Creative Director of Chase Design Group (USA); Toshihiro Onimaru, Art-Director and Vice-President of Graphics & Designing Inc. (Japan); Bill Gardner, President of Gardner Design (USA); Steven Addis, Addis CEO (USA); Sergey Serov, Russian representative in ICOGRADA, President of the Golden Bee Moscow International Biennale of Graphic Design (Russia).
The contest was oriented towards both the designers and the customers, and had several objectives: to discover young talents and show them to the world, to form a positive opinion of Russia abroad, to inform market agents of the global trends in design, to acquaint business with designers from around the world, and to increase the general level of the visual culture. Besides, Identity: Best of the Best 2006 enabled us to implement the real experience exchange between Russian and foreign experts.
The contestants’ works were received in digital form, which equalized the chances of the capital city residents and a talent from a provincial town, since the latter did not have to pay for the mailing of the case with his work and worry whether the jury would see it in completely foul shape due to the specifics of the domestic mailing system.
In each nomination the works underwent thorough preliminary preparation for voting. All works were saved in one and the same format, and each was identified with the anonymous digital code, like L2-125-03, which ensured the equitable and unbiased decision-making. The jury members were safeguarded against the impacts of the well and less well-known designers’ names, and the more or less ‘designer’ countries they represented. 300 best works were offered for the jury’s consideration. Why 300? The thing is that we didn’t even imagine that the first ever Identity: Best of the Best contest would attract 970 works of 153 participants from twenty four countries in the five continents. Initially, we had an agreement with every member of the jury that they would need to allocate about one working day for the evaluation procedure. We thought that this would be enough to evaluate all works. At any rate, it was impossible to allocate more time of such experts for this kind of task. Naturally, to evaluate about a thousand works in a day was impossible too. It was obvious that the level of some works was much higher than the level of others. Thus, according to the total number of the works received and their distribution within the nominations, ‘300′ was chosen to be the number of works for voting. Alongside, in each sub-nomination of logos forty works were selected, and twenty works in each sub-nomination of corporate identity. But even this proposal to evaluate 300 works was taken by some members of the jury as ‘inhumane’ and they complained of the enormous loading. And yet the contest did take place and each of the nine jurors conscientiously assessed 300 works by the scale of 10, commenting upon, in their opinion, the strongest works in all the ten nominations.
I don’t know what the jurors felt at the point of turning their verdicts in, but I can honestly say for myself: when I and Olga Purtova, Art-Director of ArtGraphics.ru and Identity magazine, selected works for voting, my heart was breaking. Our hearts ached for every work times greater than they would for our own (be it on the list; we, naturally, decided not to discredit the contest by nominating works of the organizers). In fact, we did not choose the strong ones; we sifted out the plainly weak ones. We did not know whose works we were selecting, but some of them indeed were clearly recognizable. Despite the temptation of ‘keeping it even for everyone’, we decided not to make the ‘politically correct decision’ to let at least one work from each participant go through – it would contradict the competitive principles recommended by ICOGRADA (the most prestigious international organization, joining all national associations of graphic design), which we did our best sticking to.
Spoil and Spin
Sergey Serov was so much captivated in the process of being a juror that he worked half the night through, and then commented what he had seen: ‘The level of works nominated to Identity: Best of the Best 2006, which was held for the first time, was pleasantly surprising. It was higher than in some longstanding contests’. Steven Addis took up assessment even being on the well-deserved vacation in South Africa. Margo Chase felt slightly sick on the day of the vote, yet she did not let the organizers down and still did the evaluation – she was simply granted an additional day for voting. Toshihiro Onimaru – the Japanese juror – took it longest to evaluate, yet when his results arrived, the victors in many nominations were practically unattainable, and therefore the positions did not change considerably. This is to say that ‘9′ is the optimal number of jurors and it fully excludes the element of eventuality from voting.
Of course, all experts have their partialities and approaches to assessment. For instance, David Hillman confided: ‘I can name the reasons I was guided by in my choice. It’s irrelevant what visual language was used in development of this or that project. The main idea is what’s important. In other words, I did not pay attention to the style or manner of the work – I looked at the idea’. However, the really strong works were noted and likewise evaluated by practically every juror. This is why the results of the work did not rouse disputes or censure – the fairness of the choice of the victors was obvious.
Bill Gardner, the President of the international jury, who took part in the awarding ceremony in Moscow, shared his impressions: ‘For me, it was unexpected that so many Russian designers took the prizes. Their works are very qualitative and at the global scale’. The American maitre was especially amazed by Valery Fironov’s work Digital Angel, which took the first prize in the L3 nomination, which was the one with the toughest competition too – over 350 works received. Bill just could not believe that the author of the logo is a Russian designer.
The Art-Moscow Foundation made the long-list works possible to be seen at the brand exposition of the Design and Advertising Exhibition, where the Identity magazine held ‘The Day of Graphic Design’ on March, 23. In presence of 300 visitors the names of the winners were announced and the awarding took place. In May 2006, upon the graceful offer of the administration of LenExpo exhibition hall, the best works of the contest were exposed to the broad audience in St. Petersburg, at the exhibition ‘Advertising and Information’. Viktor Golubinov, member of the Russian Designers’ Union and Art-Director of ICOM studio, said the following regarding the contest: ‘I am extremely pleased by the appearance of the new, and yet quite prestigious from the very first steps, contest in logos, trade marks and corporate identities Identity: Best of the Best 2006. I was amazed not only by the international jury, but by the level and the span of the participatory group. To win a contest with this kind of jury and this kind of opponents from most various countries is three times as pleasing. We have a newcomer in the list of international logo competitions, and this newcomer is risking becoming the most interesting, since from the very beginning they have chosen the honest rating for evaluation, regardless of the persona and the situation’.
Having learned about the results of the contest, Federico Garcia of Federicografia noted: ‘It’s pleasing to read such inspiring news. I’m very glad that my work for ELA was noted among the others. Looking at the winning works, I see why I am not among the three best ones. Those are marvelous designers! I am happy I got short-listed in nomination C5! My congratulations go to the organizers of the contest and the designers appraised by the international jury’.
Alexander Faldin, Art-Director of the fallindesign studio, shares his personal sensations: ‘Contests differ: participating in some of them you end up with nothing but pique and regrets of the time lost. And visa versa: the organization and the jurors of other events of this field become a holiday, a story. Thanks!’
The discovery of the contest became the branding agency Brandient from Romania (in March 2006 it became part of Enterprise IG – one of the international brand-consulting agencies of the Big Five) and Studio Cuculic from Croatia, as well as the extraordinary Sakkal Design studio from the USA, specializing in Arabic calligraphy. Situations within the nominations developed differently: in some cases the difference comprised but a few points, whereas in others works won by a huge breakaway. For example Yelena Tsvetkova Fashion House (fallindesign, Russia) and Maraschino (Studio Cuculic, Croatia) became the obvious leaders in their nominations, as well as in the entire contest.
The Future of the Contest
Sergey Serov, commenting on the level and results of the contest, said: ‘Identity: Best of the Best 2006 astonished me with the powerful start. The organizers managed to create the Utopia: with only the expenditures on the wire – and you have the Capitol moving to Identity. They found a successful formula to an event, which enabled them to substantively lift the level of the field’s professional tournaments, attracting international experts and immensely broadening the geographical borders of the contest. Resulting from this, the contest captured many a fresh and interesting work, it outlined a new standpoint for signs and logos. Previously, such contests in this field mainly focused on the professional force of design, on the graphic construction of the logo easily speaking through black and white. Identity: Best of the Best 2006 looked at signage and logos from the point of view of a served course, dressed and seasoned to encourage appetite, and the cast of color and texture turned the final product into a festive show. In fact, the contest demonstrated the main tendency of the contemporary logo-forming’.
For some participants the contest served real impetus to their business. In particular, Studio Cuculic from Zagreb (Croatia), resulting from the contest, received publications in the business press and earned a new orders. Besides, the studio was entrusted the development of the visual identity for the Croatian design exhibition and the First Designer Convention organized by the Croatian Designers Society.
In one of the discussions of design contests on the internet we spotted a comment by Mr. Mescherkin, Art-Director of the Russian studio Ima-Design: ‘If we should speak of domestic contests – I was pleased by the one ran by the Identity magazine. You could debate, as to who deserved the first or the second position more, but on the whole it all was fair. Indeed, the jury comprised foreign professionals. And, indeed, the domestic design old-timers didn’t take the first positions, and then again if they did, they deserved it. As to the level of the works – that’s pretty solid. I hope next year Identity: Best of the Best becomes even better’.
We do believe it will become better, and we’ll do our best to it. Judging by the reaction of the world design community, it becomes clear that Identity: Best of the Best 2007 will attract even more participants and, hopefully, even more truly strong, extraordinary and outstanding works.
Even after the results have been announced and winners awarded, there still were some designer ‘left behind’, who – whatever the deadlines – continued to send their applications and designs to our e-mail. Even today we continue to receive messages from designers from various parts of the world requesting us to tell in detail about the contest and the conditions for partaking. Through this communication, potential participants of Identity: Best of the Best 2007 offer us informational support and promotion of the event on the web-sites and blogs of design communities all around the world. The contest of 2006 has already been reviewed on the large design portals of Germany, the Netherlands, the USA and other countries, and Identity: Best of the Best 2007 due to the global international support is likely to become even more powerful and representative.
The 2007 jury composition will change, yet the star status will remain – perhaps, it’s enough to say that the world leader of brand consulting and commercial design – Landor Associates – offered to delegate a juror on their part to Identity: Best of the Best 2007, as well as many other worldwide known design studios and branding agencies. That means that all the participants of the coming contest will get an invaluable opportunity to understand their actual strength and to express themselves to potential customers and the global design community.
In the days when this article was being written, we received an invitation from ICOGRADA to join the ICOGRADA Media Network – the international association of design-oriented mass media. Today, the Identity magazine is a member of the ICOGRADA Media Network, and the contest Identity: Best of the Best 2007 will be conducted under the auspices of ICOGRADA and in full compliance to the recommendations of this organization. This gives room to hope that Identity: Best of the Best 2007 will be even more honest, powerful and prestigious, and will let a cast of bright works and new names be seen and heard – the names standing for ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’ of commercial design.
Andrew Pourtov, Editor-in-Chief of Identity magazine (andrew@identity.su)