Awards Season

February has become known as awards season for the entertainment industry; both the Grammy and Academy Awards, which are given for top musical and cinematic performances, are bestowed during that month. The fact that TV networks conduct sweeps – when they present premium programming to, in turn, command premium advertiser rates — during February probably provided the impetus to slot both shows during that month. But, it provides a double dose of fan excitement during an otherwise dreary time of year.

Signage and environmental-graphics providers have a similar double dose of awards programs that present creative, and perhaps inspirational, award winners. In mid-May, the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America (OAAA) presented its 73rd Annual OBIE Awards, and, on June 6, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) unveiled its 29th Annual Global Design Awards, which recognized 35 environmental-graphic-design (EGD) programs.
Among 607 submissions, 37 out-of-home advertising projects received an OBIE Award. The Best of Show winners included Adams Outdoor’s (Roswell, GA) rollout of a billboard campaign for Sonic’s slushie drinks, which features a 3-D straw protruding from the board, and Copacino + Fujikado’s (Seattle) execution for the Seattle Aquarium, which put the cute factor on high with renderings of cuddly sea otters holding hands.

SEGD’s Global Design Awards presented its Best in Show for a simple, yet powerful, environmental-graphic rollout for the 2014 Platform conference in Atlanta, which promotes entrepreneurship for minorities. Pentagram, a NYC-based EGD firm, devised the program, which features various shapes of decorated inflatables, and Kamhi Kolor, a NYC-based, digital-graphics provider, produced the signage and wayfinding.

We’ll feature galleries of select winners in future issues. Kudos to both of these organizations for celebrating the diversity and creative potential of environmental graphics, whether they promote a product, organization or place.