The Art Directors Club announced the winners of the ADC 88th Annual Awards program tonight at its Awards Gala, held at the ADC Gallery in New York.
Pentagram Design took top honors as ADC Design Firm of the Year for most cumulative ADC Cubes in the category. Pentagram nabbed six awards, including an ADC Design Sphere award for sustained work for The Public Theater, a Gold Cube for their identity program for the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), two Bronze Cubes ("A.magazine" for AkzoNobel and "365: AIGA Year in Design 29" for AIGA) and two Merit (for "2wice: False Start" for 2wice Arts Foundation and "Brno Echo: Ornament and Crime from Adolph Loos to Now" for The Moravian Gallery).
Ogilvy & Mather, Frankfurt had an impressive showing in the Design category, landing two ADC Gold Cubes - one for the "Bigger Store Ideas" series for IKEA Germany (also a Gold winner in the Advertising category), and one for the "Begging Sculptures" series for German Foundation of Monument Protection (a Silver winner in Advertising). The agency also landed a Silver Cube in both Design and Advertising categories for "Women's Rights Campaign" on behalf of Action Group for World Solidarity.
The New York Times received seven Cubes and one Merit award in Design, including a Gold, two Silvers and a Bronze for The New York Times Magazine, a Gold and two Bronze for T - The New York Times Style Magazine, and a Merit for Key - The New York Times Real Estate Magazine.
There were no winners of the newly created ADC Black Cube for best-in-show in a category.
"A surprising development of the ADC Black Cube's inaugural year is that none were awarded by the advertising, design or interactive juries, which reflects a rigorous judging process that does not separate the idea from execution or innovation or art direction," said Ami Brophy, CEO, ADC. "Our newly minted ADC Black Cube was introduced to elevate the best-in-show by channel - the 'goldest' or 'uber gold'. Now, we'll have to wait till the ADC 89th Annual Awards to see what work captures ADC Black."
All Gold, Silver and Bronze medalists and Merit winners will be included in the Art Directors Annual 88, a hardcover book to be published by RotoVision SA in November 2009.