Hasta La Ideas

Our third judging panel for this year’s CR Annual looked at the digital and interactive work that was submitted. Here’s how the panel reached their decisions…

This year’s Annual is out now, published in our special double-size May issue. As previously mentioned in both Patrick and Gavin‘s posts on the graphics and advertising judging, the Annual showcases the best work from the last 12 months, listed according to the month it was launched.

There are no categories in the final Annual, but we split the judging into different sections, to aid the process. Looking at the digital and interactive entries this year were myself, Nat Hunter, design director at RSA, Andy Sandoz, creative partner at Work Club, and Nick Turner, ECD at AKQA. As many of the digital projects comprised expansive websites or long award entry films, the judges were asked to look at each of them in advance, in order to speed things up on the day.

So our initial process was to weed out any projects that received a ‘no’ from all judges, before we went on to discuss all the pieces that split the vote or received a unanimous yes. The criteria for entry was whether the piece was creatively interesting, and whether it showed new developments in digital. Ultimately we were searching for work that we would have been proud to have completed ourselves.

Four best in books were chosen by our panel, and they illustrate the breadth of work entered this year. Two pieces are websites for charities:

DDB Paris’ website for Greenpeace aimed to raise money for the new Rainbow Warrior ship. Instead of just asking donors to dig deep, the website allowed visitors to explore the ship, and then purchase specific items for it. The judging panel all felt that this was a simple but innovative way of encouraging people to donate to a cause, by making it a more personal experience all round.

Similarly, The Slavery Footprint website by US Agency Muh.Tay.Zik/Hof.Fer and Unit9 was awarded best in book for its ability to take a complex issue, that of the exploitation of workers in the supply chain, and make it accessible and relevant to individuals. This was achieved by the elegantly designed site, which encouraged users to enter personal information about their consumption, in order to discover how many slaves ‘work for them’.

AKQA’s StarPlayer app for Heineken, which allows users to predict what will happen live during UEFA Champions League matches, was felt by the judges to be genuinely innovative, and likely to be much repeated by other brands/sporting events. Nick Turner stepped out during our discussion of this project though, of course.

Our final best in book project is far more traditional than the others, but no less impressive. Created by Grey London, the viral film Hands-only CPR for the British Heart Foundation stars Vinnie Jones as a thug-turned-first aider, showing the audience how to easily administer CPR. The film’s combination of wit with easy-to-remember information made it stand out among the viral films we saw.

Many other projects impressed the judges, though these four were the only ones that were universally felt to be deserving of the best in book accolade. Other popular pieces were:

The Sneakerpedia website by SapientNitro London, which encourages trainer fans to upload snaps of their favourite shoes.

The Backseat Driver app by Party Inc, which allows kids to drive along with their parents’ car using in-built GPS. The film above shows the app in action.

Unit9’s Forget Me Not interactive video for Smolik (feat. Emmanuelle Seigner), which allows viewers the choice to watch the regular video or clips from old sci-fi movies.

Poke’s website The Feed for mobile network Orange, which contains a variety of fun social media activity.

Also popular was Studio Output’s series of short films for the Sony PlayStation Video Store, titled Great Films Fill Rooms, which used projection mapping (an overused trend last year) in an exciting and surprising way.

Three projects caused great debate on the day. BLA BLA, Vincent Morisset’s computer artwork; Gulp, a film for Nokia by Wieden + Kennedy London and Aardman; and Dreams of Your Life, an interactive web experience created by Hide&Seek to promote the Film4 feature Dreams of a Life, caused much discussion though in the end, all three went into the book. The disagreement over these projects highlights the vagaries of all awards panels – how work that is compelling to one person can mean little to the next. It’s always surprising what gets thrown up in the discussion, but perhaps it is such variations of opinion that keep award shows interesting.