Hasta La Ideas

Our sister/brother blog AgencySpy has reported on an interesting joining of forces between two of the ad world’s largest annual awards organizations. The UK-based D&AD has announced that it will be working in joint partnership with the NY-based The One Club in forming Pencil Rankings, a system that will tabulate the wins from both awards shows and factor them all together. While some readers commenting on AgencySpy’s post about the collaboration have called it simply a money making scheme or similar to a stripped down version of The Gunn Report, which collects and tallies award winners for an annual book that sells for roughly $200, the Pencil Rankings site is brand new and difficult to judge until it starts operating next year. The big take-away here, to us, is the collaboration between these two big shows. Will be interesting to see how it all comes together. Here’s a bit from the new site about how the two see the new system working:

Launching in 2011, the newly-created ‘Pencil Rankings’ will measure performance in these two shows alone. Awards achieved in each environment will accrue a defined number of points, which are then totaled to provide an index of performance across both shows. The Pencil Rankings will be searchable, so agencies and clients can see overall performance, or performance within a defined subset, such as region, medium or agency type.

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Back around this time in 2007 was the last time we reported on who had won the Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture (when it was taken home by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk). Since then, of course, there have been annual winners, but unfortunately the prize, as the Chicago Tribune‘s Blair Kamin puts it, “has garnered relatively little media attention since it was established in 2003.” Perhaps it’s because fewer people find classical architecture as exciting and sometimes disarming as the modern variety is. Whatever the case, there’s a chance all that might change, now that the award has gone to a famous name. Robert A.M. Stern, dean of Yale’s School of Architecture and one of the biggest names in the business who regularly works on some of the highest of the high-profile projects, has been awarded the 2011 prize, which he will receive, along with $200,000 in prize money, in an event held here in Chicago this March. What will this mean for the Driehaus Prize is anyone’s guess, but given the attention thus far, having Stern’s name attached, certainly must feel like a positive development for its founders. That said, how this reflects upon the nature of prize-giving, too, is anyone’s guess.

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Not solely because we know how to read a calendar, we knew were well-into December because the annual flood of this-was-the-year-that-was lists are starting to appear nearly everywhere and about nearly everything. However, because apparently our knowledge of calendars ends at being able to tell what month it is, we’d almost forgotten that it’s also the end of the decade, so that means double the “best and/or worst of…” lists, et al. One of the higher-profile of these sorts was just released by the Industrial Designers Society of America, who announced their winners for Design of the Decade. There aren’t many surprises therein, as you’ll know to expect and then immediately find things like Target‘s redesigned prescription bottles, Apple winning for “Biggest Contribution to Brand Growth,” and the XO Laptop (another big win for Yves Behar in a year full of them). Though, reluctant as we are to enjoy any sort of time-based recap of any kind, thanks to years of overexposure on an annual basis, it’s interesting to go back and see what the big moves in design have been over the past 10 years (at least according to the IDSA’s curated list). Winners of the Design of the Decade award receive the ability to brag about their win on their packaging and in advertising, trophies are handed out for those who win the gold, and all of the finalists’ products are entered into the permanent collection at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

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Fresh off last month’s controversial altercation between the Tate Britain and press photographers, it’s been announced that the regularly-maligned Turner Prize has plans to once again hightail it out of London. For the third time in its nearly-three decades, the shortlisted pieces and the one eventual prize winner will be held elsewhere come 2013, when it will all be hosted in the city of Derry, in Northern Ireland. The plan for the move is largely similar when it moved just three years ago and was held in Liverpool: to show more work outside of the UK’s artistic center and to celebrate the country’s newly-annual designation of a “City of Culture” (the thinking probably also factors in that it won’t hurt to throw a bone to the people outside of London after all that attention they’re going to get for the 2012 Olympics). While they still have a little while to decide what will be involved in hosting perhaps the country’s most famous art prize, here’s a bit from the Guardian‘s report on where in Derry it might wind up:

The venue for the 2013 Turner prize exhibition has not yet been decided. However, it is likely to be staged in a new or converted space. Possible sites include the former Ebrington army barracks, which were closed in 2003.

Designated for redevelopment under the auspices of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the barracks, on the banks of the Foyle, are largely 19th-century buildings covering 26 acres.

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At a gala held last night at New York’s Skylight Studios, Karl Lagerfeld and actress Carey Mulligan (in Chanel haute couture) announced that designer Billy Reid is the winner of the seventh annual Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)/Vogue Fashion Fund Prize. Reid, who in February was named GQ‘s Best Menswear Designer in America, bested nine other finalists to take home a bigger-than-ever Fashion Fund prize of $300,000 and a steady stream of business mentoring from industry veterans. Runner-up honors (and $100,000 each, double the sum awarded last year) went to jewelry designer Eddie Borgo and breakout ready-to-wear star Prabal Gurung. The other finalists were Joseph Altuzarra, Christian Cota, Gregory Parkinson, Oliver Helden and Paul Marlow of Loden Dager, Moss Lipow, Pamela Love, and Robert Geller.

In addition to a lot more cash than in years past, the winner and runners-up were recognized with trophies for the first time. Sculptor Rachel Feinstein was tapped to create the bronze keepsakes. “After many years of this award ceremony, we finally realized that it would be great for the winners and runners-up to actually have an award to take home at the end of the evening,” said Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. “Rachel is not only a wonderful artist and sculptor but is also a true fashion original, and a muse and inspiration to so many designers.” Reid received a swan with its neck tucked under its wing, a design inspired by a Cesar de Santo reproduction of the lost Leonardo Da Vinci painting “Leda and the Swan,” while Borgo and Gurung each took home a bronze egg that makes us think of Veruca Salt (wasn’t her dress so Marc Jacobs?). All ten 2010 Fashion Fund finalists will receive a reproduction of Feinstein’s original sketches to commemorate the event. Meanwhile, past Fashion Fund winners and runners-up such as Sophie Theallet, Alexander Wang, and Doo-Ri Chung should watch the mailbox: their swans and eggs are on the way.

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