The Award Awards

AIGA 1962
Terry Lee Stone and I were talking about the good old days of competitions. We both agreed that we loved all of the printed ephemera that was produced each year for either AIGA 365, or the New York Art Director’s Club Show, or Western Art Director’s Club. I know this is really, really bad. It’s not a sustainable practice, and the world is a more caring place now that we do these communications digitally. But, to be asked to design everything from the poster to the award certificate for one of these competitions was a choice project. When Lou Danziger was moving out of his studio, one of Frank Gehry’s first buildings, he called Noreen and me and asked if we wanted anything. We managed to walk away with a George Nelson H leg table, Lou’s custom wood flat files, a copy stand, and Lou’s box of awards. For 15 years, the awards been carefully archived away.
Now, they have been released and some are displayed here. I especially love the 1962 AIGA award, presumably designed by George Tscherny. The “XIX” award can be seen on the walls of Sterling Cooper on Mad Men. The green and pink NYADC club award from 1963 has the most incredible swirls. And, finally, the AIGA mailing label on the tube, I know Paul Rand designed the AIGA logo, and the multi-talented Bart Crosby refined it, but this is tempting.

ADLA as seen on Mad Men

NYADC 1963

AIGA mailing label

ADLA

AIGA 1963

AIGA 1956

AIGA 1964

CA 1963

ADLA
Tags: AIGA, AIGA 365, Bart Crosby, Frank Gehry, George Nelson, George Tscherny, Lou Danziger, Mad Men, New York Art Director’s Club, Paul Rand, Terry Lee Stone, Western Art Director’s Club

October 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by design:related, Sean Adams. Sean Adams said: Now unveiled, the awards that have been protected and hidden for 15 years http://bit.ly/NRhZn [...]
October 24th, 2009 at 10:29 am
wow… these are totally cool. thx for posting. -sock
October 24th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Felix, my pleasure. I’ve been tempted to frame them all and hang them in the conference room. There are many, many more. But then people would think I’d been in business since the early 50s.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by SeanAAdams: Now unveiled, the awards that have been protected and hidden for 15 years
http://bit.ly/NRhZn…
December 7th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Cheers for the informative post – I loved reading it! I always enjoy your blog.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:02 am
Hey very nice blog!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…
June 16th, 2012 at 9:27 am
Sure would love to see more of them. These are so beautiful. Nice that you have them and will take care of them.