The Best Awards are the defining event of the NZ design calendar: an occasion for designers to be recognised by their peers and an excuse to come together and party. The Best’s provide acknowledgement of achievements and hard work, appeal to clients hungry to work with visionary thinkers and provide a sense of validation for emerging designers.

When Marx was asked to create a campaign for the 2020 awards we analysed what had come before and thought about what fresh energy we could bring. The campaign needed to stimulate interest in the awards and drive entries across all Best design categories. We also felt a strong sense of wanting to give back to the design community which had been so supportive of us over the years.

Working with Never Sit Still, we created a two minute animation as a centrepiece to open the awards night. We set out to create something which held intrigue and was hard to define, work that evoked emotion yet was ambiguous and open to interpretation. As somebody wise once said; “What you see in the abstract says more about you than the work”. The organic shapes from the animation also worked their way into other award night assets like goodies bags and a plant-based water bottle in collaboration with Futurity manufacturing.

Another key factor was that 2020 would be the first fully bilingual Best awards, in partnership with Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, so incorporating Te Reo Maori into the work was hugely important. All text was presented in both Te Reo Maori and English to connect design with the unique identity of Aotearoa. We also saw the awards as an opportunity to put aside the turbulence of 2020 and live in the moment, summed up by the line “Me whakanui kotahi tatou” (tonight we celebrate). Did we celebrate? Oh āe we did...