(Adfo Cannes) 5 vragen aan… Claire Parker

Which work was mind blowing? (absolutely fantastic, brilliant in your eyes)?

Turning Packaging into Education – Colgate/Palmolive. Red Fuse Communication

Gold winner in Packaging and Promotional, Silver in Posters and Promotional Item categories at Cannes Lions.

Brushing our teeth is basic hygiene for those fortunate enough to have access to dental care. However in Myanmar (Burma), people are less fortunate and unaware of the importance of oral care. Colgate recognised this, every week, they deliver thousands of cardboard boxes to rural areas in Myanmar. Now these boxes get a second life as educational tools for local schools. Posters are printed on the insides of the boxes, and include a toll-free number that allows teachers to access fun and engaging audio lessons. Illustrated in traditional Burmese styles, vibrant colours and characters combine to present bright and inspirational stories, ideal for its young audience. What great design should be - insightful, engaging, smart and meaningful.

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Mother Book for Kishokai Medical Corporation by Dentsu Nagoya.

The Mother book is a beautiful and educational papercraft tribute to motherhood and life, Less a book than a paper sculpture, it mirrors the 40 weeks of a typical pregnancy. Each page represents a single week of the pregnancy, and as the baby grows, so does an embossed representation of a pregnant mother's torso in the middle of each page. Simple engaging idea, executed brilliantly.Craft and story telling at its best.

Gold winner in both the Books and Promotional Item categories at Cannes Lions

 

Which speaker was mind blowing and why? (absolutely fantastic, brilliant in your eyes)?

I wish I knew! The duties as a juror meant that for a week we were contained within a room from dawn until dusk and therefore never saw one speaker. I did however have the opportunity to meet some incredible individuals from the design industry who both inspired me through the debate over work and informed and shaped my own thinking during the course of the week. Being a jury member isn’t a small undertaking, you feel a huge level of responsibility towards the entrants, and the shear volume of entries to take in is physically and mentally overwhelming. All of that said the benefits of spending a concentrated period of time discussing and debating design, with creative minds at the top of their game was worth every minute.

Which acquaintance/getting to know someone new/meeting someone new made the biggest impression?

I have to say fellow jury members, Arch MacDonnell, Creative Director, Inhouse, New Zealand,  Catrin Vagnemark, Creative Director, BVD, Sweden and Mat Heinl, Chief Executive Officer, Moving Brands, UK. Apart from being generous and warm individuals who were a pleasure to spend time with, I highly admire their work as well as their balanced and informed approach to judging.

What did Cannes bring you business wise? 

I never agreed to be a jury member in the hope of drumming up business – or am I just naïve? I went with all the enthusiasm of a child let into they shop before anyone else, to revel in great work, to not just see it on screen but touch it, experience it first hand. And much like a child, in a toy shop it is quite overwhelming at first; you don’t know where to look, it takes time to get your bearings, to see past the obvious and find the hidden treasures.

What is Cannes (not) about?

Unfortunately it is not a showcase of the best design work of the year. A bold statement I know but looking back at the year I judged beyond the Grand Prix to the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards, where were the design consultancies? Awards should reflect the industry they represent and I didn’t see my industry reflected. The winning entrants were almost exclusively ad agencies: Dentsu, TBWA, O&M, M&C Saatchi, Lowe, Y&R and Adam&EveDDB all won in the Design category. Perhaps this is a function of Cannes’ history of having much longer relationship with ad agencies, who are highly motivated to win awards in whatever category is open to them and have the budgets to enter. When the Design category was introduced in 2008, Creative Review warned, “Cannes is likely to prove a pull more for the large branding firms than the kind of smaller, independent operations from which much of the genuinely innovative work emanates.” Cannes is not cheap – €500 per entry in Design, that’s a big ask for many smaller design studios. A final thought would be the jury themselves, a truer reflection of the global design industry and the diversity within it. Perhaps the selection committee should cast their nets a little wider in future when looking for design jury members, searching outside of the networks for the smaller fish in bigger ponds.