Special NZ scores prestigious Purple Pin plus three Gold Pins at the 2023 Best Design Awards
Special Group has scored a prestigious Purple Pin, plus three Gold Pins and one Silver Pin at the New Zealand Best Design Awards on Friday night. Gladeye also won a Purple Pin, plus one Gold Pin.
Special won a prestigious Purple Pin for being the single best piece of work in the Cinematography and Editing category for Kathmandu’s ‘Summer Never Sleeps’. The campaign, which has gathered international acclaim for the NZ-founded outdoor company, including a converted D&AD Yellow Pencil, also took home Gold for the same category and for the Sound Design and Composition category – making it one of the standout pieces in the showcase of the very best design, architecture, special, digital and product design thinking of the past year.
But the golden run didn’t stop there for Special, taking home a Gold in the Exhibition and Temporary Structures category for its provocative stunt on Bondi beach for World Environment Day for client Better Packaging Company, where they created a 4-metre tall ‘Plastic Pile of Sh!t’ with production partners The Glue Society.
Gladeye was awarded a Purple pin and a Gold pin for Rolling Stone ‘The DJ and the War Crimes’ in the ‘Digital – Large Scale Websites’ category.
Other Gold winners from the industry included DDB Group Aotearoa / RUN, Howatson+Company, Assembly / The Monkeys and For The People.
The design team at DDB Group Aotearoa scored three Gold, two Silver, and two Bronze pins. Together with Tourism New Zealand, DDB Group Aotearoa and RUN took home Gold in the ‘Digital Campaigns’ and ‘Design Communication’ categories for the 100% Pure New Zealand global campaign ‘If You Seek’. DDB Group Aotearoa and FINCH scored Gold for Correct the Internet in the ‘Digital Campaigns’ category, as well as Silver in the ‘Design Communication’ and ‘Public Good’ categories. For Heritage NZ Pouhere Taonga Website, DDB Group Aotearoa and RUN were awarded Bronze in the ‘Large Scale Websites’ category. DDB also took home Bronze for Samsung iTest in the ‘Value of Design’ category.
Australian agency Howatson+Company scored two golds including one for Matilda Bay ‘Rejected Ales’ in ‘Packaging’ and one for Maurice Blackburn ‘Exhibit A-i’ in the ‘Public Good Award’ category.
ASB’s campaign with musician Benee by The Monkeys was also awarded Gold in the Motion Design and Animation category.
Says Tony Bradbourne, co-founder, Special: “The Best Awards showcase such incredible work from such a wide range of disciplines like Architecture, Product Design, Digital, Moving Image, Toitanga. It’s easy to see why it is the biggest awards show of its type in the country, and why it now attracts the best of Australian creativity as well. So against that level of quality it’s amazing for Kathmandu to win the Moving Image category with a Purple pin and two Gold Pins.”
“From the very start Special set out to break down the silos that exist between advertising, design, PR, and digital companies. And just to do amazing work in every category. That’s why we love the Best awards because all of those disciplines get a chance to share the stage. So we are really happy to have such a wide range of our clients work recognised across everything from packaging, cinematography & editing, sound design and composition, right through to a 4 metre tall plastic pile of sh!t on Bondi beach, or ‘Exhibition & Temporary Structures’ to give its official category.”
Dean Pomfrett, head of design at DDB Group Aotearoa says he couldn’t be more proud of the design team: “There was some truly outstanding work from Aotearoa’s design community, and yet our craft – combined with the amazing creative – gave us some great results.
“We turned up and we scored; out of the 12 entries, we converted seven into pins.”
Says Rupert Price, group chief strategy officer at DDB Group Aotearoa: “It’s amazing to be competing and winning with the best design and designers in New Zealand. The excellent work speaks for itself!”