Raymond Otene McKay’s Cannes Diary #1

Raymond Otene McKay, chief creative officer at RUN is representing Aotearoa on the Cannes Design Lions jury. McKay, along with most of the other NZ and Australian jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

Wow! What a day, I met my Design Lions jury members in reception and we all eagerly made our way over to Palais Des Festival De Cannes. Nervous and proud were the emotions I was feeling as I stepped into this historical building, something I was introduced to as a place to aspire to as a junior creative, nearly 20 years ago.

We made our way to the room with some of the world’s best work on display. As we walked the halls, we were told that we had the biggest jury room out of the juries filled with some pretty incredible work! We all turn to each other and smiled, feeling pretty happy with where we are all going – to debate, discuss and potentially award these pieces of work.

Our first day was hard, fun, tiring, but we got there in the end and our agenda for day 1 was complete. We all left for dinner after being there for 12 hours. We were all exhausted but left feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Mauri mahi! Mauri ora!