The folks at Rowdy Studio are certainly not new to being featured in the Annual awards. After having been shortlisted a few times, however, 2020 was the year in which the team managed to grab a Bronze prize, with a colourful and incredibly stylish brand project to revolutionise the rental market in Dublin.
And by simply taking a quick look at the beautiful illustrations and branding work below, we can see why our 2020 judges were impressed. The new brand for Occu is colourful and fun, standing out quite tall above the rest of the competition.
For this Annual Spotlight, we are learning more about the amazing team at Rowdy Studio and how they managed to adapt to the Covid-19 challenge.
Annual 2021 is accepting standard submissions until 27th May. Enter now to grab your slice of creative immortality!
What feels unique about The Annual?
The great thing about the Annual is how it both feels like it belongs to the creative community, but at the same time is very outward facing and accessible. The People’s Choice element in particular is such a great opportunity to engage a wider audience in the craft behind what we do in this industry. The ceremonies always have that relaxed community feel, and you can see how the audience enjoys engaging in the work being celebrated.
How does it feel to have won the Creativepool Annual Awards?
We’re delighted of course. It’s been a very strange and difficult 12 months, and professionally as well as personally it’s important to try and celebrate the wins, big and small, and when I look back at this time it makes me proud that we were able to keep producing quality work as a team.
Will you be entering again this year? If so, what are your hopes?
That’s the plan! We’ve one in already and a few we’d like to enter but trying to sort photography shoots and finalise projects during lockdowns has been tougher on some clients than others, so launch dates have moved around a bit. We’re feeling positive and it would be great to be recognised again, so fingers crossed!
Can you tell us more about your winning submissions and what you think impressed the judges?
We picked up a bronze for Occu, a brand new Built-to-Rent platform in Dublin, at last year’s awards. It’s a project the whole team enjoyed getting involved in and one that is growing bigger each year as they expand. We worked with Andrew Rae to produce some really engaging mini scenes and illustrations to support the brand story of ‘Living with Occu is easy—all you have to do is move it’. It has a lightness and humour to it which stands out against other competitors, particularly in the Irish residential market.
What advice would you share with other agencies and individuals looking to grab a prize?
Get an entry in! As creatives, it’s important to be proud in our work and confident that it will stand up to external scrutiny. Not every project is award worthy but be bold if you have work that you think deserves an audience within the creative community.
In terms of the entry itself, get the narrative of your rationale really clear and concise alongside some great visuals. There are a lot of entries, so make it easy for the judges to quickly grasp the project.
How do you feel Covid has impacted the creative landscape in 2020?
It’s really pushed teams to work to find ways of working collaboratively when you’re stuck apart. Brainstorming together on paper and popping over to someone to have a nosey at their screen and a chinwag play a huge role in how well we work together as a team, so we’ve had to find ways to ensure we maintain that as best we can until we’re back in a space together. It’s been difficult at times to draw on inspiration and connect with new ideas whilst staring at the same four walls or walking the same nearby routes.
On the other hand, we’ve seen so many examples in our own team and others of resourcefulness and creativity that managed do just that, and I think this year’s annual in particular can serve as a testament to those success stories.
What are your hopes for 2021 and beyond?
I think we all hope it will be better than 2020 as a starting point. But on a more serious note, I hope we’re able to take anything we learnt from last year and carry it forward through this year and beyond. We’re still as keen as ever to develop our practice and do more work we’re proud of, so I hope whatever we can bring with us from the last 12 months will help on that journey.
What is your most exciting project in the next year? How will your victory in the Annual give it a boost?
We’ve a few that we’re really hoping to get entered if we can, but one we’ve already entered is Cathedral Square. Launched not long after lockdown, it’s still performed strongly for the client despite being an office space offer which has been great to see. The positioning ‘Time Well Spent’ is really focused on enjoyment of the space you’re in, something that’s certainly very topical for everyone recently. Getting a nod for it would be a great boost for the team and client. It’s been a really enjoyable process throughout the project with every team member having a hand in bringing to life so a getting a victory would be a really nice pat on the back for everyone.
