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The First Female Creative Circle President's ‘Angry, Anarchic’ 2017 Annual

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When Vicki Maguire became the first ever female President of advertising awards and education body The Creative Circle last year, her mission was straightforward: to disrupt this ‘pale, male, stale’ industry and to bring in more ‘outsiders’. As the oldest (and one of the most prestigious) advertising and marketing awards bodies in Europe, The Creative Circle is an important and influential platform through which to address some of the industry’s shortcomings. The new anarchic graphic identity that Vicki has overseen reflects the organisation’s desire to disrupt the conservative, po-faced and increasingly corporate persona of the industry’s award programmes. Designed by Matteo Alabiso and George Goldsack from Grey London, the 2017 Creative Circle Annual (of which no two are identical) embodies Maguire’s angst and dissatisfaction with the current state of the industry. It looks angry.

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Many pages in the new annual come pre torn and screwed up. The photograph of The Creative Circle’s new president and other jurors have been defaced with luminous green paint, ink deliberately splashed over the pages and type blocks petulantly positioned on ugly angles. Indeed, it looks like an awards annual that has been kicked around the floor rather than preciously stored inside an agency’s boardroom cabinet. However, a painstaking attention to detail belies its beleaguered appearance. Details including gold, silver and bronze foils printed onto individually bound cloth jackets, hundreds of paper hole punches carefully placed between pages and the spine traditionally stitched with hand dyed thread are telltale signs that each one of the limited 300 editions has been handcrafted by Grey’s meticulous design practitioners. No two are alike, each torn, crumpled and customised in a unique way.

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Vicki Maguire

Vicki Maguire said: “In UK advertising, women make up just 30% of leadership positions and less than 11% of ECD roles. That’s embarrassing. How can agencies say, hand on heart, they are in touch with the consumer if they keep rolling out the same old boys? It’s absolute bollocks.” Annual designer, George Goldsak, added: “The Creative Circle has always had its own distinctive visual language, often satirical and irreverent. It has long had an instinctive ability to read the mood of the creative community and fuel the conversations that are taking place. That community is becoming frustrated, and we wanted to reflect that in the design. This is a more aggressive approach, because it’s an issue The Creative Circle is passionate about.”

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An additional series of numbered posters were individually silk screened at East London’s Print Club and feature the original handwritten prose from Vicki Maguire’s notepad (as replicated below):-

The Creative Circle is a literal circle.

A cycle, encompassing all the creative talent in the UK’s communications industries.

It rewards the people at the top and encourages them to help the people at the bottom.

It does this in two ways:

Firstly, as an awards body, run and judged by creatives — recognising and showcasing great ideas, fresh thinking and craft.

Secondly, as an education body, run and developed by creatives — with inspiring workshops, enlightening talks, and initiatives for those starting out.

Eventually, the people at the bottom become the people at the top.

Regardless of their background.

With the circle complete, the cycle continues.

Out with the old. In with the new.

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