We love good design. And AIGA MN, one of the largest chapters of the prestigious group, presents awards each year to some of the best. This year, four of our entries received recognition: our website (yep, the one you’re on now), monotunes (our New Year’s greeting card), a brand book for Tillamook, and the Blu Dot Swap Meet. Congrats to all of the winners.
Jon Stewart. CNN. Fox News. Saturday Night Live. And now, the President of the United States. When we developed the “Lean Forward” campaign for msnbc, we believed it could be powerful, but couldn’t have anticipated the ripple effect it would have on American politics and pop culture. President Obama just announced his new campaign slogan, “Forward,” and it didn’t take long for people to take notice of the uncanny similarity. Creating a brand idea that the President himself believes will rally a country? We’d like to think that’s progress.
The Human Doing campaign for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of MN has won its second Best of Show award, this time at the District 8 ADDY Awards. We put a man in a glass apartment at Mall of America to show people what community support could do to improve health, and it worked. The Human Doing also won Best of Show at this year’s The Show, and contributed to our recent Agency of the Year award from the 4A’s. Cheers to good health and simple ideas that reinvent the status quo.
There are many parts of the culture here that make mono, well, mono. The walls at the center of the agency that hold the ideas we work around. The lack of departments. The bike-powered smoothie maker that occasionally shows up in the kitchen. Chris, Michael, and Jim’s decision that the week of 4th of July should be for family. (Among many others.) So we’re proud to be one of Minnesota Business Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. It’s a nice honor for a really nice place where we get to do what we do best. See the whole list here. And congrats to all.
Webby fever has swept the online nation. “The leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet” is in its 16th year, and has become a competitive arena for websites, interactive advertising, film and video, mobile, and apps. Three of our entries were selected as official honorees: The Human Doing for both the “Integrated Campaign” and “Mobile and Experience” categories, and the Blu Dot Swap Meet for “Online Guerrilla and Innovation.” Kudos to our teams, and we look forward to seeing the Webby winners revealed in May.
