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JURY FOCUS AWARDS After the 2007 Spark Award jury process, the judges came together to discuss the overall work, identify trends and reflect on Spark's mission. From this delightful exercise we agreed upon a number of initiatives that will be reflected in the next competition cycle. However, one decision was acted upon immediately. The judges felt that there should be an award that weighs the overall consistency of the design effort of an individual or company--nimbleness across categories, disciplines and product conception--doing a good job using design and making design an integrated part of what they do. The jury also wanted to recognize those rare things that delight, inspire and aspire. These are the Spark Jury Focus Awards: Sean Adams, Partner, Adams Morioka  I would submit the Masterfile campaign by Concrete Canada. As a program designed for a stock photo company, it takes amazing risks and sets the company apart from its competitors. Stock photography, like salt, is almost a commodity. Making such a clear and aggressive message is hard to make and hard to sell, but very successful. The visuals are fresh and have humor, and never fall into the "desperately" groovy category. It's easy to screw up a job with six million images. Adding content, narrative, and a distinct point of view is what sets this apart from the standard beauty show stock photo book. Thanks-- Sean Thanks again Peter, for inviting me to judge. I believe, from talking to a few of my cohorts, that Spark can be an intriguing show for the ad community. My bid is for the TV commercial for Sony Bravia, done out of Fallon London about a year ago. In a time when we are all used to the routine miracles of computer-generated imagery, the agency for Sony went quite the other way. A way that was more arduous, more expensive and much more interesting. The audacity of actually proposing to drop thousands upon thousands of rubber color balls over a San Francisco street is one thing; to do it is another. One can only imagine the number of very legitimate objections to be overcome. But the effect is worth it all. It's a beautiful mesmerizing visual spectacle. Not a bad thing to do for a product that promises to offer the same. Thank you again for an excellent experience at the Spark judging --it was such a pleasure to spend a Sunday afternoon with such notable designers and architects, and share a glass of wine and a love for our "multi-disciplinary' design profession. In terms of what is inspiring me at the moment, I feel I have to acknowledge the new London Olympics identity -- why? Because it has raised design and branding to the public consciousness and amid the howls of protest we realize that design that is provocative elevates the discussion. It makes us all aware that the visual elements we introduce into our environments do matter and we should all care and debate our opinions. What sort of world would it be if we had no dissent? I predict the London Olympics identity will become beloved and delight, once the 'shock and fear of the new' passes and we see how this brand evolves and lives in its many manifestations in the coming 5 years -- if only ALL design aroused such passion and protest!Logo designed by the Wolff Olins agency London. best wishes Tom Robert Cumberford, Design Editor, Automobile Magazine  Thanks, Peter, for a most interesting Sunday in the wind tunnel. For my personal choice, I suggest the Columbia airplane. Industrial designer Lance Neubauer — NOT an engineer — created his Lanceair homebuilt aircraft line less than twenty years ago, then developed a whole line of factory-built light aircraft that make a mockery of the existing industry. You can still buy Beechcraft Bonanza, first flown in 1945-6, although the $5995 price (or thereabouts) has increased to more than half a million dollars for basically the same design. But the type certified all-composite, slick-as-glass Columbia from Lance's company is faster with its fixed landing gear than the retractable gear Bonanza. It is in fact the fastest single piston engine aircraft in production today. The shapes are "designery," performance is at the top, and the cost, while ridiculous by 1945 standards, is still less than that of the antique airplanes offered by the "official" industry. Check out www.flycolumbia.com, and realize that there are other excellent design-driven products in the same market, including the Cirrus, which has a whole-airframe parachute as standard equipment. Best, Robert Nick Oakley, Senior Industrial Designer, Intel Mobility Group I struggled with this. I had a moment when I thought that Weber BBQ (the one with the black globe on three legs) might be one of those great un-recognized icons of the American back yard, but after narrowly avoiding 1st degree burns with one this weekend, I’ve since changed my mind.    Before Hacker claims it, I’m a big fan of the work of Naoto Fukasawa, particularly the ethos and aesthetic of his Plus minus Zero range of products. This work somehow manages to combine beauty with humility in a way that makes Apple look overstated and vulgar. If Jonathan Ive left tomorrow, Naoto has to be first in line for succession. It’s sublime work like this that shows there’s still hope while we’re surrounded by attention seeking design nonsense that blights cellphones, sportswear and cars. O.K., I'll stick my neck out here... Why don't we also applaud design from those companies who don't normally make it or embrace it as a marketing distinction but discover it after years of either ignoring it or just dutifully following their category leaders in fear of making a mistake? Bang & Olufsen is arguably the manifestation of design incorporated with marketing and business and has been for decades. Good design is what they sell, so another good design from them is expected. The Dove viral effort "Evolution" and preceding "Campaign for Real Beauty" is a brilliant marketing engagement with the consumer that's not only a 180 from most advertising but an unexpected reversal of most package goods product marketing strategies--especially in the personal care category. The Dove work is not a sexy object of desire, but it certainly pulls asunder the commonly thought notion of what is. It is design at its best: strategy design, advertising design, graphic design, film design, PR design and media design... all working as well together as any B&O product to engage the public. On top of its functional success (six million viral hits), the measure for any good design, it is an idea that took courage. Thus recognizing it might just provide the same to more product managers and CMOs. I'd like to meet a few more before I die, and it's these competitions that provide the backbones that support good solutions.  In the product world, it's harder to ignore companies that have long leveraged design. The Nike + System product (the Apple iPod and Nike apparel collaboration) gets my nomination simply because its conception sets the stage for the collapsing of design, product development, marketing, the Internet and customer relationship management (CRM). The idea of design as product as a corporate growth strategy--albeit from two companies that perfected it apart from each other first--is long overdue from many companies, except along the supermarket isles where it runs amok. More and more of the Nike/Apple-like merger of product and marketing--reflecting our continuous mash-upculture--will no doubt show up in future Spark competitions. With that in mind, I'd just as soon prime this pump and encourage more of this cross-pollination since it can and will apply to any industry. The 'Spark' here is the idea of two great companies working together to offer a consumerbenefit rather than the traditional innovation-squashing merger.. Ken-- Prof. Nikolaus Hafermaas, Department Chair, Graphic Design, Art Center College of Design  OK, after much deliberation, here’s my candidate: Intersection Magazine. Intersection is an entirely new kind of car magazine: written like a novel, shot like a fashion story and guided by the spirit of the open road. Covering not only the latest production models, classics and customization, it also features advanced concepts in personal transportation and sustainability, ethnographic pieces on mobility culture from the “other 90%” of the world population, all avenues of auto appreciation lead to Intersection. To me, this piece of editorial design is one of the leading examples for building a bridge between aesthetics and relevance. Sexy, witty, inspiring and deep. Interview with the editor Dan Ross, HERE. cheers:Nik Patricia Roller, frog design fellow and former CEO I love to hear/see what everybody is picking. I was tempted to go with the General Electric windmills (green, green....) but my must-have instinct prevails. The Bang & Olufsen BeoSound3 portable music player is just clean design. A bit predictable I know... .jpg) Kit Hinrichs, Partner, Pentagram Design I'll choose two companies for this award...  Apple has to be top of the list. Complete and amazing integration since the beginning. They have a profound commitment to the process and quality of design.  My other choice is Design Within Reach. They continue to stay close to their brand in a very consistent, deliberate way. Excellent. Michael D. Kirchmann, Associate Partner, Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP Firstly Peter - thank you for an incredible and truly inspiring day of collaborative discussion and review of some wonderful Spark design entries. It was a great opportunity to evaluate new design ideas in a multi-disciplinary environment. It was most interesting to discuss the potential far reaching impact of the ideas that were presented. To this end I was recently struck and inspired by a very profound idea: Shwe Shwe Poppis I was introduced to this idea on a recent trip to South Africa. It represents a level of creative thinking that transcends willful design and is significant on many cultural, social and commercial levels. They are called 'Shwe Shwe Poppis' (Poppi is a local word for dolly) and all have a great story behind them.  Shwe-shwe Poppis are living stories from Zola creche in Soweto, South Africa. Zola creche is run by the African Feeding Scheme, an NGO that distributes food on a daily basis to more than 18 000 children in Soweto. Shwe-shwe poppis are based on the children's drawings from the creche, and are developed by Franz Schmidt and Gro Mukta Holter from Isandi - a norwegian company that trades with Southern African handmade products.   Each Poppi is hand made by the children's mothers and grandmothers. Shwe-shwe Poppis are stories about the creative forces within every human being and a story about hope. There are 8 different 'poppi' designs and each one has such character and charm. They come in a shwe shwe bag and have a story about the child who drew the original pictures. They have a website - www.shweshwepoppis.com. You can also see them on the nobel peace center website http://www.nobelpeacecenter.org/?aid=9073493 and they were recently featured on CNN. Thank you also to all the other jurors - it was a real pleasure... --Michael
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