No Fixed Address wins Gold Cube at ADC Awards

by David Brown

The 99th annual ADC Awards, the first major international show to take place in the midst of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, is handing out hardware virtually this week.

In normal times, of course, the ADC awards—which emphasize craft and innovation in design and advertising—are handed out by the One Club as part of Creativity in New York City, along with the One Show.

While other awards shows including the Cannes Lions have been cancelled outright, the One Club opted to go ahead with its awards program and is announcing a handful of ADC categories each day this week. On Monday it was Fashion Design and Illustration, followed by Experiential, Photography and Spatial Design on Tuesday and Packaging/Product Design, Typography on Wednesday.

The biggest Canadian winner so far is No Fixed Address, with five Cubes in total—including a Gold and three Bronze for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s “Lolli: The Exhibit Nobody Wants to Talk About.”

The temporary exhibition was created to raise awareness of the ongoing problem of child pornography. The exhibit featured 10,824 lollipops, displayed as one of the type of bright and cheery Instagrammable installations that have become popular in recent years, except in this case each lollipop represented one of the pornographic images of a child detected online every 12 hours.

NFA also won a Bronze Cube for “SickKids Airbnb” for the SickKids Foundation.

In a release announcing the winners today, Sid Lee chief creative officer and One Club Board member Philippe Meunier spoke about the prestige of winning an ADC Gold Cube and the nearly 100-year long contribution the awards have made to the industry.

“More people have climbed Mount Everest than won an ADC Gold Cube,” he said.  “As we kick off ADC’s centennial celebration later this year, it’ll be a unique opportunity to look back at a century of craft and its impact on pop culture, and reflect on the past 100 years so we can better envision the next 100 years to come.”

Taxi, Zulu Alpha Kilo, Head Gear Animation, Sid Lee, Instil Image Co. with Saatchi & Saatchi, L’Eloi and Leo Burnett Toronto have also won ADC Cubes so far this week. Here’s the complete list of Canadian winners.

Monday: Fashion Design and Illustration

  • Taxi’s “Mental Fatigues” for the Canadian Mental Health Association won a Silver in the Fashion Design discipline;
  • Zulu Alpha Kilo and Peace Collective won a Silver for “Unravel Hate”;
  • Head Gear Animation won a Silver for the animated series “Staffless Libraries” for the Toronto Public Library Workers Union. (See below.)

Tuesday: Experiential Design, Photography and Spatial Design

  • No Fixed Address and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection won Gold and Bronze in the Experiential Design discipline, and two Bronze in Spatial Design, for “Lolli: The Exhibit Nobody Wants to Talk About”;
  • No Fixed Address also won a Bronze in Spatial Design for “SickKids Airbnb” for the SickKids Foundation;
  • Sid Lee and the City of Montreal’s Vision Zero Project won a Silver and a Bronze for “The Impactful Reminder,” also in the Experiential Deign categories;
  • Instil Image Co. and Saatchi & Saatchi Toronto and Buckley’s won a Bronze in the Photography competition for “100 Years of Buckley’s”;
  • L’Eloi and Urbania of Montreal will be sent a Bronze for “When Ordinary Become Extraordinary,” also in Photography.

Wednesday: Packaging/Product Design, Typography

  • Leo Burnett Toronto and the restaurant 7 West won a Bonze in Packaging Design for “Round the Clock Pizza Box”;
  • Zulu Alpha Kilo and SingleCut Beersmiths also won a Bronze in Packaging Design for “Big in Japan.”

David Brown