THE DAVEY AWARDS

It has taken some time to put this post together due to a number of long, drawn-out processes. But I can finally share with my readers that I won 2 Gold Davey Awards last year (see, told ya it has taken a while). No, my husband was not the sponsor of these awards - but it has made for some pretty good jokes - and no, I did not slay two giants (I've never actually met a giant).

The Davey Awards is an international competition, focused on honoring work from small design firms. There were over 4,000 entries from ad agencies, interactive agencies, production firms, in-house creative professionals, graphic designers, design firms, and public relations firms in the 2009 competition. I entered one printed piece into two separate categories, and it took gold in both categories!

The Davey is judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA). Entries are judged on their merits based on a standard of excellence as determined by the IAVA, considering the category entered, on a ten point scale. Generally, Gold Winners receive a score of 9.0 or above. No more than 10% of entries are awarded a Gold Davey.

So, what does a designer get for winning gold? Bragging rights, pride and warm fuzzies.

What does my employer get for me winning gold? Two gorgeous gold statuettes to put on their wall of awesome (which they totally have the right to do because not only did they pay the fee for me to enter the competition, but they also paid for the statuettes).

The Davey Awards statuette is custom designed and handcrafted by the producers of the Golden Globe Award. It is approximately one foot tall, and weighs over 5 pounds. The statuette represents a modern interpretation of the icons of the story of David and Goliath: David defeated the mighty Goliath with a big idea and a little rock. That's the sort of thing in-house designers do every day. The Davey Awards honors the achievement of the "Creative Davids" where strength comes from ideas, intelligence and out-of-the-box thinking, not a "Giants" bankroll (and hey, I work for the government, so you know my budget is basically $0.00 for every project). Look how shiny:

The base plate is custom engraved to show the date, company name and title of the piece that won (this is a shiny photo from the Davey Award website).

I entered the City of Redmond's Water Quality Report that I designed back in April of 2009. Here is the cover:

Here are a few of the inside pages so you can see the layout.

This 8.5 x 11 inch booklet has a lot of pretty boring information in it (unless you're a geologist or biologist and love words like "cryptosporidium"), so it was really important that the design be eye-catching so that the residents of Redmond would actually read some of it and learn how clean their drinking water is and how it got that way.

We even had a little party at work to celebrate. My Davey came as well as the Mayor:

John Marchione, Mayor of Redmond

My three Daveys!

I apologize for the extended length of this post, but this is a really big deal in the design world and I wanted to be sure to commemorate all of it so that years from now when I'm looking back through posts, I can remember just how awesome all of this was.