A good time is worth having twice. Obvious wisdom demonstrated by this year’s ADDY Awards.
Having never been to one, it was a treat to be christened with an unexpected double-whammy exactly one month apart. With and without my pink wig and thrifted flannel that smelled like casino carpet, I was welcomed into a community as rich in skill as it is a sense of humor. Which came in handy, because the event’s theme bled into its execution(s).
Part 1 – April 12, 2025
“I wonder how he got that in the car…” Shirlee said, awed.
The man’s hair was awesome. Not like a free T-shirt is awesome; like Henry David Thoreau losing his entire mind on Mount Katahdin at the sight of pure wildness. These liberty spikes were savage and beautiful. Impossible. An unholy halo as long as my arm and deserving of its own award for interactive design (passersby not having much choice in the interacting). And the human attached was in very good company.
Punk was the theme of Spokane’s 2025 American Advertising Awards, and the memo was gotten. Not with the cheap moves you might expect from an industry group. No prop skateboards or “The Sex Pistols Were a Boy Band” shirts. The room looked right, but it was more of a feeling – an electric unbuttoning of a bunch of professional creative people and the semi-bewildered college students laughing along.
It helped that delays, technical difficulties, and cash bars were in abundance; that tables were cluttered with Sharpies and stickers of fever-dream graphics and verses about love’s destruction. It’s not punk to designate a wall for tagging, but some of the scribbles were. My favorite was a block of baby-blue paper marked with grease from the noodle buffet and a single word in black scrawl: STUFF.
I may or may not have contributed a Gothic poem. (Strange things happen when I wear eyeliner.)
It was my first time at the ADDYs, representing helveticka as the new senior copywriter. It was Shirlee’s 27th, almost all with this crew for what amounts to an actual pile of awards. Seriously, you should see the conference room.
The hardware goes back to 1988, when helveticka was born as Anderson Mraz Design. The formal announcement of that fated partnership between CK Anderson and John Mraz won a 1989 ADDY, setting the tone for a winning legacy that defies pigeonholing. We’re talking wine labels and websites to museum exhibits and documentary films.
Many wins happened with two particular clients who’ve been with the firm since the start: Avista and Hecla Mining Company, respective giants in energy and precious metals. When you’ve worked with a company for that long, grown together, the shared recognition is that much sweeter.
A 2025 Silver ADDY went to Avista’s 5-minute film “Stronger Than Ever,” which tells the company’s remarkable story over the past 135 years.
A 2025 Cobalt ADDY went to Hecla’s latest annual report, which underlines the importance of silver to the momentum of the global green economy.
For our fearless (albeit costume-averse) leader CK, the best part of any ADDYs is giving awards to clients. Because it’s validating for them, and because it helps make the bigger case for good design. That’s something that drives CK beyond his own success. He wants everybody to see the value, to know the difference made by extra thought, sweat, and finesse put into the work.
Having attended even more ADDYs than Shirlee, he can vouch for the talent in Spokane’s Ad Club, which has been active for well over a century. After a little spelunking in the MAC’s archive of Charles Libby photos, CK shared a 1917 portrait of the club. Not at a table. Around a locomotive. Engine 2184 looks spit-shined as the white shoes on all the men. There are dapper canes and dandy hats, lapel pins and sleeve garters (and a banner that speaks to the bald cultural insensitivities of the times, because of course).
Only four women are pictured, contrasting the membership and leadership of today’s AAF (American Advertising Federation) Spokane. Executive Director Angela Schutz and President Skyler Noble got the 2025 ADDYs crowd through the hitches and glitches of the night with good humor.
It’s hard not to have good humor when you’re presenting to a bunch of normies trying to be punk. But the thing is, great creative work is punk in the way it makes you look, and keep looking. It disrupts and demands. Not always with fireworks, as the sparest treatments can scream in standing out.
Milton Glaser, designer of one of the most iconic concert posters ever (Bob Dylan’s profile), put it this way: “There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and wow! Wow is the one to aim for.”
That wow is something you feel without knowing anything about design, or writing or filmmaking or any other kind of art. It’s a rightness. An exactly-rightness, on rare occasions.
The guy with the levitating hair had it. He was a student from the alma mater of both CK and Shirlee, Spokane Falls Community College, and he accepted his honors with maximum style and zero eyeballs jabbed on his way to the podium. Kinda punk, and perfect.
Part 2 – May 12, 2025
Speaking of perfection… AAF Spokane’s leadership wasn’t happy with the way the night went down. So much time and care went into the 36-minute presentation of winning work, and they wanted to make up for the sound cutting out and overall “messy” production flow. An ADDYs redux was organized at Brick West Brewing, with promises of free beer and a chance to enjoy the full experience of the awards video.
I wasn’t on the list because I didn’t RSVP (so punk), and they graciously let me in anyway. I used my drink ticket for a hazy IPA and waited for the show to kick on. I was late, but luckily the video was too (again). The Violent Femmes blasted across the bar, and we were off.
This time I absorbed every single piece being honored. I clocked the names of contributors and their agencies, and raised my eyebrows more than once at the impressive creativity and polish. Even in a spot about the Squatty Potty.
Somewhere in the middle, we lost the feed and ended up with the Knicks game on the big screen. A poetic moment of imperfection. It took nothing away from the goodness of sitting there sharing free fries with new friends while a sudden hailstorm raged outside. When the video ended, Angela and Skyler thanked us for showing and said they’d let it loop again.
“Is the noise over?” a man at the next table said dramatically to his friends.
“Nope,” I said. I even winked.
