And The ADDY Goes To…

By Hailey Kilbarger

This past Tuesday, a group of advertising students and a group of graphic design students came together to put their creativity to the test. Pam Patton, president of the American Advertising Federation of West Michigan, came out to tell us how to enter the ADDYs and how it could change our lives.

The ADDYs are the American Advertising Awards and they are held every year to determine whose work is the best and brightest in the industry. This event is open to professionals and students. As students, we can enter absolutely ANY work we have done in the past year. That’s right! Even your beautifully designed resume could qualify! If you missed our meeting and want to know more about entering the ADDYs, check out this website.

After learning about how to enter the ADDYs, we teamed up in groups: 2 Ad Club members and 2 AIGA members. Each group was given a brand. My group received Beats by Dre. We then had 10 minutes to create whatever we could think of. Everything was fair game, from logos and print ads to entire campaigns.

As you can see from the photo, my group came up with a creative idea that won us sweet Ad Club mugs! With that being said, it was a close competition. Every group came up with great ideas in such a short amount of time and they pitched them with passion.

Overall, it was a very fun event and it was awesome to be able to have the AIGA members join our meeting. I hope everyone left feeling inspired and ready to put their best work forward. Even if you don’t want to enter this year, you can always volunteer and get a feel for what the event is like. But you never know, the work you enter could lead to career possibilities.

Even our fellow Ad Club president, Dan Goubert, can say so! With an ADDY under his belt, he wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t taken that leap of faith and believed in his idea.