ICAD Awards Call for Entries

Our brief from ICAD was to design a striking poster that would be distributed to their membership as well as design and advertising agencies and studios throughout Ireland to announce the annual awards submission process. The brief itself was left somewhat open in terms of its graphic design, albeit with a number of considerations: to deliver it within a tight budget, to focus on the ICAD bell as an aspect of its design and for it to be considered the first building block in a larger identity project for the 2017 awards program.

This key graphic was created using a simple architectural perspective in order to bring texture and depth to the piece – a symbol that visually invites the viewer to ‘enter’. We then used this symbol as a unit from which we could create a strong yet abstracted typeface that would conform to the typographic grid we were designing for. A choice made early on in the project to screen print the poster (in order to add a greater sense of value) allowed us to further develop the typeface across four designs. This let us create a visually cohesive series whose individual posters were abstract enough to act as discrete designs yet clear enough to convey their respective content.

Down through the years work produced for ICAD has featured the ICAD bell in a variety of graphic manifestations, and while we were conscious to adhere to the commissioner’s request we also wanted to provide a new graphic take on the bell, allowing us to build a strong visual approach to our designs. We took an internal perspective on the bell, meaning that the main graphic reflected its proportions while reminding viewers that the reasoning behind a bell’s shape is relevant to its function: to make noise.

ICAD ‘call for entries’ posters were screen printed using four spot pantones over four designs on FSC-certified curious skin black 140gsm paper in editions of 40.