Sons & Co takes out top gong at NZ Best Design Awards – Colenso BBDO and Oktobor score Gold

Christchurch based Sons & Co. have taken out the country’s top interactive design accolade – the coveted Purple Pin for interactive design – at New Zealand’s Best Design Awards.

Beating 85 other interactive design entries from around the country,the prestigious Purple Pin (supreme interactive design award) waspresented to Sons & Co. for the design and redevelopment of theChristchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu website. The website wascreated in order to showcase the gallery’s significant art collection,provide education resources, and highlight its extensive exhibition andevent calendar.

Other high profile interactive design winners at this year’s BestDesign Awards included Oktobor, who won Gold in the Small Scale websitecategory for ‘Sleepeater’, a music video website created for NewZealand band Shihad that the judges described as “innovative and unlikeanything seen before”; Salted Herring, who was presented with Gold inthe Large Scale Website category for the “playfully” designed ‘WishboneDesign Studio’ website; Colenso BBDO, who scored Gold in the Time BasedGraphics category for ‘Going West’, an animated film produced for TheNew Zealand Book Council to promote books and reading which the judgessaid “brought writing to life in a new, engaging and evocative way”;and Flightless, who won Gold in the Application category for ‘MaoriFeast interactive’, an interactive installation designed for theAuckland War Memorial Museum that brings to life a piece of artworkdepicting the great Mount Hobson Maori Feast of May, 1844.

A total of 6 Gold Pins, 10 Silver and 23 interactive design Bronzeswere awarded on the night. All winners can be viewed online atwww.bestawards.co.nz

Held at a glittering black tie event at Auckland’s SkyCity ConventionCentre on Friday night, the Best Design Awards, which are organised bythe Designers Institute of New Zealand, recognise New Zealand’s bestinteractive, graphic, product and spatial designs from the past year.This is the first year that the prestigious awards have includedinteractive design as a standalone category, which was introduced intothis year’s programme in recognition of the quality and breadth of workcoming out of the burgeoning sector.

 The judges of the interactive awards, led by Che Tamahori of Shift,described Son & Co’s award winning website design as “an immenseachievement” saying that the result was a “world class website”.

Described as “an incredibly large and complex” project to put together,the judges were overwhelmingly impressed with the company’s response towhat they described as an imposing challenge – the presentation of 5700artworks, 500 multimedia files and 900 archived exhibitions on the onesite.

They said that the site charted an “uncommon intersection between craft and industrial-grade information architecture.”

“Presenting that much information onto one site, organising it in a waythat is not overwhelming and making it look great at the same time isno mean feat.  Sons & Co. have created a website that defies thenorms of a typical ‘database driven website’. It is well considered,tailored and beautifully crafted.”

In addition to taking home the country’s top interactive design prize,Sons & Co also walked away with a Gold, three Silvers and twoBronze interactive design awards, which were presented for a range ofprojects including websites for James Dunlop Textiles, Zachary PulmanArchitects, Hunter’s Wine Shop and EyeContact.  

Sons & Co, which is run by Tim Kelleher and Matt Arnold, both intheir late twenties, was established just two years ago. Last year thecompany scored a Gold at the awards for the design of the Black Estatewebsite.

In their most successful night ever at the awards Oktobor won Gold in the Small Scale Website category for ‘Sleepeater’, a music video site directed by Sam Peacocke (Robber’s Dog) and created for New Zealand band Shihad that the judges described as “innovative and unlike anything seen before”; Silver for their 3D PAMS ‘For the Love of Food’ TVC and Bronze for their 60-second full CG Twisties TVC in the Time Based Graphics Category (animated or moving image graphic design created for film, broadcast, TV, Internet or in-house video) and a further Bronze for their innovative Erky Perky website in the Large Scale Websites category. Oktobor also consulted on the Wool Wisdom Interactive Touch-Screen for Wools of New Zealand which won Silver in the Best Interactive Design Application category (kiosks, mobile applications, games and web applications).

Says Oktobor EP David Hofflich: “Obviously the entire team at Oktobor are delighted with the awards we’ve won this year, they are a great achievement for everyone involved. Just as importantly it’s great to see the quality of NZ creative still so high across the board – a real reflection of the standard of excellence and innovation that consistently comes out of our local industry.”