The project is aligned with one of the Design jury’s criteria, pointed out jury president Quinnton Harris (co-founder & CEO Retrospect, USA): ‘To have an impact that was transcendent to the brief.’
The jury sifted through 985 entries to shortlist 104, with entries from 53 different countries making the cut. ‘It was one of the more broad and diverse bodies of work,’ said Harris. ‘There’s one question that our jury spent time thinking about because, thematically, we were seeing a lot of design pieces pushing the boundary of what design meant: how do we promote innovation without abandoning the principles of craft?’
The craft of the ADLaM project is ‘undeniable’, he said, but it ultimately won due to its impact, enabling ‘an entire group of people to be able to design within their cultural context’. The campaign embodies the fact that ‘inclusivity is more than what you look like or how you think,’ said Harris.
A close contender, he added, was Shellmet, by TBWA\Hakuhodo, Tokyo, and Koushi Chemical Industry Co, which solves the issue of surplus scallop shells by recycling them into helmets and protective wear for local fishermen. The campaign is ‘an extension of the human experience, so thoughtful and so curated,’ said Harris. He added that it was also refreshing to see sustainability being taken ‘a step further’, and to see ‘elegant solutions that are at once ‘sustainable, beautiful, and integrated into the human experience’.
