National Hill Climb Championships
The judges said: ‘Alongside many entries that were more decoration than communication, this won the judges over as a simple, charming idea. What it lacks in craft, it makes up for in clarity.’
This is the welcome feedback from the judges as we received a ‘Highly Commended’ at the prestigious Design Week Awards in London on Wednesday.
As Creative Director at Clock it is my job to make sure that every piece of communication that leaves our door is as succinct and clear as possible. Clarity is a difficult job when at times you’re faced with complicated problems to solve, but a clear message isn’t enough. It has to be clever and engaging, it has to be a big idea.
It would have been easy to promote The Hill Climb – a Championship which sees cyclists negotiate the notorious Holcombe Rake hill in Lancashire – a 1 in 4 gradient tarmac road stage, with a shot of a cyclist zooming past, taking part in the event coupled with a time and date. But that’s passive and doesn’t make people think? I’ll always ask the teams when presenting ideas – Does it stand out amongst pages of similar imagery? Will it get noticed? Will it get a reaction? Will it entertain? If the answer is no then we must keep thinking and condensing until we get to the answer.
We simply conveyed the challenging nature of the event, by creating a visual twist on the ‘Steep hill’ road sign. Simple doesn’t mean easy though, in fact simple takes a lot more thinking than difficult does.
We ultimately have one job to do and that is to draw attention in a memorable way to the product, service or event we have been tasked to sell.
I obviously have to back up what I say with some facts, so here they are:
Most competitor applications since The National Hill Climb started in the 1950’s – 180 riders that had to be capped at 120 of the best in the country
Over 2000 spectators came to the event from as far as Cornwall and Scotland – a record year
All hotels within 3 mile radius were fully booked for the event
Commemorative T-Shirts which were made for the event featuring the creative saw demand outstrip supply
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