Once again, AAF-Akron hosted a varietal Who’s Who of the Akron advertising professionals and students. This year 427 Design received six Silver ADDY Awards from AAF-Akron at the aptly presidential-themed celebration of the Akron creative community on February 12th – Abe Lincoln’s Birthday.

At the close of each awards season we like to take the time to thank those who make it possible for us to do what we love. Our clients entrust us with their brands, engage us in overcoming their challenges and allow us the opportunity to produce and implement creative, in some cases award-winning, solutions. A few of the silver statues we received were awarded for work we did for Neil Zaza, Diversified Digital and St. Vincent-St. Mary High School.

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2016 Akron ADDY Awards

St. Vincent-St. Mary High School 2015-2016 Admissions Guidebook
Client: St. Vincent-St. Mary High School

Diversified Digital Managed Services Sales Collateral
Client: Diversified Digital

Album Art: Neil Zaza Peach
Client: Neil Zaza

Poster: Meow.
Client: 427 Design

Open House IX Invitation
Client: 427 Design

Open House IX Campaign
Client: 427 Design

Congratulations to all the winners of the 2016 ADDY awards. The work produced by the greater Akron creative community last year was outstanding and, as always, we are proud to be surrounded and challenged by each of you. Cheers to you, and here’s to another outstanding year.

Its that time of year again… Award Season.

Once again, AAF Akron treated the Akron creative community to an evening of good food, great company and well-deserved kudos for all of the amazing work that was produced over the last year.

As always, we are proud to be included in such a talented group of agencies and individuals. Each year the bar is raised with new and outrageous ideas, innovative design concepts and flawless execution. 427 Design is excited to have been awarded four Akron ADDYs this year, one of which has gone on to win a Silver District ADDY Award.

Thanks again to all of our clients, vendors, partners and fellow agencies for playing your part in keeping the Akron creative community thriving.

2015 Akron ADDY Awards – Gold: 

Nightlight Theater Opening Night Poster
Client: Nightlight Theater

Open House 8 Invitation
Client: 427 Design

2015 Akron ADDY Awards – Silver: 

Open House 8 Poster
Client: 427 Design

2015 Akron ADDY Awards – Judges Choice: 

Nightlight Theater Opening Night Poster
Client: Nightlight Theater

There’s an old adage that the Shoemaker’s children always go barefoot. The best description I read was, “a skilled or knowledgeable person commonly neglects to give his own family the benefit of his expertise.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. 

Its a common problem in this industry. We create  brands and identities for outstanding companies, concept and design multi-media marketing campaigns, develop cutting-edge websites, and write content for a variety of mediums… like blogs… for our clients every day. 

Its what we do.
Its what we love.
Its what we’re good at.
Its also why we’re barefoot.
(Or at least why its taken over a month to draft a blog post of our own.)

Its a Catch 22 really. You see, we have these clients. Really great clients. And we’re lucky enough to collaborate on some really great projects through the year. And as your parents always told you, hard work pays off. In this case, it paid off in the form of another award-winning season for 427 Design. 

Thank you to the members of the Akron Ad Federation for organizing such an amazing event, and congratulations to all of the winners of the evening! We are proud to rub elbows with such incredible talent. We feel so honored to be recognized by our peers, and to have been the winningest agency in Akron at the 2014 ADDY Awards.

Bringing home a total of eight Akron ADDY Awards, a Judge’s Choice Award and a Best in Printing Award from the Great Gatsby-themed event hosted at the beautiful Akron Civic Theater turns out to be just the beginning for our team. Three pieces have gone on to win Regional Gold ADDY Awards and will compete at the national level. This is the fourth time 427 Design will have work recognized at the National ADDY competition, something we are incredibly proud of.

Its a testament to the collaboration and trust of our clients, the vision and talent of our team and the collective creativity of the greater community. We are proud to call, sort of sunny, Akron our home. And we are looking forward to what the future brings for 427 Design here. Stay tuned for updates as we make another run for a National ADDY Award! 

2014 Akron ADDY Awards – Gold: 

The Bomb Shelter Poster
Client: The Bomb Shelter

Cloud Nine Cupcakes Logo
Client: Cloud Nine Cupcakes

Padua Franciscan High School Admissions Campaign
Client: Padua Franciscan High School

427 Design Open House VII Campaign
Self-Promotion

2104 Akron ADDYs – Silver

Diversified Disaster Recovery Video
Client: Diversified Digital

Fontoween Poster
Client: Myers School of Art, University of Akron

427 Design Thank You Cards
Self-Promotion

427 Design Open House VII Poster
Self-Promotion

(Click to view the pieces or visit our clients’ websites)

We are honored to be able to say that the poster(s) that we designed and printed for Flite Test won Gold at the National ADDY Awards, held in Phoenix, AZ on June 8th. The poster had won Gold, and Best of Show at the Akron ceremony in March, and Silver in the Fifth District ADDY Awards.

Flite Test is an Ohio-based organization created for people who are passionate about flight. We first worked in conjunction with Director/Executive Producer Chad Kapper to redesign the Flite Test logo. We wanted to maintain the essence of their former mark, while adding character and a handdrawn quality. We then took that logo and designed a series of two-color posters.

While some were printed on basic stock, most were screen printed in our print lab on unconventional materials — pages torn from hobby magazines, strips of balsa wood — we really tried to have fun with the whole process. It’s become a joke around our office that we’ll screen print on anything that will sit still long enough but we love making pieces that are a little bit unexpected and different.

We continue to be extremely grateful for clients that trust our crazy instincts, and are honored for our work to be recognized at every level of the ADDY awards this year. This is our third National award (we’ve won them in the past for our first Open House Poster and our rebrand of AAF Akron) and we hope it’s not our last. You can read more about the award from AAF Akron here.

We had a great time at the 2013 Akron ADDY Awards on Friday night, and we’re super proud of our team and our accomplishments last year. We walked away with a total of 10 ADDYs, plus Best of Show and the Best Use of Paper award. This was our second year in a row winning Best of Show and our third winning Best Use of Paper.

Special thanks to AAF Akron for a great show, and congrats to TRIAD, who won a Gold ADDY for the Tuesday Musical Poster that we helped print. Below are the projects that took home awards:

Best of Show and a Gold ADDY for our Flite Test Poster

Gold for the Hudson Farmer’s Market Campaign

Gold for the Hasenstab Architects logo | Gold and Best Use of Paper for the stationery | Gold for the web site

Gold for the Matco Tools Calendar Illustrations | Silver for the calendar

Gold for the Open House VI Poster | Silver for the campaign | Silver for the cowhide mailer

Thanks again to AAF Akron and congratulations to all the other winners. We’re already hard at work on next year’s entries!