Welcome to Fresh 2008 and our fifth year of recognition for outstanding creativity and innovation outside of the M25.
The decision to consolidate the series of regional events last year proved to be popular and as such the standard of work within the Fresh Awards has significantly increased making the competition tougher, but the rewards greater for those who make the grade.
Fresh wants to remain Fresh and we are always welcome to new ideas and are happy to listen to suggestions. Of course we cannot create specific categories for every suggestion - 10 second medical ident, dye cut postcards that fold out to become a dinosaur for a theme park or perishable items for DM – the biggest complaint about any awards ceremonies is the sheer length of time you have to sit there and adding extra categories just reduces your time in the bar – but we do try and take on board your ideas about the structure of the programme, its format and the sort of night you want Fresh - and we will continue to allow our judges a great deal of flexibility so a good idea is rewarded as a good idea rather than be pigeon holed into a category.
In an attempt to keep Fresh fresh, we have a few key changes this year to the Creative Awards – the digital categories have been moved in to the Fresh Digital Awards to recognise the significant growth in this section, we have increased the number of design categories to better assess the work in this discipline (and it reflects our new relationship with Design Week are who including Fresh in their league tables), we have a brand new venue for the awards this year and a free recruitment page for agencies – details to be found on the page link.
Some things will never change with Fresh though and this is the basis of our awards.
We will continue to use a great panel of judges taken from all over the UK and Ireland, we will continue to make a contribution to NABS, we will continue to work with Campaign and all of the Haymarket titles, we will continue to offer a fair, unbiased and organized approach to entries and work, we will continue to be passionate and offer the best platform we can for the awards and finally, we will continue to make the awards do itself the very best we can.
So, here’s to 2008 – and the big question on everybody’s lips is…who will claim the Big F this year which is currently residing in the offices of Propaganda?
Best Wishes, Paula
paula@freshawards.co.uk