Cannes 2012: DDB Mudra's double bonanza in Design

DDB Mudra was awarded a gold and a bronze in Design Lions for the Incredible India -- Hinglish Project campaign. The Grand Prix in this category was a unanimous choice - an interesting piece of work from Germany in an insipid category like annual report.

It was colourless, but it managed to inspire the entire jury of Design Lions category, this year.

A category as insipid as annual report but it was unanimously voted for the Grand Prix. An Austria-based solar power company, Austria Solar, with the help of its agency Service Plan, Munich designed an annual report that was colourless.

What was interesting is that the company used an innovative technology of photo chromatic colour to print the annual report for the company. This meant that the letters and words in the annual report were only visible when it was taken out in the sunlight.

"What can be a better way for a solar company to display the power of the Sun," exclaims Bruce Duckworth, creative director, Turner Duckworth and president of the Design Lions jury.

"It was an interaction in a real environmental way," added the jury.

In fact, just before the announcements were made, Pratap Bose, COO, DDB Mudra Group was keen to know about the winners in this category. His hopes were high on the Hinglish campaign, which came true.

DDB Mudra managed a double bonanza - a gold and a bronze for the Incredible India -Hinglish campaign for which the agency's associate creative director, Shirin Johari, created a new font which was a hybrid between the Devnagari script and the English alphabet, primarily meant for the tourists.

The gold is for the overall campaign, while the bronze is for Typography.

"The duality makes it interesting and it goes beyond the normal typography," says Duckworth.

Duckworth adds, "My brief to jury members was to select works which made them say 'Wish I had done it'. And this one was such a piece of work."

The jury member from India, Abhijit Bansod, principal designer and creative head, Studio ABD, feels that there is more good work available with the design agencies that are not entered here at Cannes.

He says, "It's mainly the advertising agencies that enter their work in this category and many of the small design outfits can't afford the high cost of entry fee. Had they entered, I am sure we would have won five golds, not just one."