This year's Exit 6 Film Festival saw the first custom-designed trophies for our Best Film and Audience Choice winners dished out to our worthy filmmakers. Every award-winner has a story, this week we take a look at the story behind the awards, with Creative Awards director Steve Carr.
"For over 40 years Creative Awards have been producing custom made awards for some of the biggest brands and events in both the UK and the world. Nestled in the heart of Hatton Garden, Creative Awards are the company behind this year’s Exit 6 awards. We dive into the world of design in a guest blog by the company to understand how our awards were made.
We have a lot of experience both personally and professionally within film. Not only do we make the awards for the Empire and the Evening Standard film awards, but we also love working with film festivals because we all used to write and direct films. Our staff have backgrounds in media, film and television and have worked on various productions over the years. So, being approached by Exit 6 was the perfect fit in terms of both our interests, hobbies and work.
We started to design the award by the process we use across the board which is getting to the heart of the event that the award is commissioned for. Awards - and we have spent a long time thinking about this - are certainly more than the sum of their parts. They capture and carry the messaging and branding of the event and it is vital for ourselves to understand what the award is for and the company behind it.
With the Exit 6 Film Festival we wanted to distill what the festival was about into the award and capture the soul of the event. Speaking to the team at Exit 6 we understood that the festival is about connecting people, bringing together like-minded, talented individuals with a passion for film. Not only is the event primarily a film festival but it also has a big social element to it with music, drink and more. We identified and wanted to convey the ideas of a fresh new film festival drawing from the concepts of youth, its vibrant nature and excitement.
We placed the name of the festival at the heart of the award, literally and figuratively, to celebrate the space that the festival gives to those who participate. It is always important that the award has an identity that goes beyond a brand name or just a business name and with the Exit 6 award, we were fortunate to find that the logo was already a striking part of the festival’s identity.
The logo and name formed the backbone to the award and is a contemporary twist on what is known as a “classic award column”. The body of the award is bespoke and made from highly polished, nickel-plated aluminium in the shape of the logo and the centre text crafted from colour-matched acrylic. The contrast in the bright, warm yellow and cold silver is something that we feel added a contemporary and youthful feel to the design. For us, awards are both visual and tactile. The physical weight of an award adds to its overall experience, and with this particular award we wanted to make it from a solid piece of aluminium so that it has a real weight and presence to it. To finish, the awards were engraved, hand polished and individually packed."
Liam Harris (Best Film winner - Perched) and Federico Rea (Audience Choice winner - Battered Dreams) picked up this year's prize beauties. Not only have their films set the bar for next year's entries, we're just as excited to dish out our Creative Awards in 2018.
Audience Choice winner Federico said of his award: "Really happy with the award, love the design and colour. It's trendy, modern and it looks great above the TV!"
For more information about Creative Awards please visit their website.
You can follow Creative Awards on Twitter: @CreativeAwards2