NEW YORK, NY – May 1, 2008

Inaugural jury chair, Marc Gobé, President and Editor of Emotional Branding LLC, tonight announced winners of the first ADC Design Sphere at the 87th Annual Gala at the ADC Gallery. The top winners in Design, Advertising - including Interactive categories - and ADC Hybrid Awards were also announced. The Art Directors Club is the first creative collective of its kind. Global membership spans the disciplines of design, advertising and visual communications.

The ADC Design Sphere Award honors and elevates the most outstanding body of work featuring design innovation in a sustained program of design for a single client by a single design firm.

The winner of the ADC Design Sphere Award sets the standard for excellence in design communications. This award is earned by design solutions that combine and convey brand relevance with consistent, impactful and emotional connections across a variety of touch points and serve as inspiration for designers and clients. Entries may have been produced over a period of years.

“As the role of design moves from pure aesthetics to powerful brand messaging, Sphere honors those brands and their designers who use design as the core differentiator helping clients reach out to consumers for approval and acceptance. The award recognizes small and large businesses that have created both audacious and innovative visual philosophy throughout the years that translates into vivid and powerful brand communication tools.” said Marc Gobé.

ADC Design Sphere Winners

Marc Gobé, together with his jury identified two outstanding bodies of work that featured design innovation via sustained programs for clients by a single design firm. The winner’s work represents remarkable, successful, sustained design programs both big and small clients:

- A Decade of Telus Design; TAXI Canada, Inc.
Over the last 10 years TELUS has developed and delivered a consistent and approachable natural look and feel in its communications materials, building one of the most recognizable and best loved brands in Canada.

- Mugaritz Restaurant; laia, Basque Country
The ten-year collaboration between laia and the restaurant client yielded integrated programs of intricate and comprehensive design for Mugaritz Restaurant, one of Spain's most famous restaurants. The identity, environment and experiential design were cohesively executed while simultaneously retaining the restaurants’ characteristic organic and natural essence within small budget constraints for over a decade.

“Design and designers have been intrinsic to this organization’s process and integral to our DNA since our founding. The ADC Design Sphere has been developed based upon a long term understanding of the shared goals of design firms and their clients,” says Ami Brophy, Executive Director.

ADC Winners Details

All Design, ADC Sphere, Advertising, ADC Hybrid, Gold and Silver medalists, and Distinctive Merit and Merit winners, will be included in the Art Directors Annual 87, the hardcover book to be published by RotoVision in November, 2008. A complete list of winners will also be posted on the ADC web site at www.adcglobal.org.

For a detailed list of winners and creative credits for top awards, please contact Jen Larkin at the ADC at jen@adcglobal.org. TV and radio winners are available as QuickTime and MP3 files.

Global Awards
The ADC 87th Annual Awards mirror the organization’s international reach with work entered from more than 66 countries this year, 27 of which will be represented as winners in the annual. In addition, ADC assembled the most internationally diverse jury in its history to judge the work. The Design jury, for example, included design professionals from the U.K., France, Korea, South Africa, Spain, Italy, China, Japan, and the United States.

For more information, contact
Ami Brophy, 212-643-1440 (abrophy@adcglobal.org)
Or Maggie Kinser Hohle 973-668-9446 (maggietext@comcast.net)

About the ADC
Founded in New York in 1920 as the first creative collective of its kind, the Art Directors Club, Inc. (www.adcglobal.org) is a 501[c]3 not-for-profit organization with an international membership in advertising, design and related visual communications disciplines. ADC's core program - the international Annual Awards competition, exhibition and Art Directors Annual - is now in its 87^th year and remains unrivaled as an educational and industry resource. ADC's signature initiatives also include: ADC Young Guns biennial showcase of promising professionals age 30 and under; the ADC Hall of Fame; Saturday Career Workshops for talented city high school juniors; Designism, connecting designers to social causes; scholarships, exhibitions, speaker events, and original books and publications.