Raymond Otene McKay’s Cannes Diary #3

Raymond Otene McKay, chief creative officer at RUN is representing Aotearoa on the Cannes Design Lions jury. McKay, along with most of the other NZ and Australian jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

Day 3

It was a whirlwind of a day, John Legend, Halle Berry and the Olympic torch all made an appearance and then in the late afternoon the awards ceremony for our Design Lions jury!

One thing I heard from one of the team members was them being worried what people thought about the choices we made. I laughed and said as long as you care about what you awarded, then that’s all that matters, this is a yearly thing and juries and opinions change like clockwork.

We awarded simplicity, we awarded a perspective that has been missing from design and we awarded fun. These three things our Jury president Fura eluded to in her opening speech of our category on the big stage at the Palais.

The work was stunning, surprising and in moments of judging the work, uncomfortable, something we need to feel every year, this is the industry saying I don’t know about it, but it excites me. We need to embrace change, championing new ideas, we need to put ourselves in the seat of those who entered the work and empathise with them how hard it is to enter there work in the hardest awards show on earth!

We also need to break the hold of what we think the category is and fight for the work we believe in even if it’s not ours, if it moves you, this is a pretty good indicator of amazing work.

(Image credit: Getty Images)