absolutely fabulous

On Tuesday of this week, I was lucky enough to get to spend the day away from the studio by the river in sunny Chiswick. I'd been invited to be part of the judging panel for this year's packaging entries to the FAB (Food & Beverage) awards. I've always been a bit of a FAB fan - they often give credit to great work that somehow goes unnoticed in other design awards - so I was chuffed to bits to be part of the panel.

Shaun Bowen from B&B was heading up our panel and keeping us in check - urging us to vote for the work that had a real idea and real spark of creative brilliance. So together with Rob Hall of Davies Hall, Kellie Chapple from Ziggurat and Anna Perchal, the Creative Director for Fortnum & Mason (what a job!), we set about reviewing the 150+ entries over the course of a morning. Work was categorised by sector, so there were big clusters in groups like 'savoury' or 'alcoholic drinks' and we awarded each piece a mark from 1 (go straight to the bottom of the class) to 9 (oh-my-god I wish I'd done that). The whole process was conducted under the watchful gaze of Neeraj and Abbey from FAB.

Work was either submitted in physical form (great because you could pick up each entry, read the story on the back of pack and feel the quality of the finishing) or simply as images on a screen (some blurry, some too small, some just not doing the work justice). Because of this we couldn't view each awards sector as a whole, only in two sets, which was unfortunate but unavoidable. [Top tip if you're thinking of entering next year - send the real thing!]

I was expecting it to be a fairly easy and straightforward process, but it was actually quite difficult. Sure, there was some work that really stood out (either as being simply a work of pure genius or for the exact opposite reason), but the stuff left in the middle was much more difficult to judge. We awarded marks individually based solely on our own opinions and feelings about the work, and once we were all done we escaped into the sun for lunch whilst the votes were tallied up. Lunch was fantastic, if rather large, and after a couple of glasses of wine we were all well lubricated and ready for the next stage of the judging process.

Once the votes were collated, a median score for each sector was given under Shaun's watchful eye. Anything above the median stayed in for the next judging stage, anything below was escorted straight back to the nearest Tesco never to be seen by us again. If any of the judges felt especially passionately about any of the work that didn't make the grade, we were allowed to make a case for its return, but after reviewing the shortlist we all felt the right work was in the right place.

In a way, the shortlisted work did seem a little predictable to me. Yes, it was mostly fantastic and beautiful work, and yes, I had voted highly for the majority of it, but where were the big, mainstream FMCG examples? Where was the stuff you see on the shelves of Tesco in Newcastle, not just behind the counter of the posh deli in Fulham? I'm being a little blunt, and perhaps this split in the 'good' and 'bad' is inevitable, but it did raise a few questions in my head about the criteria by which we judge 'good' design - questions I think I'll tackle in another blog post later.

We then looked at each sector of work in detail to judge which - if any - of the examples was worthy of a nomination (the equivalent of being 'in the book'). Some work did fall down at the first hurdle, and I think from our initial shortlist we probably chopped out another 50% of the entries. This stage caused quite a lot of - sometime heated, the wine doing its job - debate amongst us judges, with some of us feeling especially strongly about certain pieces of work.

Nominations noted, we went on to judge if any of the nominations was worthy of a FAB award. Some sectors succeeded (a bottle of champagne was opened upon the award of the first FAB!), others didn't, and again the process caused quite a lot of passionate talk amongst us judges!

Finally, from the FABs that were awarded we were tasked with awarding a FABulous award for the best in show (if we felt any of the winners make the grade). One winner really stood head and shoulders above the others, and I think all the judges were green with envy at the sheer brilliance and simplicity of the design. So this part of the day was actually pretty straightforward and totally unanimous. We had our FABulous!

After a hard day's judging, and feeling quite chuffed with our decisions, we retired to the bar to reflect on the day. Do I feel the right work made it through? Mostly. Did I learn anything from the day? Definitely. Can I reveal the winners? Absolutely not - I'm sworn to secrecy! The FAB awards ceremony takes place on May 24th, and the results will be posted on the FAB website shortly afterwards. Have a look and see if you think we made the right decisions...

Nik, Creative Director