June 17: The 35th Annual Connecticut Art Directors Club Awards Show

Say what you will about the CADC Awards. On June 17th, they’ll say something about you. The entries are in. What voices will resonate with the judges this year? Come find out as we celebrate this year’s winners at our 35th Annual Awards Show.

DATE/TIME:
Thursday, June 17th
6:30 p.m.

LOCATION:
The Boathouse
Hartford, CT

ADMISSION:
$65 members; $85 non-members; $50 for students and student family

This year’s Show is being held at The Boathouse, the only year-round waterfront banquet facility in Hartford. The Boathouse provides guests with a one-of-a-kind location and seasoned culinary teams.

Purchase your tickets online in advance here.

Special thanks to this year’s judges:

Ohelia Chong
opheliachong.org
Los Angeles, CA
Ophelia’s collage work goes back to handcrafted artwork away from the digital process. She takes found ephemera and builds a story around the image using one simple shape, a swoosh, with comes from an Exacto No.11 blade, a simple turn of the wrist, a bit of glue and building upon layer upon layer of color to create an interpretation of the original found image. Her illustration work appears in The Sourcebook Of Contemporary Illustration (HarperCollins International), Lemon Poppyseed (Gestalten Press), Impressive (Gestalten Press), Theme Magazine, 1000 Artist Journal Pages and the Crafters Devotional (Quarry Press), CSS Artistry (Peachpit Press), and on online magazines such as Two Dogs (Milan) and 617B (Taiwan). Ophelia also is a writer for KCET/PB. Her column 404 City takes a look at the diverse web of communities, all of them interwoven by freeways, shared history, media, automobiles, and the ever present digital penumbra of cell-phones and computers. In addition to writing about our use of technology to connect off the physical plane she teaches and conducts workshops in Internet social technology at the Art Center College of Design/Pasadena. As an UI/UX designer for Redpoint Global (Boston) she has designed sites for Fortune 1000 companies and is all too familiar with the health insurance issues facing the populace of the US.

Ophelia is represented by W+S+W Creative.

Brett Yancy Collins
CEO, counterspace, inc.
Port Chester, NY
Counterspace, inc. is led by award-winning designer and typographer Brett Collins, who has been active in design and multimedia since 1994. Trained at the Hartford Art School in Connecticut, Brett began his career developing interactive CD-ROMs for Time Warner and The Smithsonian Institution, winning multiple international Milia D’Or awards for his interactive design work.

Brett developed counterspace, one of first websites to fully utilize the technology known as flash. Counterspace, a typography website, was a side project of Brett’s that was devel- oped with freshman and sophomore design students in mind. The site utilized flash’s vector based engine to teach basic typography and its history. The site was recognized across the industry for its elegant design and ground breaking use of technology, winning multiple design awards including Communication Arts Interactive Award, How Design Award, the Macromedia design and the Macromedia People’s Choice award. The success of the counterspace site became the catalyst for Fortune 500 companies to seek out Brett’s expertise creating large-scale websites for clients like The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Cleveland Museum of Art and Bacardi Global Brands. Many of these early projects broke new ground in the fields of video, animation, design and technology. Brett’s designs became common features on websites, magazines and book covers.

In recognition of his expertise, Brett began lecturing and teaching classes at universities and conferences on typography, information design and interactive design. These universities includes Ohio State, the University of Cincinnati and Portsmouth University, England. In 2001, Brett was invited to take a sabbatical from the interactive world to create the curriculum for The Works, a new, non-profit digital teaching facility located in Newark, Ohio. The Works boasts a fully functioning design studio, art gallery, technology museum, TV studio and art center. Based upon the newly created, multi–faceted curriculum, The Works gained Smithsonian Affiliation in its first year. The facility was built with lower income families in mind to allow them affordable access to the world of technology, design and the arts.

In 2002, Brett founded counterspace inc., an interactive design company, inspired by the website. Counterspace inc. develops large and small websites, applications, brands and print materials and has built an exceptional client list that spans multiple industries such as fashion, publishing, finance, music, technology with clients such as Merrill Lynch, HarperCollins Publishing, Scholastic, Dell, The Economist, eMusic and Akamai. Counterspace delivers high end design solutions that utilize Brett’s expertise in design, typography, information design, information architecture, animation and branding. Brett’s commitment to excellence in design and web technology continues to push and deliver solutions that improve his client’s businesses.

Monica Hargrove
Senior Designer, Moth Design
Boston, MA
Before establishing herself with the Boston based design studio Moth Design in 2007, Monica spent 5 years in New York City working as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. There she worked with in-house creatives from Revlon to FILA, as well as brand development firms on new business initiatives. Her experience in the beauty and fashion industries lead her to specialize in branding, identity, retail collateral, and package design. At Moth Design, she leads projects that include a variety of web and print design with local retail companies, academic institutions and non-profit organizations. Monica Hargrove has a BA from a Pratt Institute in Communication Design.

Jeff Mellin
Big Blue Ox Graphic Art
Philadelphia, PA
Jeff Mellin is a multi-disciplinary artist and award-winning art/creative director; A creative AD with creative ADD. Over nearly two decades, he’s designed for national, regional and city periodicals, arts and non-profit organizations, indie record labels, food manufactures and high-tech companies.

Specializing in editorial design, he’s served as art director for publications including Art New England, Port Folio Weekly, and ArtsAround Boston, for which he was recognized for his “contributions to the Commonwealth” by the governor of Massachusetts. His recent clients include Scientific American, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, City Lights Books and the Chinese Historical Society of America, for whom he created traveling exhibits and “experiomentary” promotional videos. This spring he created a site-specific installation for “Vortex,” an avant garde music performance presented by the Chocolate Factory Theater in New York City.

Now based in Philadelphia, he continues to work with clients from coast to coast, and collaborates with artists of all sorts. When he’s not designing, he’s writing and recording music, and helping to promote the music of others with both Stereorrific Recordings, a small underground pop label, and Waxfruit Arts Media, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that supports and create projects connecting indie music with other media arts and the community at large.

Valerie Sloan
Assistant Professor, Roger Williams University / President, AIGA Rhode Island
Providence, RI
Val Sloan is currently an Asst. Professor of Graphic Design at Roger Williams University. She moved to Rhode Island three years ago for the position and has moved 4 times in the last 15 years pursuing her dreams. Growing up in a military/government associated family, moving was practiced regularly. But along the way, she’s met amazing people, seen interesting cultures, and in the last decade been the charter president of both AIGA Orlando and AIGA Nashville. In March she became one of only 3 people in the country to have been president of three chapters as she has taken on the presidency of AIGA Rhode Island. She has judged competitions for UCDA and AIGA Pittsburgh.