The 2023 Promax Global Excellence Awards in New York City on Thursday night was the capstone for the global entertainment marketing organization's year-long partnership with Atlanta-based agency, Elevation.
Elevation opened the awards ceremony, held at the Neuehouse Madison, with the above luminescent sequence that served as the culmination of all of the agency's work over the year. Elevation crafted the look for five different events: four regional award shows and last night's Promax Global Excellence Awards.
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Elevation's overall direction was inspired by a quote by Elbert Hubbard: “Art is not a thing, it is a way.”
“As the best work in the entertainment marketing industry is recognized, we wanted to create a set of designs that celebrates not just the end product, but the sometimes messy yet always exhilarating journey of making art,” Elevation said in an email. “The show is the culmination of our design journey. We thought it would be fitting to combine the colors and concepts from each of the four previous events into this show's 90-second opening sequence. The bright and vibrant palette represents the additive nature of blending colors, reflecting the combined diversity of all of this year's regional awards.”
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The sequence also displays the visual metaphors Elevation created that ran throughout the year-long design package.
“Fluid transparent glass represents the overlap and spread of ideas. The iteration of revisions, something every creative person should be all too familiar with, is conveyed through visual distortion and metamorphosis. Kinetic sculptures were another visual touchstone that inspired us from our very earliest concepts,” Elevation wrote. “These mesmerizing works of art are set into graceful motion by even the smallest push. To us, it's a powerful visual metaphor for the creative process: constantly evolving, propelled by balance and thoughtfully crafted design.”
Ultimately, Elevation produced the project as a love letter to both themselves and to all of the creatives that work in entertainment marketing.
“When we first agreed to this project, we recognized its high-stakes nature. The prospect of creating work for an audience of our incredibly talented and discerning peers was indeed daunting,” the agency wrote. “However, as founder and CEO Stephen Cocks wrote in an email kicking off the project, ‘We cannot do this if it is not authentic. It needs to be done for us and not for an audience. It needs to be personal, and it needs to reflect our desire and growth as creatives.' Our directive was to first and foremost create something that we would be proud of, which is a goal we definitely accomplished.”