Fifth Star Awards
Video / Print / Outdoor
The Fifth Star Awards are to Chicago as the Kennedy Center Honors are to New York. Or, at least, that’s what the city would like them to be. The “Fifth Star” stands for creativity and is in reference to Chicago’s city flag, which features two bright blue bars framing four, 6-sided red stars. Everything that’s printed on the flag has a deep meaning to the city.
As a pro bono project for Leo Burnett, I was brought on to help the Fifth Star Awards shine brighter in just their 2nd year. One caveat we were given was to avoid putting too much focus on the flag’s “stars” since the inaugural campaign relied heavily on them. Therefore, we decided to accentuate an oft overlooked part of the flag: the blue bars. This led us to a concept where we were able to use the famous flag to frame a new conversation about creativity in Chicago.
The Work
I wrote Mayor Rahm Emanuel's intro for the Awards. He jokingly called me a smartass for giving him direction on how to read it.
Wild postings worked to pique peoples’ interest in learning about our honorees.
Print ads invited people to the Awards.
Huge banners were printed and draped in succession on the outside walls of the Chicago Cultural Center, across from Millennium Park where the awards would be held.