Chemistry duo scoop top award for creative advertising

Adrian FitzSimon and Emmet Wright of the advertising agency Chemistry were last night named as winners of the Newspapers of Ireland's (NNI) creative advertising awards.

The duo, from the the Dublin-based agency, beat almost 300 other entries to take the €10,000 first prize for the competition's overall Grand Prix award with their entry, "Various Sizes".

The same entry, which features a variety of different shaped blocks of text designed to attract the reader's attention through their unusual shape and their use of words, which almost talk to the reader, also won them the €5,000 Best Copywriting trophy.

"We thought it was a marvellous combination of writing and art direction, and the type was done beautifully," said Luke Sullivan, a well-known expert in creative design from the US who judged the competition.

"Here the copy IS the art direction. The different sizes and shapes of the ads possible in newsprint ARE the concept. It uses the medium AS the concept."

Mr Sullivan said that after drawing up a shortlist of 10 entries himself, he invited several other senior creative directors from his agency, Texas-based GSD&M, to assess them.

"We talked it out and unanimously landed on "Various Sizes" as the overall Grand Prix winner, and also Best Copywriting," he said. "I really like this stuff. This is our choice of winner, and hats off to Emmet Wright and Adrian FitzSimon of Chemistry for coming up with it."

The agency received a specially commissioned trophy for each of the two awards.

The winning pieces of work will now be published throughout the range of NNI titles - a total of 18 newspapers - over the coming months.

Chemistry Strategic Communications, which was founded in 1999, counts companies such as Irish Life, Peugeot, Ulster Bank and Heineken Ireland among its clients.

After only three years of operation, the agency was named Advertising Agency of the Year, and it has been ranked in the top three performing agencies at ICAD, Ireland's premier creative showcase, for each of the four years of its existence, according to its website.

The awards ceremony was attended by more than 500 people from the advertising and newspaper industries, with all 18 NNI titles and most major advertising agencies represented.