THE ADDYS

Owen smokes competition

Arts center celebration hails advertising’s best, past and present

Matt Owen read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 when he was in middle school. That’s more than 20 years ago. If you were a film documentarian and you wanted to begin the story of Feb. 21’s ADDY awards at the Arkansas Arts Center at the way-way back, you might start there.

Owen took the Best of Show award for his 60th anniversary cover design of Bradbury’s magnum opus, a design so popular publisher Simon & Schuster made it the permanent cover for the book.

When he was 12, he read it for the first time. Could he ever have imagined it would come back around in such a meaningful way?

“No, I wanted to be Indiana Jones.”

At Harding University, he said, he went looking for the kind of professional job at which he could show up “with my shirt untucked.” Graphic design fit him to a kerned T.

The presentation, emceed by local actor John Isner, handed out 150 awards from a pool of about 400 entries. The big winner was Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods (at which Owen is a senior art director), which claimed Best Broadcast for its Arkansas Municipal League “ Sprinkler” television spot as well as Best Business Card for Stone’s Throw Brewery and several in between. Other award winners were Thoma Thoma, Sells Agency, The Nicholson Agency, Kara Darling Creative, Soundscapes, The Design Group, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and Inviting Arkansas and Soiree magazines.

AdFed Little Rock, a chapter of the American Advertising Federation, celebrates its centennial this year. Sidney Brooks, who founded the city’s oldest Rotary club 100 years ago as well, started the city’s first advertising agency and this organization as well. Indeed, the year 1914 was truly one for the Brooks.

High Profile, Pages 43 on 03/02/2014

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