Touching Down in a Puff of Snow and Frozen Bills Fans’ Tears

This is part four of our 2013 ADDY Recap. (Part one: Best of Show) (Part two: A Word from the Judges) (Part three: Special Award Winners)

Today, we bring you a recap from one of our judges.

For those of you paying attention to how we pick judges, we don’t normally set out to have a judge who is from the area. But when they come highly recommended, run a digital agency in New York, and have been removed from the market for about a decade, we can make an exception.

Dave Fletcher (@davefletcher) is the Founder / Executive Director of The Mechanism, New York. This is his experience coming back to town to judge our show.

I gracefully exited Buffalo in 1994, swept away from one unbelievably frigid place filled with more bars than gas stations to another city (Cleveland), which also had arguably more alcohol than petrol. Despite the seemingly year-round threat of lake effect snow, fear of a probable yeti attack on Elmwood Ave or the misery of being a sports fan in this town, I have never met folk who are more kind-hearted, fun to spend time with… or dare I say it “clever” than in Buffalo. It will always be my home away from wherever I currently live, and if I could simply bottle up just some of the enthusiasm exuded by the people who dwell in this chilly little slice of New York State, I would. Well, I kind of did on my recent trip to Buffalo to judge the Addy’s, but more about that later.

Between DJ’ing at WBNY, The Inn-Between and Mickey Rats (two of them), I was a semi-functional designer after graduating from your Buffalo State College in 1992. I worked for one massive art director Gregg Fox as an intern, freelanced for Marine Midland Bank, and eventually, with a creative titanosaurus in Michael Anthony; my first design “boss” after graduating. In fact, during my tenure with Mike Anthony, we won an Addy for a pizza box design and cheesy, er…cheeky campaign for Picasso’s Pizza. I think we might have even gotten a free slice from them for our hard work.

So back to the semi-present. Opening my eyes as our plane touched down, I was reminded of the quintessential glacial Buffalo landscape — a delicate smashup between the flat earth society and residing on the planet Hoth. Rampaging Wampa may have come into blurry focus as the plane touched down in a puff of snow and frozen Bills fans’ tears. My driver, who should have simply complained about the weather, swapped bartending and sports stories for the entirety of the trip to the Comfort Inn, a luxury hotel filled with various Sabres fans who were in to watch their favorite hockey team get pummeled by whatever opponent was in town. Alcohol becomes the mighty equalizer for many of these fans, but considering that only half of the actual players are hammered during the game, the rest of them have to simply beat each other silly just to stay warm.

Only one other judge had made it into town, due to a hatchet of a storm that likely was brewed by Buffalonian warlocks to keep the real weirdos out, so we travelled to Cole’s with our resilient hosts from the Buffalo Ad Club. Cole’s is a restaurant that also functions as a fully sanctioned boxing ring at 2am, when the kids are really worked up into a froth. In the late 80s and early 90s, I used to go to Coles to hang with smarter people after I got tired of drinking quarter beers (and discussing how we were paying too much for beer) at Mr. Goodbar next door. After a lively debate about the difference and similarities between fried pig anus and calamari, we munched on what used to be trash before the kind folks at the Anchor Bar, turned it into Buffalo Gold — chicken wings.

Time was running out, the bars were only open ‘til 4am… so we took a quick pit stop at Founding Fathers — a bar overrun with bearded intellectuals and a few Sabres fans, drowning the evening’s loss over some microbrews and “make your own nachos,” just like the real “founding fathers” would have liked it. For a second, I felt like I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — but without the fear of a sudden irony attack. One night down and one magical night to go.

After a terrible night’s sleep, I awoke at 2am after having a nightmare about a wide-right kick in Super Bowl XXV… yes, I still have them (and if you must know, they intensify the closer I am to Orchard Park). Rising eventually at 6am, I slipped into my Gortex bodysuit, 12 layers of flannel, and a hat made from a real Seal (the singer, not the cuddly beast) and trekked out into the sharp morning air to find a good cup of coffee to pour over and eventually into my skull. The Spot, inexplicably positioned directly across from a Starbucks — almost as if the Buffalo coffee gods dared Seattle to try to serve coffee on the same street — was perfect. Again, despite the bitter cold, the coffee, baristas and customers were all smiling, the design of the place was inviting, and there I was, in a Gortex bodysuit. I may have been wearing aviator goggles. Anywhere else in the world, I would have been beaten to a pulp for looking so foolish. Here, they practically revered me like a god, or at least as one of them…which in my book is even better.

We were picked up promptly at 9am and hurtled to the local PBS bunker to judge and (likely) be judged by the Buffalo Ad Clubbers. Hordes of coffee and Tim Horton’s were pumped into our stomachs through the feeding tubes that were apparently installed the night before during our pig rectum discussion at Cole’s, to enable us to focus “razor-sharp” on the vastly enticing and exciting entries — a veritable designers cornucopia of creative output. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I went to the big show in the early 90s and one thing stood out — we all kind of sucked compared to the work we reviewed on this day. My only helpful comment would be that the website coders need to pay a little more attention to the order of their JavaScripts (Google “analytics code” at the bottom of the page! You lost points…), and a WordPress site is still a WordPress site, no matter how much effort you put into the theming (you know who you are).

Now, myself and the other judge “what’s his name” were bonding like sailors on a long voyage until, seemingly just in time for free wings and “quarter-sized pepperoni” pizza from La Nova, in waltzed the second “what’s his name” or as I like to lovingly call him, “Thing 2”. After announcing something about how fantastic he looked and repeatedly announcing how much better his parka was than mine, and after I finished weeping, we also bonded like sailors, this time on an ancient hunt for the mighty Kraken — the coveted “Best of Show” award.

After we were forced to take increasingly “nuder” photos for your awards programme, and after the initial humiliation and obvious delight of our (captors) hosts of said nudity, we finished the day by watching the commercial entries and choosing Best of Show, huddled with arms around each other weeping like willows. Now, choosing Best of Show wasn’t an easy task, as many of the entries were most deserving, so we deliberated with a fourth judge, transmitted in via some large mobile device without buttons someone called an “i” Pad (don’t worry, it’ll never catch on, so don’t even bother making your website responsive).

Now for those of you that think being a judge is an easy task, or that we must have been crazy to pick what we finally did instead of your marvelous entry, I say “Bully!” We all took things very seriously, and were very much in sync with our choices. We looked at, held and likely made love to, many of your entries from 9am to 8pm. The best truly won, and if you didn’t get an award, just keep trying. Oh, and be sure to get real drunk at the Addy’s, because I hear they stop serving liquor during the halftime ceremony.

We had a great dinner during our last night with folks that I will now gratefully consider friends, and even more drinks later that night. We all patted each other on the backs for a job well done, and again, despite my painful back welts from one of the judges (you know who you are), I don’t hold any grudges. Only love for my Buffalo brethren. I was with you when the Bills were beaten by Giants, and beaten like dogs in three Super Bowls afterwards. I was there for all that “fun.”

It’s worth supporting organizations run by pros and truly fantastic Creatives like you have. One of the judges nearly got a Buffalo tattoo while we were hanging out at the old Merlin’s on the last night, and the only thing in my mind that was truly crazy about it — is that I didn’t think of doing it first…

…And I have permanent bruises from where Thing 2 slugged me with a La Nova pizza slice, because I disagreed with his opinion on kerning.

Now I mentioned that I managed to nab a piece of Buffalo. My firm has nabbed one of your great Creatives, Michael Anthony —not only because he is a great friend and a better designer, but believe it or not, I truly want some of your Buffalo magic at my agency in New York. My firm, The Mechanism will be better for it, and for a 99 buck flight, you can come visit him, and we’ll talk too…

You’re all REAL, never pretentious and never given the credit you all rightfully deserve. I wanted to buy a “Buffalo Hates You Too” shirt while I was there, not because I thought it was particularly offensive, but because it’s got some attitude. You’re living in a great city — one of the entries used a local band’s tune to narrate the point that Buffalo is rising. It choked me up because I know it’s true.

…There you go. I was moved, because I get it.

So this post is a love letter to Buffalo and its great tradition of creativity and camaraderie as much as an occasionally serious account of my judging experience for the Addy’s. I still think they must have drugged me when they picked me up. Because no freezing, flat, insanely windy place on earth should still be this much fun — more than 10 years after I left.

Ah yes, and a sincere and heartfelt thanks to Jason Yates, Tricia Barrett, Michael and the other great folks from Buffalo for hosting me, and judges Brett McCoy, Joseph R. Stanfa and David Hodge via our iPad chat. You’re all class acts.

xo,
Dave
The Mechanism