Confirming a story that broke on Reel Chicago.com last month, The One Club for Creativity, producers of the prestigious One Show Awards, ADC Annual Awards and Creative Week, today announced that it will indeed induct Burrell along with Rebeca Mndez, Susan Hoffman and David Lubars to the Creative Hall of Fame. Diane Cook-Tench will be named to the Educators Hall of Fame.
“The Creative Hall of Fame is the ultimate recognition of a storied career as a creative professional, and our newest inductees are being honored because of their significant impacts on the advertising and design industries,” said Kevin Swanepoel, CEO of The One Club for Creativity. “These are creatives whose work has transcended advertising, influencing pop culture, uplifting African-American culture, laying the groundwork for the next generation of creatives, and even influencing thought and action on climate change. They are titans of our industry.”
The black-tie gala will take place on Monday, September 18 in the grand ballroom of Gotham Hall in Manhattan. Here are brief descriptions of each inductee’s accomplishments:
Tom Burrell launched what is now Burrell Communications in 1971. By understanding and highlighting the positive aspects of black American culture, Burrell changed the face of American advertising. A collection of Burrell’s advertisements for Coca-Cola is archived at the Library of Congress for its cultural and historical significance.
Rebeca Mndez is an artist, designer, and professor at UCLA, Design Media Arts, where she is director of the CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio dedicated to using art and design to develop creative collaborations, new fields of study, and methods to research, create, and execute projects around the social and ecological impacts of anthropocene climate change.
Susan Hoffman has created some of Wieden+Kennedy’s most memorable work in more than three decades at the agency, including one Nike spot that pretty much ruined the Beatles for everybody. She famously opened W+K London and W+K Amsterdam, and has intermittently served as executive creative director for the Portland, New York and Delhi offices. As co-Chief Creative Officer, Hoffman currently oversees the entire global network.
David Lubars is Chief Creative Officer, BBDO Worldwide and Chairman of BBDO North America. In the 13 years since David joined BBDO, he has helped transform the agency into the most creatively awarded in the world and a recipient of more than 15 Agency of the Year recognitions by various industry publications. His work for BMW Films changed what was thought of as advertising forever. He was named one of the top ten creative directors of all time in a recent story published in Forbes CMO Network.
Diane Cook-Tench is the Founding Director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s grad school, the Brandcenter. Today, the VCU Brandcenter boasts a league of alumni that lead major brand work across the world. Prior to teaching, Diane won over 100 national and international awards for her creative work.
The Creative Hall of Fame has a rich heritage of honoring the lifetime achievements of creative luminaries in advertising and design, such as Mary Wells, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and Lee Clow. You may or may not recognize the name of the very first inductee, a little-known Chicago ad guy named Leo Burnett in 1961.
Follow Colin Costello on Twitter @colincostello10.
