Adrian Elton's cover for the May/June 2020 issue has been crowned the AdNews Cover of the Year.
The Cover of the Year is chosen by the most popular vote among AdNews readers.
In a year marked with many bumps along the way, it was clear that these hurdles were not a hindrance to creativity.
From a pig in lipstick to the renaissance of the QR code, the creatives we called on continued to deliver absolute gold with their 2020 AdNews covers.
Agencies including DAYLIGHT Agency (now Chris + Geoff), whiteGREY, M&C Saatchi, VCCP and BMF, alongside freelance creative Adrian Elton and the team behind diversity initiative Changing the Face were given briefs to tackle topics ranging from digital attribution and sports rights to the rise of gaming and life in the COVID-19 pandemic.
All resulted in brilliant covers and demonstrated creativity reigns supreme, even in crisis.
The May-June issue took a deep dive into the lucrative world of esports and gaming.
To bring the magazine’s cover to life, AdNews called on the talented Adrian Elton to spin his magic and create a cover in the midst of lockdowns.
Elton went back in time and used a retro game controller as the centrepiece for the cover, but it was no ordinary controller. It also doubled as a cash register to showcase the financial opportunities esports and gaming offer brands.
Elton says creating the cover was an "unambiguous" career highlight.
"So many emails are innocuous and banal, triggering bouts of irritable vowel syndrome. So I was caught completely ‘Pauline Pantsdown’ when I received the email confirming that I’d won the AdNews 2020 cover of the year," Elton says.
"It was like a galaxy of acupuncture needles improvising a ‘Mexican wave’ across my body. Once the capacity to breathe had returned, the Cheshire cat grinning was simultaneously punctuated by heightened feelings of incredible gratitude and amazement. Gratitude to have been invited to contribute a cover in the first place.
"And amazement to have landed at the pointy end of a competition, so absolutely top full with peers whose boots I am unfit to chew upon. While that mainly relates to these shoddy under-the-counter dentures, there were nonetheless so many great covers and so many great concepts.
"Without doubt - an unambiguous honour to be among them. But the best part of all, is that on account of winning, I no longer need to recall Judge Rudy from his brand new posish at ‘Four Seasons Total Landscaping’. I can just kick back and hold my trophy aloft, like Rafiki and Zumba."
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