Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
WRJ Design Wins 1st in Ad Competition
August 12,
2015 by in Designer Weekly 
Interior design firm WRJ Design of Jackson, Wyo., took first place from the National Newspaper Association for a series of 2015 print advertisements.
The campaign, created by Ed Riddell of Riddell & Riddell, received first place for “Best Single Ad Idea, black and white, daily and non-daily division, circ. less than 10,000" from the association.
WRJ Design is known for interior designs that impart a sense of elegance, harmony and peace through subtly layered textures and muted color palettes inspired by the firm's remarkably beautiful Jackson Hole setting. The deceptive simplicity of its interiors is reflected in the ad campaign, which focuses on a few well-chosen words rather than images.
"We are honored to receive the award," said Rush Jenkins, CEO and founding partner of WRJ Design with CFO Klaus Baer. "We worked with Riddell & Riddell to create the opposite of what many design ads are—photos of rooms. We wanted to surprise with the unexpected while reflecting the WRJ interior design aesthetic through both the content of the quotes themselves, selected from design greats, and through the serenity of the minimalist white-space approach in an age of information and image overload."
Each ad in the campaign features a single quote from a series of design notables including Charles Eames, Pablo Picasso and Le Corbusier, followed by a clever parenthetical personal comment on the words from WRJ Design. The sparse black words are surrounded by simple white space, inspiring the National Newspaper Association contest judges to write of the WRJ Design advertising campaign: "Clean, dynamic ad. Proof that ‘less is more!' Upon seeing this ad, the consumer would have to be intrigued enough to call for a quote. That's the newspaper's job: get the reader interested."
"A sense of discovery is an important part of our work, whether we're designing an exhibition for a remarkable personal art collection for Sotheby's, or designing a residential interior that unfolds in unexpected ways that draw you through the home," Baer said. "We wanted our ads to create that same feeling of engagement and surprise."