Young Creative Chevrolet 2011 Annual Award Night

When big corporations need to win us over to their products they need publicity and product attractiveness. What better way than getting the fashionable and creative amongst us to tell them what we find cool, now how creative are ePHOTOzines photographers?

Roll on the 2011 (and 2012) European competitions, and lots of euro’s to win at lots of levels, oh, and a few photo’s to take.

So, “Are you a student at a school of applied arts in Europe, under 30 years old and interested in submitting a piece of your own work or as part of a group?”

Good news Chevrolet needs, perhaps really needs, your help!

To drive the point home this year’s 2011 award ceremony had some excellently cool presenters, people that built nationwide & worldwide trends, how great if someone could spot and capture this talent through ePHOTOzine and embody the Spirit of Design for Chevrolet.

Neville Brody, a legend in Typography (stay with me), a punk whose tutors thought his work un-commercial, he now works for the Times design team. He was a major influence on creative new magazines & record labels. Now consulting with many large organisations he reckons the internet is losing its initial creativeness and needs to be pulled back into fresh new creative ways of communication. He says this digital revolution we think we are in is misnamed, its actually a worldwide culture and information revolution. The point he strongly makes is that we all need to feel individual and be free to feel in control of our own lives.

Maybe to illustrate being in control Chevrolet had a giant LCD screen with guests painting a car from an array of about 60 colours, now that’s neat. I wonder when I can print my latest landscape or an abstract image on my car door panel?



Awards for each of the categories were presented throughout the night, yes of course the photo awards were the most interesting, well maybe just after the little black dress award for fashion ;-)

First place	Second place	Third place

The 2011 brief was 100 years of Chevrolet, each photo had a recent and old Chevrolet in shot. ePHOTOzine members could really shine here, heck we could almost do better on a Monday Night Challenge. Only Kidding Juliana Krížová and Jakub Vlcek from the Univerzita Tomáše Bati in the Czech Republic ;-). Of course you would also need to be an “under 30 year old student at a school of applied arts in Europe.” Go register & check out the brief for 2012.

Wayne Hemingway, Fashionista’s amongst you may remember this Chevrolet presenter as the Joint founder of Red or Dead and a good northern lad who done good by always being involved in the next big thing. His advice to new designers is to know why you’re a designer, know what you are good at, know what makes you special, develop a philosophy of what you stand for, know your brand – good advice for any photographer. Have you heard of northern soul and funk music, well maybe it’s worth checking out as if Wayne likes it its likely to be the next big thing.

He’s always been thrifty and even now buys second hand clothes and adjusts them to suit, of course this is now a new fashion we call Vintage! His advice is to sell to real people, the masses, lots of people who want a good deal, you can see why Chevrolet might like him. He’s also minded to look after Mr/Ms average with attacks on poorly designed housing and children’s play areas etc, his message seems to be to make whatever you produce to look fun, think Journeyman and bandage masks for fun photographs. His other message is to recycle and up cycle, reuse and re-create, a few other names popped into my head Paree and eviscera perhaps?



We also met Academy award nominee Lucy Walker who spoke about amazing people and gifted videographers and discussed her film Wasteland in which Brazilian rubbish sorters took pride in doing everything well with one inspiring phrase, 99 is not 100! Make sure you do what you need to and do it right as every single thing is impotant. Whilst others in the film who then saw the film saw like in a totally different way, life can be full of discoveries both new and old and all can enrich both us and those around us if we can only find a way to communicate the knowledge.

Chevrolet’s Volt is a new electric car based on their forward thinking ideas and passion for design. Their chief interior designer presented ideas that Chevrolet were determined to carry forward as their signature elements, though personally this list seemed at odds with the lightweight fun designs spoken about by the earlier presenters. This list included Twin cockpits, twin (dual port) lights, twin bars on the radiator grill, all this car jewellery seemed more like Chevrolets own heavy baggage imposed on the car than perhaps what us in Europe might want. I seem to remember a Chevy was a simple stylish car that just did what was needed. President Wayne Brennan looks to be bringing some new stylish essence back into the brand even if some of the designs are still quite out there for daily use; I wonder if/doubt they will catch on and be cool to the masses just yet? Perhaps the focus is still on the few, not the masses, the new Chevrolet Miray roadster may be clever but not very fashionable for everyday even if it is a zero emission vehicle. I guess I’ll have to see if Wayne Hemingway buys one, second hand of course.

Chevrolet are also doing some rather cool charity work by giving away 100 cars to needy kids families and groups worldwide. There is lots of energy with them and you kind of hope they can catch some essence of cool Britannia in their product range, thanks for a fun night and seeing a very human endearing side to some of the players in the corporate world.

For more information please visit the Young Creative Chevrolet website.