Playful Cubism + A Minimally Invasive Billboard: Advertising 2023 New Entries

Cubism comes out to play and a billboard makes fun use of empty space with these entries from our 2023 Advertising competition.

Located in Rochester NY, the Strong National Museum of Play is one of the largest history museums in the United States. As its full name suggests, the Strong houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of materials related to play and is a leading museum in serving families with highly interactive exhibits and programs. One of the biggest events it hosts every year is its induction ceremony of new video games into its World Video Game Hall of Fame, and to promote this year’s collection, the museum elected the team at Partners + Napier to create posters that present iconic video game characters as modern-day works of art. David Cowles, who has illustrated for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair Fame, provided a series (above) of gorgeous cubist artwork, utilizing rich colors and geometric forms that harken back to Pablo Picasso’s earliest works. Featuring many beloved video game characters such as Laura Croft and Donkey Kong, the posters brought out the inner child in many adult visitors. In fact, the Strong was inundated with so many requests for poster purchases that the museum now sells copies in its gift shop.

GLNA Minimally Invasive Outdoor” (above) is a billboard ad created by Extra Credit Projects for Great Lakes Neurosurgical Associates. Founded in 2010, the medical practice houses experts in minimally invasive procedures to help patients treat conditions that affect the body’s nervous system. To keep their brand top of mind in the market, this billboard ran in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the Great Lakes is located. Unlike many medical advertisements, the team at Extra Credit took a more light-hearted and humorous approach to promote the medical practice by keeping the majority of the billboard blank, with just the practice’s name, logo, and the tagline “Minimally Invasive Neurosurgeons,” as the focus. At the top of the billboard, however, the tops of Great Lakes founding physicians’ heads can be seen peeking out, a literal take on practice’s focus on minimally invasive procedures by having the physicians “minimally invading the billboard.”

To learn more about submitting your own entries to our 2023 Advertising Annual, visit graphis.com!

Author: Graphis