ADC Awards
The ADC Annual Awards is the oldest continuously running industry award show in the world. Now in its incredible 102nd year, these awards celebrate the very best in advertising, digital media, graphic and publication design, packaging and product design, motion, experiential and spatial design, photography, illustration and fashion design all with a focus on artistry and craftsmanship.
Category
Fusion Cube
Annual ID
ADC102_FUS002F
About the Work
WAYFINDING THROUGH BIAS
“Maps are not ideologically neutral location guides. Mapmakers choose what to include and exclude, and how to display information to users. These decisions can have far-reaching consequences.”* When marginalized communities navigate the world, they are asked to do so using tools that prioritize someone else’s worldview. With its new map, Black & Abroad has created a way to see and navigate the United States in a way that centers both Black users and the country’s Blackness. In this way, The Black Elevation Map is transparent and purposeful about its bias.
BLACK & ABROAD AT HOME
Black & Abroad is among the world’s most prominent niche-audience travel brands. Known for its international trips to Latin America, Europe and Africa – and its provocative “Go Back To Africa” campaign – the brand saw an opportunity responding to global shifts in the tourism industry by shifting focus on domestic travel. With Black-owned businesses disproportionately affected by the pandemic (McKinsey), and the brand’s audience at the center of a retraumatizing conversation about systemic racism, we also saw an opportunity to provide uplifting ways for travelers to interact directly with America’s vast network of Black-owned businesses and cultural organizations.
OBJECTIVES
Build the brand’s domestic travel credentials.
Stimulate interest in Black-centered domestic travel.
Create a cultural counterpoint to Black pain narratives.
THE BLACK ELEVATION MAP
An uplifting domestic travel utility for Black & Abroad that visualizes Black cultural data as elevation. The greater the density of data, the higher the elevation.
DATA VISUALIZATION
At the center, a visualization of +330,000,000 points of data, which through exploration reveals insights about population distribution, and where Black-owned businesses and cultural institutions are likely to be present, absent, and in what abundance.
THREE AUDIENCES
Modern Black travelers.
Black-owned businesses and institutions.
Allies.
*“How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America” – Alderman & Inwood.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 90
Fusion Cube
Credits
Agency
Performance Art / Toronto
Design Firm
Vocal Type Co. / Washington D.C.
Digital Agency
Reprise Canada / Toronto
PR / Marketing Agency
Glossy Inc. / Toronto
Client
Eric Martin
Kent Johnson
Client / Brand
Black & Abroad / Atlanta
Production Company
Alfredo Films / Toronto
Music / Sound Production Company
TA2 Sound + Music / Toronto
Post Production Company
Alter Ego / Toronto
Chief Creative Officer
Ian Mackenzie
Designer
Emily Plewes
Director
Kelly Fyffe-Marshall
Director of Photography
Shivam Pandya
Editor
Michael Ofori-Attah
Executive Creative Director
Colin Craig
Account Supervisor
Ricky Gunawan
Associate Creative Director
Benson Ngo
Pedro Izzo
Chief Executive Officer
Andrea Cook
Program Manager
Kaylen Dillon
account director
Jon Rae
Agency Partner
Meta / New York
Analytics Analyst
Abdul Dau
Analytics Manager
Anil Iqbal
Audience
Kinesso / New York
Chief Operations Officer
Elizabeth Sellors
Consultant
Gigi Basanta
Digital Producer
Darwin Garcia
Experience Delivery Lead
Nzegwhua Anderson
Experience Designer
Leon Mullings
Full Stack Developer
Cody Schreiber
Group Director, Product Development
Arnaud Icard
Interface Developer
Heung Lee
Junior Analyst
Shaista Meghji
Lead Developer
John Iacoviello
Media agency
Initiative Canada / Toronto
Quality Assurance Analyst
Nataliya Vislyanska
Quality Assurance Lead
Natalia Zadorozhna
Senior Experience Designer
Joe Szabo
Senior Technical Architect
Valerian Nasqidashvili
Solutions Consultant
Kaivalya Kashyap
SVP, Head of Strategy
Priyanka Goswami
SVP, Managing Director
Jordan Dinning
Technical Solutions Consultant
Suraj Patel
VP, Strategy
Kirk Linkletter
VP, Technology
Stuart Cheesmond
Related Awards
