A look into Daughter's 2024 MCW Design Awards winning entry

2024 Applied Arts Design Awards multiple winner Daughter Creative is an agency built on the mantra of "helping forge identities that are radiant with meaning. This is the power of a resonant brand—economies rise in their wake, cultures emerge, and beautiful truths are offered to the world." This year's campaign by Daughter exemplifies this to a "T", simple, quaint and beautiful. So, how did they approach this campaign for the Alberta Cancer Foundation to obtain such an arresting body of work? Scott Wilson, Design Director at Daughter leads us through some of the process.

Can you walk us through the specifics of creating this piece?

This is one of those rare projects that came to life almost exactly as intended, and I have to credit Alberta Cancer Foundation's team for their boldness and leadership. And ours too, I suppose. It takes a certain confidence to respond to news of a new $1.4 billion world-class research and treatment facility and stories of incredible medical breakthroughs with “what if we showcased a whole lot of nothing in the middle of nowhere?”

Kaitlin Moerman, the photographer we engaged, had a portfolio filled with beautifully quiet images from places across the prairies she had traveled through. Her style captured the stillness and subtle poetry of these overlooked landscapes—perfect for how we wanted to represent Alberta's “backyard”. But her photos have been collected gradually across many years, as coincidence and skill would see fit to meet. These are not the kinds of images you can simply plan in a shot-list then go and shoot. We knew if we did that, it would surely feel contrived and lacking in emotional resonance.

So we had to give ourselves an open schedule, arriving in these small towns and just simply wandering, making space for serendipity. We embraced the silence and emptiness, allowing the quietude of these spaces to speak for itself. Some places we left with nothing. Others, gold.

From there it was a matter of getting the hundreds of photos up on the wall for a few weeks and reviewing over and over, familiarizing ourselves with the catalog. As each written story came through, we'd go over the collection again, finding those images whose quiet dignity best complemented the content of each story.

What was the hardest part when you created this specific piece?

Perhaps the most contentious was selecting the image that would feature on the cover. As mentioned, we knew this wasn't an image we could plan in advance; it would just have to reveal itself to us through the process. This was an uncomfortable place to be in, as we are typically much more aware of what a cover design is going to be before we get so far down the process.

In addition to this, it took a lot of discipline, both in our team and the client's, to avoid the desire to veer off the concept and choose more “exciting” images, given the lofty nature of the words and stories we were telling. The images needed to be beautiful, yes, but more importantly, they needed to show otherwise unremarkable, ordinary scenes, allowing viewers to discover meaning for themselves, contrasting the very remarkable stories within the report. The power was in seeing beauty in the everyday rather than obvious emotional triggers.

What have you learned from creating this piece?

There is no substitute for time. As much as deadlines are becoming increasingly shorter in our industry, along with tools to make things quicker, there are some tasks that cannot be expedited with a late night or extra hands. When you create a piece with a slow and pensive tone, you have to design and create with that same energy. The contemplative nature of the images demanded a similarly thoughtful and unhurried approach to their curation. People will feel it in the end result.

Congratulations to the entire team! Proof that resisting the pressure cooker of time, whenever possible of course, can produce great impactful work.