Loerie winner makes a creative impact
Creating classic and never to be forgotten advertisements is no easy task, but for Sean van der Westhuizen it is just another day on the job.
The 31-year-old former Northmead resident was recently awarded a Gold Loerie and a Grand Prix Loerie, as an agency art director, at the 34th annual Loerie Awards.
The Loerie Awards are about recognising creativity and the Grand Prix is not awarded to just anyone, but only the most deserving creative work.
“To receive a Grand Prix for a piece of creative work is the top honour of the Loeries,” said Sean.
The winning work was a mobile application for a brand called Mi-Fone, Africa’s first mobile device brand.
“The app, Oju Africa, bought to life the idea I came up with to introduce the world’s first ever set of African emoticons,” said Sean.
Those emoticons are called Afro-Emoticons and the specific app was entered into the digital and interactive communication category (mobile applications and sites).
Bringing to life such a ground-breaking app demands teamwork, and the creative team included Eserick Fouché (executive director and designer), Zelia Fouché (designer) and Gregory Walker (illustrator).
Of the 260 awards that were handed out during this year’s Loeries, four were Grand Prix.
“This means that the Oju Africa app was recognised as one of the four most creative pieces of advertising in South Africa in the past year,” said Sean.
Winning such an award will have a tremendous impact for Sean’s career and will certainly put him on the advertising map.
“These awards have put me in third place on the agency art director table in the Loeries official rankings for 2014,” he said. ,
He was humbled when his name was called amongst the winners, because of the amount of hard work he contributed to make the idea a reality, and most importantly that the rest of the art world has recognised its greatness.
The passionate art director has been involved in the advertising industry for the past 10 years and still enjoys the creative climate that his work offers.
“I enjoy coming up with cool new ideas and bringing them to life, and I love that these ideas can change the world and make it better than it was before,” said Sean.
His career began at Ogilvy Agency, in Johannesburg, and has since worked in a number of other agencies.
“At the time of creating the Oju Africa app, I was working at an agency called One Kingdom based in Rosebank and I now work for Workbench Agency, based in Bryanston,” said Sean.
As a senior art director, his job has certainly offered him the opportunity to work in a number of different platforms that offer their own uniqueness.
“Advertising art directors are responsible for what an advert looks like, we are involved in creating campaigns that have an instant impact on consumers in order to promote the brand that is being advertised,” he added.
Thus he is involved in different platforms of advertising, which include advertising on TV, radio, internet and posters.
He has contributed to a number of popular and never to be forgotten adverts such as the Sun International campaign that starred Charlize Theron, 2010 Soccer World Cup ad campaign for Coca-Cola and has worked on the ProteaFire TV advert for the South African Protea Cricket team.
His advice to young people interested in the advertising industry is to know that advertising has the ability to change the world.
“Advertising conveys a message to a large group of people at a time, and the right message conveyed to enough people has the ability to change the world.
“So, if you wish to change the world, then consider a career in advertising,” he said.
