Bronze & Merits: RT’s educational projects #1917LIVE and #Romanovs100 honored at 98th ADC Awards

One of the world’s oldest industry award shows, the ADC Awards, has recognized RT’s innovative book “#1917LIVE: Revolution in Tweets,” as well as the team’s original use of century-old technology to promote history learning.

The ADC Annual Awards is one of the most prestigious awards in design, marketing and advertising. This year, at a ceremony that took place in New York on Monday, the prizes for creative achievements were awarded for the 98th time, which makes ADC the world’s oldest continuously running award.

The #1917LIVE: Revolution in Tweets book scooped the Bronze Cube in the Innovation/Publication Design category. The other winner in this category, the New York Times’ Fake News Stand, scored silver.

Telling the story of the revolution that did away with the monarchy of the Russian Empire, #1917LIVE was a crowd project on Twitter that simulated those dramatic events in “real time.” Dozens of accounts were set up by the creative team and history enthusiasts from all over the world to relive the revolution from the point of view of the Tsar and his loyalists, workers, police, the Bolsheviks, and many others.

The book which followed the project became a dynamic and interactive Twitter-style dive into history learning. It sought to preserve the crowd experience gained through the online platform, while QR-codes used on the pages brought an additional dimension to the learning experience.

A spin-off from #1917LIVE, the #Romanovs100 project focused on the private, behind-the-scenes lives of Russia’s last emperor, Nicholas II, and his family. The project’s teaser videos and posters were honored by the ADC’s Merit awards in the Motion/Film Craft and Photography/Social Media nominations respectively.

The teasers were made to bring actual photos taken by the Romanov family to life. Looking into what might have been happening just seconds before the actual pictures were taken, they were shot on 16mm and 8mm film to add authenticity to the image.

The posters looking into the individual character of the last ruling family members were created utilizing the ambrotype technique, which was invented back in the 1850s. In ambrotype photography, the print is created on glass, not paper. This makes each image unique and unreproducible.

#1917LIVE is a three-time Cannes Lyons finalist and has already been honored by 25 awards, including Webby, Epica, Shorty, and others. Just last April, the #Romanovs100, too, added a Shorty award to its collection of prizes. This was for the Best Images, beating notable campaigns by Alexander McQueen, Pantone & NFL.

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