Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia wins the NGV’s $30,000 Rigg Design Prize, one of Australia’s highest design accolades

October 2022: A blood donation campaign driven by the power of emotional response has been announced as the winner of NGV’s Rigg Design Prize 2022. Leo Burnett Australia has been awarded $30,000 for their concept of Can creativity make you bleed?. On display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia since Friday 7 October, the 2022 Rigg Design Prize highlights the creativity underpinning the work of eight leading Australian-based agencies.

Installation view of Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 – 29 January 2023. Photo: Tobias TitzInstallation view of Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 – 29 January 2023. Photo: Tobias TitzLeo Burnett Australia Transit Shelter from Can creativity make you bleed? for Rigg Design Prize 2022 Image courtesy of Leo Burnett AustraliaLeo Burnett Australia Transit Shelter from Can creativity make you bleed? for Rigg Design Prize 2022 Image courtesy of Leo Burnett Australia

For the exhibition, each agency developed a suite of campaign assets – including billboards, street posters and moving image – to celebrate how creativity can shape who we are and the world we live in. Can creativity make you bleed? tests the power of creativity to evoke emotion and motivate action. Spotlighting the community’s need for blood donation, each campaign asset is designed to trigger an emotional response – anger, joy, fear, or disgust – that could prompt Australians to commit to giving blood.

Now in its ninth edition, the triennial Prize is Australia’s highest national accolade for contemporary design bestowed by an Australian public gallery and seeks to profile a different field of design practice every three years. This is the first exhibition of communication and advertising design in the Prize’s history and highlights the wealth of design talent in these sectors.

Installation view of Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 - 29 January 2023. Photo: Tobias TitzInstallation view of Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 - 29 January 2023. Photo: Tobias Titz

Including the Australian offices of multinational and independent creative agencies, other finalists invited by the NGV to compete for the Prize were: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, DDB Group Melbourne, Frost* collective, Gilimbaa, TBWA\Melbourne, The Royals and Thinkerbell.

The agencies were challenged to create a campaign that articulated the potential of creativity to accelerate positive social, cultural, economic, or environmental change. The eight exhibited campaigns represent a call to action for Australia to realise its ‘creative potential’.

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV, said: ‘This year’s Rigg Design Prize has tasked some of the nation’s top communications agencies to highlight the role of creativity in creating a better world. This exhibition highlights the incredible creativity that empowers advertising and communication design, a discipline which is seldom celebrated in public art institutions. Leo Burnett Australia joins previous Rigg Design Prize winners in showing the power of design and creativity to spark real and meaningful change, not only to human perceptions, but also behaviour.’
Installation view of Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 – 29 January 2023. Photo: Tobias TitzInstallation view of Can creativity make you bleed? by Leo Burnett Australia, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 – 29 January 2023. Photo: Tobias Titz

The work was judged by a panel including Beatrice Galilee, Co-Founder and Executive Director of The World Around, Ewan McEoin, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, NGV and Morry Schwartz, founder of Schwartz Media.

The judging panel selected this year’s winner based on a clear strategic approach, an original and compelling idea, plus the capacity for impact.

On selecting Leo Burnett Australia as the 2022 Rigg Design Prize winner, the judging panel commended the agency for not only using all the available media to the best of their ability – language, image, and installation - but also for displaying exceptional craft to reveal just how powerful and diverse the creatives forces of advertising can be.

The other campaigns in the 2022 Rigg Design Prize were:

● CREATIVITY WAS HERE: CLEMENGER BBDO, MELBOURNE

● ​ THE CREATIVE INDEX: DDB GROUP, MELBOURNE

● ​ ANY IDEAS: FROST*COLLECTIVE, SYDNEY

● ​ UNLEARN THE UNTRUTH: GILIMBAA, BRISBANE

● ​ EVERYTHING GROWS WITH CREATIVITY: TBWA, MELBOURNE

● ​ WITHOUT STORE: THE ROYALS, MELBOURNE

● ​ INVALUABLE SCRATCHIE: THINKERBELL, MELBOURNE

Installation view of Invaluable scratchie by Thinkerbell, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 - 29 January 2023. Photo: Tom RossInstallation view of Invaluable scratchie by Thinkerbell, Melbourne on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 - 29 January 2023. Photo: Tom RossInstallation view of Any Idea? by Frost*collective, Sydney on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 - 29 January 2023. Photo: Tom RossInstallation view of Any Idea? by Frost*collective, Sydney on display in the Rigg Design Prize 2022 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia from 7 October 2022 - 29 January 2023. Photo: Tom Ross

The NGV’s design curators undertook national research to establish a shortlist that would represent and showcase the breadth of excellence in Australia’s advertising and creative communications sector. Participating agencies include long-established leaders and disruptors, and agencies that have carved out their own unique space through their focus and specific approach. When exhibited together, the eight agencies provide a unique insight into the creative process and the motivations and aspirations of some of Australia’s most dynamic professionals working in the field.

The Rigg Design Prize 2022 is on display until 29 January 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square, Melbourne, Australia. Free entry. Further information is available via the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE

Rigg Design Prize 2022: Talk & Tour is a free event on 15 October, 12 pm – 4.30 pm, with NGV curators leading a tour with representatives from the eight agencies to introduce their concepts and creative campaigns

THE RIGG DESIGN PRIZE

Now in its ninth edition, the triennial Prize is Australia’s highest national accolade for contemporary design bestowed by an Australian public gallery and seeks to profile a different field of design practice every three years. In 2022, the Prize exhibition showcases the capacity of advertising and communication design to influence how we consume, act, and behave as a society, while drawing attention to the creative minds behind the campaigns working across graphic design, typography, digital media, film, psychology, and creative writing.

The Rigg Design Prize is a generous legacy of the late Colin Rigg (1895–1982), a former secretary of the NGV’s Felton Bequests’ Committee. Previously known as the Cicely and Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award, the invitational prize was established in 1994 to recognise contemporary design practice in Victoria. In 2015, for the first time in the award’s twenty-year history, the Rigg included shortlisted designers from across the country. In previous years, the Prize has celebrated achievements in jewellery, furniture, and interior design.

THE JUDGING PANEL


​BEATRICE GALILEE - CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR THE WORLD AROUND

Beatrice Galilee is a London-born curator, writer and cultural advisor who is internationally recognized for her expertise in global contemporary architecture and design. She is the author of Radical Architecture of the Future, published by Phaidon in 2021, and between 2014-2019 served as the first curator of contemporary architecture and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Currently living in New York, Galilee is co-founder and executive director of The World Around, a new platform for contemporary design and architecture that is in residence at the Guggenheim Museum. Beatrice is a visiting associate professor at Pratt Institute where she lectures on curating.

EWAN MCEOIN - HUGH D.T WILLIAMSON, SENIOR CURATOR OF CONTEMPORARY ART, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA

Ewan McEoin is the Hugh D.T Williamson Senior Curator of the Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria. This department is responsible for commissioning, collecting, and exhibiting Australian and International contemporary design and architecture. Ewan leads the Department of Contemporary Art at the NGV. He is part of the leadership team working on the delivery of NGV Contemporary, a new 30,000m gallery for 21st Century art, design and architecture which will open in 2028.

MORRY SCHWARTZ AM – FOUNDER OF SCHWARTZ MEDIA, PUBLISHER OF INFLUENTIAL NEWSPAPER, THE SATURDAY PAPER, THE MONTHLY AND THE QUARTERLY ESSAY.

Morry began his publishing career at the age of 23, when he began Outback Press, publishing poetry and fiction. In a career spanning just on 50 years, Morry has built a reputation for publishing the highest quality journalism in the country.

Sarah Ferrall

Associate Director, Camron PR

Grace Englefield

Account Director, CAMRON

Get updates in your mailbox

By clicking "Subscribe" I confirm I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy.

About National Gallery of Victoria

About NGV

Founded in 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is the most visited and oldest public art institution in Australia. The NGV is one of the top 20 most visited museum complexes in the world with more than 3 million visitors recorded in 2019. The organisation currently spans across two venues in the City of Melbourne – NGV International on St Kilda Road and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square. NGV Contemporary, once completed, will from the third site for the organisation, enabling the NGV to present a dynamic schedule traversing contemporary, historic, national and international art and design.

Housing a vast treasury of more than 83,000 works, the NGV holds one of the most significant collections of art and design in the region and the largest in Australia. The NGV Collection spans thousands of years – from antiquity to the present day – and covers a wealth of ideas, disciplines and styles from Australia and around the world. The NGV holds one of the leading collections of Indigenous Australian art in the world.

NGV attendance has more than doubled its growth in recent years, with 1.57 million visitors in 2012 to about 3 million visitors per year in 2019. With more than 1.23 million visitors, the inaugural NGV Triennial, held in 2017, remains the NGV’s highest attended exhibition to date. Occurring every three years, the NGV Triennial is a large-scale exhibition of art, design and architecture, featuring the work of leading contemporary artists and designers from countries across the globe. 

 In late 2020, the Ian Potter Foundation pledged the single biggest grant in the foundation’s history – towards the build of NGV Contemporary, launching an ambitious and ongoing fundraising campaign for the new building.