CLEVER°FRANKE is Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2023
During the annual Red Dot Gala held on November 3rd in the Konzerthaus in Berlin, design company CLEVER°FRANKE was awarded the title Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2023. The prestigious award recognizes their pioneering work in information and data visualization.
The Red Dot Award is an international design competition highlighting product and communication design globally. Their topmost recognition, the Red Dot: Agency of the Year award, is given annually to an agency that has convinced the jury with outstanding design quality over the last several years.
From Pioneers to Leaders
When asked about this year’s recipient, founder and CEO of Red Dot, Professor Dr. Peter Zec, described CLEVER°FRANKE as “an agency that was considered a pioneer in data visualization when it was founded in 2008, and has since developed into an internationally sought-after specialist in the translation of complex data sets”. Co-founder Thomas Clever adds to this: Today, with more information and data at our disposal than we can imagine, it is easy to lose perspective without the proper guidance. CLEVER°FRANKE has made it their mission to unravel this complexity and make the world easier to understand through their design work.”
“There is no longer any doubt that information is the ‘raw material’ of our time. However, this raw material needs design so that we can use it socially,” Professor Dr. Peter Zec states. Indeed, cofounder Gert Franke’s perspective is that “in the design industry, there are some key issues that require attention: the ethical handling of misinformation, the promotion of diverse collaborations and a strong focus on accessibility. From our perspective, data visualization can have a positive impact on the world primarily through the way we present and talk about information.”
The Red Dot Gala
CLEVER°FRANKE were honored at the annual Red Dot Gala, held in the Konzerthaus in Berlin, in celebration of global design achievements. Many of the world’s top designers and agencies were also celebrated and received awards for their projects. In addition, the “Red Dot Winners Selection 2023” exhibition featuring CLEVER°FRANKE held at the Museum for Communication in Berlin opened on November 4, showcasing the agency’s recent projects. As the first Dutch agency to receive the title of Agency of the Year, CLEVER°FRANKE is aware of the enormity of this moment: “This is a great recognition for the entire team, serving not just as a symbol of our achievements over the recent years, but also as a motivation to keep pushing boundaries and explore new avenues in design”, enthuse co-founder Thomas Clever.
About CLEVER°FRANKE
CLEVER°FRANKE was founded in 2008 by two friends from the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU), Thomas Clever and Gert Franke. Combining their love for graphic design and their entrepreneurial spirit, they saw that the increasingly data-heavy design field was ripe for innovation, aiming to bring data visualization into the mainstream. From the launch of their Weather Chart series in 2010, which has since been included in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, to the Google Consumer Barometer research project in 2011 and visualizing Chicago’s mobility, CLEVER°FRANKE got off to a very strong start.
Today, with offices in Utrecht and Chicago and a team of forty talented people, they focus on creating data-driven solutions that make complex things easier to understand. Using technology and creative design, they explore new ways to represent information in a visual medium. With clients from all around the world, they have recently worked on significant initiatives such as the Corona Dashboard for the Dutch government, identity and brand design for Eurovision 2021, and the Changing Childhood project for UNICEF, which directly demonstrate the benefits that the general public can derive from comprehensible data visualization. In accordance with this, CLEVER°FRANKE’s ultimate goal is to create useful and beautifully designed work that helps people understand things better, and inspires them for a better world.