« Back to Main

STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC RECEIVES TOP HONOR IN POSTER DESIGN FROM ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN MUSEUMS

By

APRIL 25, 2005, MEMPHIS, TN – The Stax Museum of American Soul Music announced today that it has received First Prize from the American Association of Museums (AAM) in the 2005 Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design. The award was given to the Stax Museum for a promotional poster for the exhibit “Blaxploitation: Funky Films and Soundtracks of the 1970,” a collection of more than 50 rare, original movie posters from the “blaxploitation” film genre of the 1970s.

The poster was designed by carpenter/sullivan, a Memphis-based advertising, marketing and public relations firm, and was a collaboration between the firm, the Stax Museum, and the owner of the exhibit, John Kisch of Separate Cinema, who owns the world’s largest collection of African-American film memorabilia.

Information about the award is posted on AAM’s web site, www.aam-us.org, and the poster will be on display during AAM’s 99th Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo May 2-6, 2005.

Nashid Madyun, Director of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, said, “For the Stax Museum to be not two years old yet, and to receive this kind of recognition in the company of such great institutions is an honor of which we are very proud and very grateful. Our marketing firm who designed the poster, carpenter/sullivan, is a tremendous resource to us on a daily basis.”

According to Doug Carpenter, principle with carpenter/sullivan, "As a client, Stax Museum continuously offers our firm great creative opportunities because of its energy, vision and uniqueness. While our soul focus is doing great work for great clients, we must admit that it is an honor for the results to be recognized by others."

The 25th-annual AAM Museum Publications Design Competition drew more than 900 entries from museums across America and around the world. Judges selected 130 museum publications—exhibition catalogues, invitations, posters, and press kits among them—as the winners of this year’s competition.

Pub Comp, which acknowledges excellence in the graphic design of museum publications, is the only national, juried event involving publications produced by museums of all kinds and sizes. Twenty-four received a first prize, 20 received a second prize, and 86 received an honorable mention.

The Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design—referred to as the “Franny”—was established in 2000 in honor of the late editor-in-chief of the National Gallery of Art who helped create the competition. It is fitting that in this anniversary year, the “best-of-show” award went to the National Gallery of Art for the exhibition catalogue Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, designed by Wendy Schleicher.

Competing institutions were divided according to budget: museums with annual operating budgets of $500,000 or less and those with budgets of more than $500,000. Within each budget division, entries competed in 16 categories, including books, educational resources, newsletters, fund-raising materials, scholarly journals, and CD-ROMs. Entries in all 16 categories were eligible for the Franny.

This year’s esteemed judges were:

• Andrea Stevens, director of strategic communications, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Washington, D.C.

• Robert Wiser, art director, Archetype Press, Silver Spring, Md.

• Ann Kolakowski, editor, The Goucher Quarterly, Goucher College, Baltimore • Judy Metro, editor-in-chief, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

• Rodney Williams, creative director, RCW Communications Design, Falls Church, Va.

• Diana Folsom, manager of art and education systems, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CD-ROM judge)

For more information, contact Tim Sampson 901-946-2535 or by email at tim@soulsvilleusa.com.