‘King of Soca’ Cops Top Prizes at ADDY Awards.

Photo credits: Michelle Jorsling

King of Soca, the book by Elizabeth “Lady” Montano has taken two top prizes at the Caribbean Advertising Awards.

The book, designed by Praktis Design Limited, won the top prize for Best of Print and Overall Best in Show. The book also won the Gold ADDY for Book Design and Silver for Publication Cover Design.

This was Praktis’ first time entering the ADDY Awards.Judges cited the entry for exceptional art direction and design decisions with stunning graphics from cover to cover.

“The design is disruptive, unsafe and unexpected. It was storytelling that just screamed beautiful,” the judges said. The Praktis design team comprised Blayne Clark, Creative Direction; Marlon Darbeau, Creative Direction; Melanie Archer, Design Management; and Patrick Rasoanaivo, Graphic Design.

The experienced team — lead by partners Marlon Darbeau and Blayne Clark, have also won three silver medals for campaign, website, and cover design. This award-winning work was also completed for Prudecon, a Trinbagonian engineering firm and Inspiration Labs, owned by noted Executive Coach Scott Hilton-Clarke. Praktis competed with more than 552 entries from 6 Caribbean nations.

Elizabeth Montano, mother of Machel Montano and author of King of Soca, said Praktis was selected to design the book as a result of the work they did in designing the packaging of the Montanos chocolate. “I’m very thrilled and extremely excited about the prestigious win. Praktis did the design of our chocolate package in 2018. I was very impressed so when I decided to write the book, I was convinced that they would do the design.  Machel and I decided what we wanted to go with and I gave them the images from our archives and Praktis created the magic,” she said

“They were chosen because they were young, fresh and extremely creative. They didn’t disappoint. Praktis is very impressive. I spotted the talent the first time I saw their work. It’s amazing. To win the Best Show is huge. Thank you Praktis for bringing it home. Thank you to my team also.  The work was worth it,” she added.

Praktis was also very honoured to work with Lady and her team.

“Lady is a very discerning client, who expects the highest quality in all things, and we love that. She and her team’s high expectations, allow us to push both our own and their limits, which is why we continue to produce great work together. The MCCL brand, MM60 packaging and now the King of Soca book have all been challenging but very enjoyable projects that resulted in strong design,” they said.

King of Soca is a 308-page book chronicling Machel’s 40-year career.

It is replete with images capturing people, moments and events, as well as anecdotes of experiences and opportunities ranging from exhilarating to harrowing. It presents expected and unexpected voices of contributors to Machel’s career, and purveyors of the wider music and entertainment industry. It does all this while giving us some access to his inner world.

The Caribbean ADDY competition, the first leg in a three-tier awards process, was described as one of the largest competitions in the US and Caribbean. 

Winners from AAF-Caribbean will compete with winners from Florida at the District Competition with winners being announced mid-May. 

The third and final tier of the competition includes winners from all 15-multi-state districts to compete as finalists in the American Advertising Awards competition.