Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2023

When Thomas Clever and Gert Franke founded their agency in 2008, no one could have foreseen that data visualisation would become a defining topic of our time. Therefore, the task at the beginning was to convince clients of this creative tool and its potential. Ultimately, designers who are passionate about what they do – a passion for complexity and unravelling that complexity, which the two founders share with their now more than 40 employees – simply let great solutions speak for themselves. “Our job is to help people understand the world around them,” say Thomas Clever and Gert Franke.

Unravelling the world’s complexity

From launching the Weather Chart series in 2010, now part of the Stedelijk Museum collection, to revamping the Google research project Consumer Barometer in 2011, to providing infographics for Bill Gates and visualising mobility in Chicago – with all these projects, CLEVER°FRANKE achieved instant success. Their portfolio reflects the general evolution of data visualisation and its diverse applications. Numerous well-known international companies rely on the agency’s expertise to use data as part of their value chain and to cope with the jungle of information. The establishment of a second office in Chicago was a logical next step to strengthen client relationships in the USA.

Sharing knowledge and information is in the nature of things anyway, but it is also part of the CLEVER°FRANKE philosophy. The agency views data visualisation as a team sport where one player can only benefit from the other. The organisation of the Cirque du Data 2019, for example, gave interested visitors insights into the potential of data. And that was by no means the end of it, as the identity for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 and 2021 showed – an identity for which CLEVER°FRANKE had developed a data-driven image language that visually united all participating countries.

Countless awards, well-known clients from all over the world and, last but not least, the certainty of bringing people closer together through the visualisation of complex topics – all this keeps the CLEVER°FRANKE fire burning and will continue to push data visualisation into new dimensions in the future.

Red Dot CEO Professor Dr. Peter Zec congratulates on honorary title

This year, the “Stylus” trophy, created for this honorary title, was passed on to the Dutch agency CLEVER°FRANKE at the festive award ceremony on 3 November in Berlin. “An agency that was considered a pioneer in data visualisation when it was founded in 2008 and has since developed into an internationally sought-after specialist in the translation of complex amounts of data,” says Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of Red Dot, delighted with the choice.

“There is now no doubt that information is the ‘raw material’ of our time. However, this raw material needs shaping so that we can use it socially.”

Alle ausgezeichneten Projekte

CLEVER°FRANKE’s success is also reflected in the numerous awards received in the Brands & Communication Design:

The title of honour “Red Dot: Agency of the Year” is awarded annually to an agency that has won over the jurors for the Red Dot Award with its outstanding design quality. The agency has demonstrated above-average design achievements either in the current competition or over a period of several years. The following agencies have already been awarded the honorary title:

2023 CLEVER°FRANKE
2022 MetaDesign
2021 denkwerk
2020 Interbrand
2019 KW43 Branddesign by Grey Germany
2018 Banda Agency
2017 thjnk
2016 Serviceplan
2015 Leo Burnett Deutschland
2014 Scholz & Friends
2013 Mutabor
2012 601 bisang
2011 beetroot
2010 BBDO
2009 KMS Team
2008 Strichpunkt