Graphis International Awards & Publications

Syracuse Students Turn ‘Where Are My Keys?’ into ‘Here’s the Gold!’

GraphisJuly 22, 2024

Ever lost your keys and found them in the fridge? Yeah, us, too. That's why Jenna Byers and Sophia Donio from Syracuse University's Newhouse School turned this universal frustration into "It's Obvious," a clever and humorous ad campaign for Tile trackers. Guided by Professor Mel White, these two creative dynamos landed a coveted Gold in the 2024 Graphis New Talent competition. Their campaign nails the "aha!" moment when you finally find what you're looking for—in the most obvious place and proves that sometimes the best ideas are hiding right under our noses—just like those pesky lost keys. Who knew losing stuff could win awards? Jenna and Sophia did.

By: Jenna Byers & Sophia Donio, Students, Newhouse School at Syracuse University

This series of posters showcases that feeling you get when you finally find a lost object. Oftentimes, when you lose a phone, wallet, or keys, the place where you lost the object seems like it should’ve been the place where you first looked. Sophia and I were prompted to use visual solution advertising to showcase the benefits of Tile, a Bluetooth tracker. We brainstormed together in class and landed on the idea of “It’s Obvious.” We used the method of answering various questions to generate unexpected ideas. To develop a comical approach to visual solution advertising, we enlarged the object to poke fun at how it was so obviously hiding in plain sight.

Some of the challenges were rendering our advertisements to look convincing, with us working through multiple iterations of design work. We also brainstormed different combinations of commonly lost objects before we landed on these three. With the help of feedback from our classmates and professor, we were able to render our final product to its fullest potential.

Our “It’s Obvious” campaign has greatly contributed to our development of our skills in both copywriting and art direction, allowing us to facilitate quick and ‘to the point’ encapsulating copy and surrealist art direction. With our campaign receiving multiple accolades, we have also gained insight into the wonderful opportunity of creating award-winning advertising alongside our peers.

In terms of advice for our fellow creatives, we would say definitely think outside of the box. Sometimes, visual solution advertising can be created from unexpected ideas. Also, once you have a solid insight, just have fun with it! For our campaign, our insight was that “once you find what you’re looking for, the place where you lost it seems obvious.” From there, we came up with our big idea, “We make it obvious where you put your lost object,” which coincidentally became our copy on the print ads themselves. Once we landed on this insight and big idea, we had fun with it.