The Skokie Park District's marketing team today won 'Best in Show' for its first prize in the 'Brochure Series' category at the Illinois Agency Showcase competition. The award recognizes the district creative team's work on its four 2013 seasonal program guides, which featured a retro look in celebration of the district's 85th anniversary.

View the seasonal guides here:
Winter 2013 • Spring 2013 • Summer 2013 • Fall 2013

Designing full-color interior pages for the first time, the team decided to highlight the change by featuring a mixture of color, black-and-white, and sepia tone photos from the district’s historical archive. The design theme around these photos – ​some more than a century old – ​utilized kitschy mid-century modern fonts and illustrations (some original). Two seasonal photos – one retro, one modern – were juxtaposed on each of the four publications' covers. Entries were judged on writing, layout and cover design, organization and special features.

The district's marketing department has won 16 state design and publication awards since 2004.​ The professionally-judged Illinois Park & Recreation Association's 'Agency Showcase' competition, held at the industry's annual state conference in Chicago, spotlights creative ideas in marketing and communication.