2012 Legacy Awards

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Are you a game changer?

The Legacy Awards are an internal program recognizing excellence across all of RTKL. An opportunity to reinforce our core values, they also serve to salute firm leaders who have passed on their distinct vision, sense of community and cooperative spirit. Every year, the Legacy Awards invite staff of all levels to leave their own legacy, measuring themselves against the best RTKL has to offer in the categories of creativity, technical quality, collaboration, sustainability, mentorship and social action. This year’s campaign focuses on the change agents. Those individuals whose ideas, talents and actions have impacted their respective fields in a way that’s changed the game forever.

2012, 24" x 36"

The Fosbury Flop

Jim Sailor Creativity Award
Origin: United States
Year: 1968
Medium: Anti-gravitational Propulsion, Metal Bar, Soft Landing

When high jumper Dick Fosbury debuted a new jumping style at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, it wasn’t pretty. Fans laughed and his fellow athletes scoffed, “That’s not how you do it.” When Fosbury’s unorthodox backward approach broke an Olympic record at 7 feet 4 ½ inches and a gold medal was placed around his neck, the sport changed forever.

Have your creative ideas gone over well too?

The Simple Arc

Vernon Moorer Award for Technical Quality

Origin: Canada

Year: 1968

Medium: Bent Wood, Electrical Tape

When hockey player Stan Mikita cracked his stick during a cold afternoon practice, he and fellow Blackhawk Bobby Hull tried snapping it with their bare hands. Frustrated, the two only bent a few blades, leaving the stick with a simple but graceful arc. When Mikita’s slapshots left the boomerang-shaped blade with an unseen velocity, basic physics entered the equation and took the game to a new level of technical excellence.

When it comes to technical quality, are you ahead of the curve?

Our True Colors

Archibald Rogers Award for Social Action

Origin: Republic of South Africa

Year: 1995

Medium: Cotton, Stitching, Sweat, Blood

After almost five decades of apartheid, South Africans (and much of the world) could see only differences and division; and the country’s Springboks rugby team’s notoriously racist fans came to symbolize the country’s unconquered challenges. But on that late June afternoon, in the first Rugby World Cup ever held in the nation, the Springboks gave all of South Africa something to root for. When the Springboks defeated the fierce and heavily favored New Zealanders, there he was—Mandela—wearing the captain Pienaar’s #6 jersey and a Springboks cap. And that simple gesture, perhaps even more than Stransky’s drop goal sailing through the posts late in extra time, was a step toward bringing a fractured country together.

What have you done to spark social change?

Total Football (totaalvoetbal)

Goodluck Tembunkiart Award for Collaboration

Origin: The Netherlands

Year: 1971–1974

Medium: Human Tableau, Grass, Leather Sphere

Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff knew that one man or one position does not carry a side. His Total Football saw the pitch as a series of spaces that needed to be controlled, sometimes with the ball, sometimes without it. Players supported their teammates, shifting to play any position at any given point in the game. Ninety minutes of fluid motion and harmonious discipline. When Ajax won the cup three times running and the Dutch national team took it to the 1974 World Cup, it was clear that Total Football had changed “The Beautiful Game” forever.

Does your project take collaboration to a totaally new level?

Because It’s There

The Sustainability Award

Origin: Tyrolean

Year: 1978

Medium: Leather, Lacing, Lungs

Shaking off claims that it simply could not be done, Reinhold Messner was determined to climb Everest “by fair means,” which is to say without supplemental oxygen. And this is exactly what he did in early May, 1978, along with fellow Tyrolean mountaineer Peter Habeler. Determined to redefine the sport, the two men conquered the mountain despite their limited resources and achieved legendary status. When skeptics—and there are always skeptics—claimed it must be some type of trick, Messner did it again two years later, solo.

Has taking a sustainable approach helped your work to reach new heights?

The Iron Hammer

Joseph Scalabrin Award for Mentoring

Origin: China

Year: 1960–present

Medium: Wood, Steel, Wisdom

Because volleyball is to sport what calculus is to simple addition, no one plays the game at the international level without the help of a mentor, someone who makes them better, smarter, more adept at seeing patterns and variables. And, no one has made a more influential international impact on the sport than Lang Ping, the Iron Hammer. Leaving her legacy in China, the US and now Italy, she not only became the first woman to coach a first rank team, but has steered more teams to Olympic glory and significant titles than any other coach.

Has your mentor helped you get to the top of your game?

For more work from Bryant, please visit:
http://www.bryantyeedesign.com