On September 10, AIGA Kansas City handed out its A21 Design Awards, and MBB’s creative team walked in with seven entries and walked out with seven awards. That includes Best in Class in Editorial + Print Design for the Hall Family Foundation 2024 Annual Report and an Innovation Award for the All In Overland Park website.
A team that doesn’t settle for fair
Awards are nice, but what they recognize is the part we’re actually proud of. Every one of these seven projects started the same way, with a creative team that refused to take the first, safest answer and kept digging until they found the one truth about a client that no competitor could claim. We call that finding the unfair, and it’s the difference between work that asks for attention and work that earns it.
Our standard is simple, even if it isn’t easy. We’d rather show a client an idea that makes them a little nervous than one that makes them comfortable, because comfortable rarely gets remembered, and it almost never wins awards. What wins is work built on a truth only that brand can own, pushed further than anyone expected it to go, then crafted until every detail holds up in front of a room full of designers looking for a reason to move on. Judges can spot safe from across the room. They can spot unfair even faster.
We didn’t enter everything we made. We entered the seven pieces we’d put our name on anywhere, and every one of them came home recognized. The whole creative team was in the room to see it happen, and after the late nights and rounds of revisions it took to get this work out the door, they earned every minute of the celebration that followed.
The trophies are a nice bonus, but the work behind them is what really matters. Here’s what won.
The Award-Winning Work
Hall Family Foundation 2024 Annual Report
Best in Class, Editorial + Print Design
The Hall Family Foundation has spent decades improving quality of life across Greater Kansas City, but its 2024 annual report wasn’t built to put the Foundation at the center of the story. It was built around the belief that meaningful change is bigger than any one foundation, organization or initiative. We let that idea lead everything, from the editorial voice and messaging to the typography, photography and layout, creating a book that celebrates the collective impact of partnership with clarity and optimism from cover to cover.
See the Hall Family Foundation work
All In Overland Park
Innovation Award in Website + App Design
Overland Park was never short on energy, livability or momentum. The only thing missing was a unified way for the city to talk about itself. Working with the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce, we built a rally cry, a bold visual identity and a website designed to function less like a marketing site and more like a working resource, giving residents putting down roots, recruiters chasing talent and investors doing their homework the intel they need. The site has already driven more than 900 job searches.
See the All In Overland Park work
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kansas City: 2025 Spark of Hope Gala
Best in Class Editorial + Print
Every night, Ronald McDonald House of Kansas City gives more than 90 families with critically ill children a place to rest close to the care they need. The 2025 Spark of Hope Gala was built on the belief that hope flourishes where it’s nurtured, so we designed an identity to match, with a sun symbolizing the light RMHKC brings to the community, floral illustrations representing growth and subtle art deco details that have come to define Spark. Brought to life across print, illustration and video, the campaign helped the gala raise $1.375 million for children and families facing childhood illness.
See the Spark of Hope Gala work
BikeWalkKC: Look Out for KC
Campaign Award
BikeWalkKC wanted a message that was emotional and hard-hitting, while funding partner MoDOT wanted to promote positive community norms. Instead of choosing between them, we asked Kansas Citians to do something they already do every day: look out for each other. With 68% of fatal and serious crashes happening on just 13% of the city’s roads, we took the campaign straight to those streets with billboards, 54 sidewalk decals telling the stories of real victims, social media, a dedicated landing page and PR support from Parris Communications. The result was more than 1.4 million social impressions, over 26,000 site visits and coverage from local news.
Kinly Furniture
Brand + Identity Award
The furniture industry has always made shoppers choose between quality and comfort at a premium or something affordable and stiff. Kinly set out to end that trade-off, and MBB was brought on to build the entire brand from scratch. We positioned Kinly as “furniture with character,” then built a verbal identity, an inviting logotype, a warm, earthy color palette and a custom library of hand-drawn product doodles so the brand feels as good as the furniture it sells.
St. James Winery: Heritage Collection
Branding + Identity Award
St. James Winery has been crafting fruit wines in Missouri’s Meramec Highlands since 1970, and its Heritage Collection exists to honor that history. We refreshed the collection’s branding and packaging and gave sweet wine lovers a story worth pouring, creating a label system where every bottle carries a piece of Missouri wine country history, supported by copywriting and social content that champion the winery’s sweeter side.
Eastside University
Design for Good Award
Eastside University wanted to change the story being told about Kansas City’s Eastside. Instead of defining young people by what their community lacks, we built a brand around what’s already there: relationships, creativity, trust and possibility. MBB developed the strategy, verbal identity, campaign line, logo and visual system around one central idea – turning social capital into transformation capital – and gave Eastside a brand built to help young people see, and shape, the value all around them.
Seven clients, seven completely different unfairs, and one creative team that found every one of them. If your brand has an edge it hasn’t claimed yet, we’d love to help you find it.
