This year's Art Director Club's Call for Entries poster addresses the turbulence of our era and where we seem to be heading, as well as the desire by those in the industry to win a Cube. "The ADC Cube is the award that every creative wants to win at least once before they die," says TBWAChiatDay co-creative director Ian Reichenthal, who guided the effort along with co-CD Scott Vitrone. "And the clock is ticking."

"There were lots of disasters and apocalyptic trends that deserved mentioning," Reichenthal adds, "but we scaled it down to our favorite 20 or so. Our choices were based on which ones lent themselves to being illustrated in an interesting way."

The TBWAChiatDay creative team that worked on the assignment reports that, as they researched the history of Armageddon, they turned to medieval woodcuts for inspiration and received a "sign" that they were pointed in the right direction. "In one we saw what looked like the Art Directors Club logo," explains art director Matt Sorrell. "We thought, is this a message?" (Actually, the original logo of the Art Directors Club was inspired by Albrecht Dürer's signature initials. A German Renaissance artist, Dürer is known for his engravings, particularly his Apocalypse series, which dates to the late 1400s. )

Creator of this freeze-frame of havoc is outsider artist Norbert Kox, known for his obsessively religious and apocalyptic imagery. Kox doesn't normally do commissioned work, but agreed because the concept coincided with his worldview. Raw Vision magazine, an outsider art publication, says that Kox "challenges the spiritual beliefs of his viewers." It adds, "using vivid imagery as his tool of instruction, (he) creates what he terms 'apocalyptic visual parables.'"

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