• by Kelly Samardak , July 28, 2008

AR100&CSR Awards Reception, la.venue, New York
July 24, 2008

When I got the invitation to the AR100 + CSR Award Show cocktail reception, I confused them with BlackBook mag and the fun guide I had hand-delivered to me by Associate Publisher Brian Kantor on the infamous Jet Blue JetVegas flight (thanks, Brian!) You can see how that would happen. What I wasn't confused about was whether or not to go. Open event space in Chelsea? Quirky arty types chugging open bar beverages? Pretty things like slickly designed annual reports? Yes, please!

Yes, I'm nerdy like that. I love a really well-designed annual report. No, I am not being snarky. I swear on the life of Chubby, the dog I don't own yet, that I love flipping through those shiny pieces of collateral doubling as talent-attraction devices and stakeholder informers. Back in my Big Blue days, I would anticipate the delivery of that shiny manual ready to critique, but mostly awed by how the communications team behind it made that hairy corporate behemoth sound ... approachable. Anyway, because I don't have a lot of storage space due to piles of fine cultured literature like OK! lying around, I was geekd for the opportunity to rifle through a stack of 100 top ARs in a variety of different categories. You can scavenge that info on their website , how 'bout that.

Right! So there I headed, really beat from the night before. Exposed beams, shiny buffed hardwood floors, and a long white table checkered with a colorful array of annual reports and corporate sustainability reports (that's the CSR part). Everything smelled new and freshly inked. It reminded me of book order day in middle school. I would cry to my mom and beg for the money to buy at least one brand new book. I loved the smell and feel of the flimsy order forms almost as much as the brand new, non-creased, not-yet-grimed-up-by-my-sweaty-paws books delivered four to six weeks later.

I met Matthew Goodrich, VP of Business Development, Assignment collections by the table displaying last year's compilation, which he modeled with a friend while gulping Coronas. I left them to their own devices and ran into judges Jürgen Riehle and Margot Perman from Real Design Associates. Were they beat from the full day of judging? "People keep saying that to us... 'long day, huh?'... but we really like doing this," countered Perman in her sassy patent leather, red strappy wedges. I covet!

While I hid from the mysterious mid-40's wispy-haired gentleman offering to do vodka shots with me "like my old frat!!" as he angrily gripped a crinkled up lease in his pink hand, I ran into the Polish posse of Fedja Krivosic from Dynamice Capital Management, LLC (I wish I had capital to manage) and Damir Pozderac of Howell Benlanger Castelli Architects. We laughed about the impossibly tall, smoking-hot girls gathered at the back of the room like hunted gazelle, snuffing and pawing the ground over their vodka rocks. On the way out the door in search of a huge salad (but discovering pizza instead at the surprise deliciousness of Don Giovanni's), I ran into the eccentric Jai Karadia, photographer and stylist extraordinaire! -- clad in her green leather vest and Gwen Stephani-esque plaid "whack me!" skirt. We looked familiar to each other, but it hasn't hit me yet where from.

The short version: the pace of this party was perfectly pleasing, the venue bounced the artistic mumbling and book thumbing into a soothing pool of human white noise while the quickly poured vino at the hands of the smiling unpretentious bartender made it seem like there shouldn't have been food there(there wasn't, but it wasn't disruptive!). The people-watching (and avoiding!) was great, the shoes covetable, and the paper felt nice. Oh, and I have to say, my favorite part of the night was the cougar sneak attack bestowed upon my colleague, Gaetano, after I left him alone in search of my next cocktail.

Send invitations to kelly@mediapost.com to have your swank gathering covered in Just An Online Minute!

See who came to party in the online photo set !

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