The Reggie Candappa Craft Awards are back to celebrate and recognize the genius of craft in creativity. This marks five years of the awards ceremony organized by the Reggie Candappa Foundation for the Arts and will be held on the 3rd of December this year.

The Reggie Candappa Craft Awards are targeted at rewarding committed and inspired individuals passionate about achieving excellence in their respective fields. The awards are conducted by The Reggie Candappa Foundation for the Arts and serve as a fitting tribute to the godfather of the local advertising industry, the late Deshabandu Reggie Candappa, a man whose influence on, and contribution to the advertising field, lives on in the generation of advertising professionals who trained under his inspirational guidance and who today, pass on his high standards of creativity and commitment to perfection.

Mrs. Neela Marikkar, daughter of late Deshabandu Reggie Candappa and the Managing Director/Chairperson of Grant McCann Erickson said "Creativity is an attribute that needs to be nurtured and nourished; Reggie Candappa was someone who knew just how to do this. He was a true lover of both the art and the artist.  For everyone who came into contact with him in the field of advertising, it was an opportunity of learning and he had a hand in fashioning the early footsteps of some of today’s creative greats’ in the industry. As such the RC Awards is one way to continue the wonderful legacy that he left behind."

The Awards were conceptualized by Reggie Candappa’s family on the first anniversary of his passing and have been showcasing the crafting talent and artistic ability of the advertising industry in Sri Lanka since 2004. The awards place emphasis on highlighting the talent and ability of the local industry in the print and electronic mediums, embracing both above and below the line advertising. While other shows look for creativity in general or effectiveness or both, the Reggie’s have created categories never judged in Sri Lanka before. These categories seek the true art of the industry and will encompass a television category with awards being presented for Concept and Art Direction, Cinematography and Direction, and in the vein of last year, this year too there will be a category for Radio for best Concept, Direction, original composition, and use of sound effects. The Above and Below The Line print ads category will see awards being presented for typography, logo usage, use of illustration, photography, copywriting and art direction, and the Graveyard Category, for best copywriting and art direction in print, recognizes exceptional creative efforts which have not had the opportunity to be executed. Bringing the total number of categories to 17 under the first three segments; TV, Radio and Print – plus 2 grand awards; Best in Copywriting and Best in Art Direction.

Entries, which close on the 14th of November, are now open to all agencies, production houses, individuals and freelancers involved in advertising and allied fields to present and be recognized and rewarded for their most skillfully crafted advertising art forms. Submissions can take any form of ads created and published in the past year - 01st November 2007 to 31st October 2008 - in all three national languages. Entries will be judged by 15 local specialists in their relevant craft, experts from both print and electronic media drawn from the ad industry in Sri Lanka.