The Clio Awards Painted a Creator Gold in Its 2027 Call for Entries Campaign

Beyond Studios' Cole Poska shines so bright

Below, Cole Poska of Beyond Studios details his extremely immersive role in the Clio Awards’ 2027 Call for Entries campaign, casting the designer and social-media star as a living award statue. The collaboration brings Cole’s “Cool Shit” series to the Clios, transforming the rituals and realities of creative life into a collection designed for the people who live and breathe great ideas. “When I discovered Cole’s work, I was immediately obsessed with his creativity,” says says Brooke Levy, VP of marketing at the Clios. “The way he reimagines brands through merchandise is unexpected, clever, and culturally relevant. I knew we had to find a way to work together. What I love most about this collaboration is that it celebrates the creative community with the same humor and originality that makes Cole’s work so special. It’s a perfect expression of what we mean when we say ‘Notice Greatness.'”

Read on to learn how Cole put himself into the work. And boy, do we mean that literally.

From the start, we approached this collaboration with the idea of shifting the spotlight away from the work itself. Rather than creating another campaign about great creative work, we wanted to celebrate the people responsible for making it.

That became the foundation for everything we built.

The Clios really handed us the keys and let us run with it. And from day one, we saw this as more than just a campaign for them. It was a true collaboration between the Clios and Beyond Studios, bringing both of our worlds together to create something neither of us would have made on our own.

The idea was simple. The industry has spent decades celebrating the work. Why not turn the people behind it into the awards themselves?

And if we were going to do that, we were going all in.

I knew I wanted to put myself into the campaign in a way that felt completely unexpected but undeniably Clio. So naturally, I painted my entire body gold and turned myself into a Clio Award. It felt like the perfect way to embody the concept, quite literally, and have a little fun with the absurdity of it all.

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From there, the idea took on a life of its own. We built an entire merch collection inspired by the personalities, shared experiences, and culture of the creative industry. We designed custom sets, transformed our models into living trophies, and created this whole world where the awards themselves came to life.

One thing about the way we work is that we don’t go into shoots just looking to capture a list of shots. We build worlds, and then we capture everything that happens inside them.

There were hours of body painting, custom sets being built, people running around in gold makeup, and moments you genuinely couldn’t have scripted. We brought together an amazing crew of creatives, each bringing their own perspective, personality, and artistry to the process. It felt especially fitting for a campaign centered around celebrating the people who make the work possible. There was this beautiful chaos to the whole thing, watching something that started as an idea in our heads become a world we could actually step into.

And some of my favorite moments came from the behind-the-scenes content. There’s something pretty hilarious about being on set directing a full campaign while you’re covered head to toe in metallic gold paint. At a certain point, you’re not even sure if you’re the creative director or one of the props.

But I think that’s what made this campaign special. We weren’t just making something that looked cool. We were having fun with the entire process, pushing the idea as far as it could go, and bringing that same energy into the final work.

At the end of the day, the Clios celebrate creativity. We wanted to show what it looks like when you let creatives completely loose.

Enjoy some peeks BTS: