Each year, we recognize the outstanding efforts of our team by participating in the most prestigious marketing communication and graphic design competitions. Awards such as these validate our creative talents, help us attract equally talented people as we grow, and prove ourselves to our peers and clients.
We proudly announce our five winners in the 2025 MarCom Awards and four winners in the 2025 GDUSA American Graphic Design Awards.
About MarCom
MarCom Awards honor marketing and communication excellence while recognizing the creativity and hard work of industry professionals like Blue Star. It is also one of the world’s largest and most respected creative competitions. Organizations representing dozens of countries submit about 6,500 print and digital entries annually.
About GDUSA
Annually, GDUSA sponsors design competitions to recognize excellence among creative professionals. Their flagship competition, the American Graphic Design Awards™, honors exceptional design work across all media.
MarCom Platinum Winner
Blue Star: GEO vs SEO: How to Show Up in AI Searches
In this blog, our in‑house writer Kent Bridgeman explores how search is evolving in the age of AI and why traditional SEO alone isn’t enough to stay visible. He explains Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). This emerging approach helps your content get cited and surfaced by AI-driven tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity, alongside traditional SEO practices. You’ll learn the differences between SEO and GEO, why visibility in AI search matters, and practical strategies to improve your presence in both types of search.
MarCom Platinum Winner
Pomeroy: Building a Better Workplace: The Significance of Human-Centered AI
Pomeroy Technologies delivers global tech solutions, managed services, and talent to help 60,000+ client locations stay secure, connected, and productive.
In this blog, we explore why AI in the workplace must be human-centered to build trust, boost productivity, and support employees rather than replace them. Ghostwritten by our team for Pomeroy, it highlights how embedding empathy into AI — from proactive support to ethical design and accessibility — can transform workplace experiences and make technology truly work for people.
MarCom Gold Winner
Anderson International: Soybean Trading 101: Understanding the Basics of Trading Soybean Futures
Anderson International Corp is a 135‑year‑old global leader in engineered processing equipment and solutions for oilseed, polymer, and animal feed industries, designing, manufacturing, and supporting tailored systems that enhance productivity, safety, and sustainability in more than 100 countries.
This blog breaks down the fundamentals of soybean futures trading, explaining how soybeans—one of the world’s most widely traded agricultural commodities—are bought and sold on exchanges like the Chicago Board of Trade. It covers how futures contracts work, why traders use them to hedge price risk or speculate, and the key market factors that drive soybean pricing so businesses and investors can better understand and manage market volatility.
MarCom Gold Winner
Positive Peers: How fast do HIV meds work?
Positive Peers is a confidential platform that connects young people with HIV to both care and community. Their website provides trusted healthcare information, while their app offers social networking and self-management tools to support holistic HIV care.
This blog explains how quickly HIV medications begin to work once treatment starts and what users can expect as their viral load declines. It outlines how antiretroviral therapy immediately begins halting HIV replication and how, with consistent adherence, many people see a significant drop in viral load and often reach undetectable levels within a few months—a key step in maintaining health and preventing transmission.
MarCom Gold Winner and GDUSA Winner
PhotoSat: Comparative Analysis of Topographic Surveying Technologies for Mining Use Cases
PhotoSat, a Canadian-based company, combines remote sensing, geophysical data, and deep learning to generate comprehensive site models that enhance tailings dam safety and risk management for Mining and Development and Exploration and Geology. Their solution processes large datasets to analyze sites, assess risks, and model critical infrastructure.
The infographic compares the four primary topographic surveying methods for the mining industry. When used together, these technologies offset each other’s limitations and can be part of a robust survey program. The document is an at-a-glance comparison of resolution, accuracy, cost, and deployment timelines across technologies.
GDUSA Winner
Pace Drivers Brochure
Pace Drivers, a national staffing and recruiting firm for the trucking and transportation industry, won recognition for its brochure design, which showcases how it hires faster and retains drivers longer. The 4-page piece highlights quality outcomes, personalized account management, clear accountability, and the synergy of people plus technology, supported by quarterly and custom reporting. The design clearly communicates Pace’s value while making complex information easy to digest, reflecting their commitment to speed, quality, and measurable results.
GDUSA Winner
Adherex Packaging Social Graphic
Adherex Packaging delivers premium adhesion solutions and services for distributors, end users, and OEMs in the industrial packaging and manufacturing markets. We won recognition for modern, bold animated social graphics that showcased their offerings through clean linework, providing a striking visual solution when product photography wasn’t available. The work effectively communicates Adherex’s capabilities while standing out in a competitive digital landscape.
GDUSA Winner
ASBPE Logo
The American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE)—the professional association for full-time and freelance editors, writers, art directors, and designers in the business, trade, and specialty press—awarded us recognition for the new ASBPEvolve brand mark for their flagship B2B editorial summit. The logo features a wave forming an “e,” symbolizing continuous progression, forward momentum, and the ongoing evolution of skills, ideas, and connections in the B2B publishing industry. Its dynamic color scheme allows the mark to evolve visually each year, reflecting the conference’s spirit of transformation and the professional growth of the editors, writers, designers, and content leaders who attend..
Blue Star Design: Winning awards, leads, and conversions for our clients for 27+ years
For nearly three decades, Blue Star has supported our clients in achieving their marketing goals and driving business outcomes. The awards are nice, but we have never lost sight of the fact that our work is to help our clients put their best foot forward. Need help executing your marketing strategy? Get in touch. You might just find your content on next year’s award docket.
