Agency Claims Gold at ‘Coffee Table of the Year’ Awards with Strategically Abandoned Mugs
In what industry insiders are calling a 'watershed moment for upper-tier clutter aesthetic', boutique Auckland agency Nine Owls Deep has taken out top honours at the national Coffee Table of the Year Awards 2026. Their winning entry, a carefully curated scatter of slightly used, aggressively mismatching coffee mugs atop a stack of abandoned concept sketches and a single, inexplicably warped coathanger, stunned judges with its “disheveled brilliance and complete lack of discernible function.”
Creative Director Milo Vinz said the piece, titled *‘Morning Chaos #6 (Katie Was Running Late)’*, was a bold statement on the post-pitch emotional landscape. “What started as a passive-aggressive reaction to someone microwaving tuna at 9.15am became a multidisciplinary installation about the tension between deadlines and flat whites,” he told media, before stopping mid-sentence to discuss his dreams about owning a functioning lamination machine.
Judges praised the table’s resistance to surface clearing, noting the inclusion of a half-eaten muesli bar still in its foil wrapper as “a masterstroke”. One juror was reportedly moved to tears by a lone Sharpie cap, disconnected from its pen, resting on a coaster made from last year’s Christmas campaign strategy doc. “It’s the banality that lingers,” she whispered.
Nine Owls Deep is now rumoured to be entering their kitchen sink in the upcoming 'Non-Functional Fixtures in Creative Environments' biennale. When asked if the sink still worked, a junior art director replied, “In what way?”
Creative Director Milo Vinz said the piece, titled *‘Morning Chaos #6 (Katie Was Running Late)’*, was a bold statement on the post-pitch emotional landscape. “What started as a passive-aggressive reaction to someone microwaving tuna at 9.15am became a multidisciplinary installation about the tension between deadlines and flat whites,” he told media, before stopping mid-sentence to discuss his dreams about owning a functioning lamination machine.
Judges praised the table’s resistance to surface clearing, noting the inclusion of a half-eaten muesli bar still in its foil wrapper as “a masterstroke”. One juror was reportedly moved to tears by a lone Sharpie cap, disconnected from its pen, resting on a coaster made from last year’s Christmas campaign strategy doc. “It’s the banality that lingers,” she whispered.
Nine Owls Deep is now rumoured to be entering their kitchen sink in the upcoming 'Non-Functional Fixtures in Creative Environments' biennale. When asked if the sink still worked, a junior art director replied, “In what way?”