Brand Force 5 Wins Two First-Place Honors at 58th NJ Ad Club Jersey Awards

New Jersey branding and design agency earns three awards for Silvio & Filomena’s Olive Oil logo and packaging and the Legal Ops Fox B2B branding

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ, UNITED STATES, September 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Brand Force 5, an already award-winning New Jersey branding and design agency, received three honors at the 58th NJ Ad Club Jersey Awards, including two first-place awards for Silvio & Filomena's Olive Oil and a Certificate of Excellence for Legal Ops Fox. Every entry submitted by the Bergen County-based agency earned recognition.

The agency received:
First Place, Logo Design: Consumer, Silvio & Filomena's Olive Oil
First Place, Package Design, Silvio & Filomena's Olive Oil
Certificate of Excellence, Logo Design: B2B, Legal Ops Fox

The results continue a three-year run of success for Brand Force 5, which has now won First Place in the Logo Design category at the Jersey Awards for three consecutive years. Since first entering the competition as Brand Force 5 in 2024, the agency has earned 10 Jersey Awards over three years: one First Place award in 2024, six awards in 2025, three of them First Place, and three honors this year, including two First Place awards and a Certificate of Excellence. That record is especially meaningful for an independent agency competing alongside larger firms with bigger teams, broader resources and significantly larger budgets.

"Every brand is a story waiting to be told well," said Michael P. Maloney, founder and chief creative officer of Brand Force 5. "As an independent shop, we don't have the biggest team or the deepest pockets. What we have is the ability to listen harder and find the idea that actually means something. Winning First Place for logo design three years running tells me our caring is showing up in the work, and it's being recognized."

The Jersey Awards have celebrated creative excellence across New Jersey's advertising, marketing, design and communications industries for 58 years. Entries are evaluated by advertising professionals from outside New Jersey using criteria that include originality, creativity, memorability, visual design and innovation. The independent jury allows the work to be evaluated on its merits by professionals who are not part of the local competitive landscape. Competition was strengthened further in 2026 when the NJ Ad Club streamlined the awards from more than 109 categories to 84. The organization said the more selective structure was created to increase competition within individual categories and elevate the prestige and value of winning.

Brand Force 5's two first-place awards recognized the logo and packaging created for Silvio & Filomena's Olive Oil. The identity is built around a custom family monogram, with two interlocking Fs for Filomena and her daughter Florence forming an S for Silvio and their daughter Sue. The story continues across the packaging through refined typography, classic materials and a warm, premium color palette. Earlier this month, the project also received a 2026 American Package Design Award from GDUSA.

Legal Ops Fox received a Certificate of Excellence for B2B Logo Design. Named for founder Adrienne Fox, the legal operations consultancy wanted to incorporate a fox into its identity in a sophisticated and elegant way. Brand Force 5 combined the intelligence, strategy and agility associated with a fox with familiar legal symbolism, integrating scales of justice directly into the animal's face.

"These projects look and feel completely different from each other because they grew from completely different people and stories," Maloney said. "This is the work I care about most. The goal is never to impose a style or follow what everyone else is doing. Finding the heart and soul of a brand and giving it a voice is what we do best."

The annual Jersey Awards Exhibition and Ceremony is one of the New Jersey creative industry's signature nights, bringing together advertising agencies, design studios, corporate marketing teams, media organizations, production partners, service providers and event sponsors. The 58th celebration was held September 16, 2026, at The Grove in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. For Brand Force 5, the evening represented more than three additional awards. It affirmed that an independent New Jersey agency can compete at the highest level by placing ideas, craft and client stories ahead of size.

ABOUT BRAND FORCE 5

Brand Force 5 is an award-winning branding, logo design, packaging design and creative agency based in Bergen County, New Jersey. Led by Michael P. Maloney, the studio helps businesses uncover what makes them distinctive and bring it to life through strategic design across branding, advertising, packaging, print and digital communications. With more than 25 years of creative experience, Maloney has developed branding, advertising and visual communications for local businesses, growing companies and global organizations. Brand Force 5's work has received recognition from the NJ Ad Club Jersey Awards, Graphic Design USA, the Davey Awards and the Communicator Awards. Learn more and view the agency's case studies at brandforce5.com.

Michael P. Maloney
Brand Force 5
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