What do about D&AD, the British based international design and advertising awards (it used to be called Designers and Art Directors)?
Under CEO Tim Lindsay it’s got itself back on the map even as the Cannes International Festival of Creativity (its full moniker) tramples everything else underfoot, outside the US anyway.
It has an age-old Manichean dilemma: do design and advertising fit comfortably together? When I last attended the awards I don’t think I’d seen an ad by the time I left around midnight. It had all been design. There’s also the ongoing controversy about ‘wooden’ pencils. Until recently you got a mention in the D&AD annual if you didn’t win a yellow or black, which seemed much classier. And there’s now the somewhat tiresome ‘for good’ white pencils….no wonder it goes on a bit.
This year the awards are at the D&AD Festival from April 25-27 so maybe they’ll split them up.
Anyway D&AD is drumming up entries with this film from Lucky Generals, showing various creative luminaries’ mums talking about their talented offspring and (a bit) about yellow pencils. Not many Brits but maybe that says something about the age of senior UK creatives.
I also see that D&AD insists that work is entered in its original language, a shot across the bows of all those agencies that, somehow, produce perfectly fashioned ads in English although it’s not actually the main language in their countries, certainly not for mass market brands. Someone told me the other day that Brazilian agencies are closed to clients in December because they’re too busy doing their awards entries.
Anyway, the film.
MAA creative scale: 4.
Nice enough idea – if rather obvious – but I reckon they had to make do with the B-team.
