D&AD Announces 2023 Winners

The 61st D&AD Awards Ceremony took place on 24th & 25th May 2023 in London, where two Black Pencils – the highest accolade in the creative industry - were awarded amongst a total of 639 Pencils. Click here to view all the winners.

D&AD celebrates creative excellence, believing creativity is critical to commercial, economic, social and cultural success. The Awards incorporates more than 40 categories judged by nearly 400 of the world’s leading creatives, recognising work that will inspire seasoned talent and encourage the next generation. As a charity, entries enable D&AD to fund educational programs such as D&AD Shift with Google, a free, industry-led night school for self-taught creatives from under-represented backgrounds.

This year, a record number of participants, with nearly 30,000 individual pieces of work, made up 12,243 entries. Mental health, inclusivity and equality were recurring themes highlighted by the global creative industry as increased diversity in the jury enriched debate of the works.

Two Black Pencils, reserved only for truly groundbreaking work, were awarded.

Division and Electric Theatre Collective claimed one Black Pencil in the Visual Effects/ Craft category for Pharrell, 21 Savage and Tyler, The Creator’s music video, CASH IN, CASH OUT, using CGI animation to create avatars of the three musicians dancing in a magical environment.

Abby.World took home a Black Pencil in Product Design/ Design with Heartbeat Drum Machine for The Swedish Heartchild Foundation. The device, functioning as a modular synthesiser, produces rhythms using the electrocardiograms of four children with different heart defects. Channelling distress into art, it captures the core of the problem to transform it into something new and beautiful.

Two Collaborative Pencils were awarded, celebrating innovative and long-lasting collaborations. These went to Iyama Design and Kamoi Kakoshi Co, Japan, for ongoing work with MT MASKING TAPE that started with the development of a logo through to a promotional exhibition still held around the world today; and Ogilvy UK and Unilever for A 66-YEAR PARTNERSHIP, a collaboration that began in 1957 when a certain David Ogilvy wrote the first print advert for the Dove beauty bar.

Two winners were awarded the Side Hustle Pencil. Sponsored by Adobe Express, the Side Hustle category reflects the value of creatives applying their skills and personal passions to side projects that address social and environmental issues.

The recipients are Get Better Books for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, UK with a series of interactive books designed to help paediatric patients understand their journey through treatment and stages of recovery; and Beyond Hearing by Chun-Te Ho, UK - an augmented reality interface for Deaf People to localise and experience sound with a multi-senses feedback system for safety, communication and daily sound engagement.

With this interface, deaf people can intuitively know the location of the sound, and experience it with visual and tactile cues.

The President’s Award, chosen by this year’s President Richard Brim, CCO, adam&eveDDB, goes to the Founders of Mother, UK.

He explains, “I chose them because I'm a massive believer in the power of a creative “gang” and no one embodies that more than Mother. Their philosophy is based on the creative collective and its possibilities, and as an outsider looking in, that was intoxicating. It wasn’t just myself who was drawn to that, as over the years, some of the industry’s most talented individuals have sat around that table.

With that unfair share of talent comes the work, brilliant, funny, populist bat shit crazy work my mates in Manchester knew and work that showed the rest of the industry a new way. It’s not just their output that showed their dedication to creativity, it is how they behaved, the companies they started, the investments they made and the films they commissioned. With the criteria being someone that changed things for the better, I feel confident in my choice of that someone being Mother.”

Jo Jackson, the new female CEO of D&AD quotes

“We’ve had an incredible number of entries from over 70 countries this year, with some incredible winners. We’re so pleased our judges awarded Black Pencil in the more craft-based categories this year - Visual Effects and Product Design. Both winners demonstrated exceptional creative excellence - and craftsmanship, which is particularly poignant when the whole industry is concerned about AI's impact on the advertising and creative industry.”

EMERGING THEMES

• Accessibility and Inclusivity: including physical ability and neurodiversity; equality, empowerment, public health and social welfare were key topics over the last 12 months. Winning Pencil campaigns addressing these include There's Nothing Comic About Dyslexia, by INNOCEAN Berlin, drawing attention using the most-hated yet dyslexia-friendly font, Comic Sans, to ask the design industry to adopt a more inclusive mindset; Media.Monks, Mexico’s film I'm A Criminal highlights the plight of young Mexican girls sold for marriage; and Sun Warning Flag, by HeimatTBWA\ warns beach-goers of deadly skin cancer caused by the sun.

Using technology as platforms to aid accessibility, inclusivity and visibility, Staybl, Havas Germany / Havas New York created an app that allows Parkinson's patients to take advantage of the digital age; Samsung Unfear, by Cheil Spain / Acid Tango, Spain, is an advanced artificial intelligence app to filter noises that affect autistic sufferers of noise sensitivity. The Entourage charity’s Homeless in the Metaverse created Will, the first homeless person in the Metaverse, to act as a virtual spokesperson for this vulnerable group.

• Analogue vs digital experiences: Hot topics also included human connection, algorithms and digital technology vs human culture and creativity, and the Ukraine war highlighting the human cost, with issues around culture, displacement, community, and connection emphasised. We Are Social Milan responded to the language barrier for 50.000 Ukranian child refugees who have arrived to Italian schools. The Welcome Stickers, a set of stickers that transforms any Italian keyboard into a Cyrillic one, becomes a useful tool for Ukrainian children to tell their stories.

• Nature & Preservation: An emphasis on returning to natural resources; renewability, recyclability, circularity, and supply chain responsibility in response to the climate crisis were consistently seen across the past year’s campaigns. Pencils have been awarded for work including The Cloudneo by On, the first fully recyclable high-performance running shoe; Hack Market, a campaign promoting the sustainability benefits of refurbished tech, in which Back Market hijacked Apple Stores, using Apple’s own AirDrop technology and devices to advertise messages for a greener alternative; Accenture Song Germany - Designed in Bangladesh. Made in Europe tackles the exploitation of workers in the Global South, and Publicis Italy - The Unwasted Beer, saw Heineken turning lockdown beer that was going to waste into a global sustainable programme.