D&AD Annual: If this doesn’t inspire you, check that you’re human

The work that wowed the world’s top creatives this year. The work that is shifting culture and shaping global narratives. It’s all in one book and it’s available. D&AD has launched its 57th Annual today, with President Harriet Devoy having chosen Richard Turley as the 2019 designer.

Turley, who is renowned for reimagining Bloomberg BusinessWeek and reinventing MTV’s visual identity, was given creative licence to develop a design that would stand out on a shelf of D&AD Annuals of previous years. He commented, “Previous iterations of the Annual have excelled in graphic design as precision engineering. I wanted this one to feel warm and human. Vulnerable maybe. And a bit dumb.

“I spoke to Harriet. We had a chat about the awards, the industry and what we do. I don’t remember all that much about that talk other than bonding over a few of the themes that I guess we developed in the book. The neediness. The doubt and vulnerability associated not just with the awards but with working within the creative industries as a whole. The craving for reassurance and validation all the time. The need for likes on your Instagram post. For views on your video. For a website to write about your work. And if none of those things happen… then what does that mean? Does what I do have value? Is what we do actually important? A lot of that bubbled around. That and the paradox of a lot of socially-minded left of centre creatives providing the (often rather successful) communications for multi-national corporations whose motives they are entirely at odds with.

“I don’t mean to imply all of that exists in the design of the book but – without sounding too pretentious – for me, the scrawl is trying to find an equivalence for that – the ghost in the corporate marketing machine. Digitized, stupefied. Compliant. Powerless. A bit frantic. With a sense of humour. Will be in at work at 9.30 just like I promised. Deck looks great btw. Here are 15 ideas for that banner ad. Do you like them? Do I even like them? What am I doing? Ice age coming. Ice age coming.”

Harriet Devoy, D&AD President, stated, “Richard is an obvious choice for the cover. He’s a prodigiously talented designer, who comes armed with a phenomenal portfolio of challenging editorial covers for magazines and periodicals. He’s the guy that made Bloomberg Businessweek a must-read and revived MTV. The D&AD Annual feels like where his work belongs.”