D&AD has delivered another wow!! digital edition of its very famous Annual, the 59th edition, in fact. Once again, it is free to view. This year its interactivity extends to conversations. The Annual facilitates conversations around the future of the sector by inviting voices to offer insights on the 2021 Award-winning work, and providing additional interactive features including a new curate function, My Curations, which enables users to collate and share their favourite works via email and social media. This adds to the D&AD Judges’ own curations which highlight work that stood out to them.
The most notable addition to the Annual is a series of 10 editorial pieces by 2021 Pencil winners, which feature a variety of perspectives on this year’s winning work. D&AD has invited creative thinkers with diverse expertise to offer insights and context to themes in the 2021 Award-winning work, providing opinion from a variety of professional perspectives and lived experiences. Topics range from the cultural production of the Black diaspora, exploration of Gen Z’s relationship to media and branding, rise of gaming and the role of typographical craft in cultural inheritance.
The editorials are by:
- Emma Hope Allwood, former Head of Fashion at Dazed, on defining Gen Z
- Jess Crombie, NGO consultant and former Global Content Director at Save The Children, on empathy and the contributor-led approach
- Shon Faye, writer, podcaster and author of The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice, on how creativity can meaningfully support trans people and other minorities
- Jeff Ihaza, Senior Editor at Rolling Stone, on power and poignancy of Beats by Dr. Dre’s film You Love Me
- Sulaiman Khan, Co-Founder of Disability-led justice business ThisAbility, on worldbuilding and joyful Disabled creativity
- Jeremy Leslie, Founder of magCulture on print as a document of time
- Keza MacDonald, Video Games Editor at The Guardian, on the year that gaming came into its own
- Debbie Milman, branding expert and Design Matters podcast host, on branding and the climate emergency
- Madoka Nishi, Editor-in-chief of Japan’s IDEA Magazine, on non-Latin typography and cultural inheritance
- Raven Smith author and columnist at Vogue UK on coping through the pandemic with humour
The Annual also includes a series of written or video interviews with winners from a broad range of creative disciplines. Highlights include conversations with this year’s Black Pencil winners on what it takes to win the industry’s most coveted award; interviews with the Collaborative Award winners on the success of creative collaboration; and insights from D&AD’s first student winner of the Side Hustle Award on designing a system for prisoners to communicate meaningfully with their families.
Studio Dumbar has collaborated with D&AD again to craft the new digital experience, which continues to capture the evocative quality of the physical Annual while harnessing the extra possibilities of digital. New features and updates include endless scroll to replicate the serendipity of flicking through a physical book; enhanced discoverability of New Blood work; and statistics and figures on this year’s awards and judges. The 2021 Annual still includes much-loved features such as letters from D&AD Chairman, Tim Lindsay and the 2020/21 D&AD President, Naresh Ramchandani.
The Annual is free to access to all and is now available to view via the D&AD website.
Naresh Ramchandani, D&AD President, commented, “Emphatically digital for a second year, the Annual is the most effective way for D&AD to make its most potent inspiration freely accessible to the widest possible audience. Building on the success of last year’s Annual, I am most excited by the addition of commentary pieces by voices from inside and outside the industry. Featuring views from different disciplines, experiences and identities, this is exactly what creativity should be right now: interested in, and inclusive of, as many different perspectives as possible, with the aim of making our creative work as rich as the society it’s part of.”
Studio Dumbar added, “Last year’s Annual proved the unmatched potential of the digital form in providing a source of inspiration and stimulation for creatives across the globe. Our aim was to build on the dynamic qualities of the 2020 Annual and create a more personalised and ultimately engaging platform for 2021. The result is a more bespoke user experience that encourages creative conversation and collaboration, which really embodies everything D&AD stand for.”
