D&AD Awards 2: Black Pencil to Abby.World’s Heartbeat Drum Machine. adam&eveDDB is Agency OTY. DDB Worldwide is Network OTY
A second Black Pencil was awarded by D&AD in round 2 of this year’s announcements. A Black Pencil was awarded to Division for Cash In Cash Out for Pharrell, 21 Savage and Tyler and Sony Music Entertainment / Columbia Records in Visual Effects/Craft in round 1. Abby.World’s Heartbeat Drum Machine for The Swedish Heartchild Foundation has won the second Black Pencil, in Product Design/Design. Abby.World’s Heartbeat Drum Machine is a device functioning as a modular synthesiser. It 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.
adam&eveDDB is Advertising Agency of the Year. DDB Worldwide is Network of the Year. A total of 639 Pencils were handed out this year.
There were a record 12,243 entries to the D&AD Awards this year. Mental health, inclusivity and equality were recurring dominant themes.
Find all Pencil winning work and shortlisted entries on the D&AD website.
There were two Side Hustle Pencil winners. 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, chief creative officer, adam&eveDDB, was given to the founders of Mother, UK. Brim explained, “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 me 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.”
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
- 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.
Awarded work addressing this includes:
- 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.
Awarded work addressing this includes:
- 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
- Publicis Italy – The Unwasted Beer. Heineken turning lockdown beer that was going to waste into a global sustainable programme.
Jo Jackson, chief executive officer of D&AD, commented, “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.”
2023 Overall Results: The top 10 ranking countries by number of points for winning entries are:
- 1. United States – 1257 points / 418 winning entries
- 2. United Kingdom – 843 points / 309 winning entries
- 3. France – 321 points / 99 winning entries
- 4. Australia – 181 points / 64 winning entries
- 5. Canada – 171 points / 60 winning entries
- 6. Germany – 162 points / 74 winning entries
- 7. Brazil – 148 points / 49 winning entries
- 8. Mexico – 124 points / 34 winning entries
- 9. Demark – 106 points / 33 winning entries
- 10. China – 102 points / 36 winning entries
The total number of Pencils awarded for the D&AD
Awards 2023 by level:
- Black – 2 Pencils awarded
- White – 1 Pencil
- Yellow – 69 Pencils awarded
- Graphite – 166 Pencils awarded
- Wood – 392 Pencils awarded
- Side Hustle – 2 Pencils
- Future Impact – 5 Pencils
- Collaborative -2 Pencils
Design Companies of the Year:
- 1. King Henry
- 2. Apple Design Team
- 3. Design Bridge and Partners
Production Companies of the Year
- 4. Division
- 5. Lord + Thomas
- 6. Cain&Abel
Clients of the Year:
- 1. AB InBev
- 2. Apple
- 3. Columbia Records and Sony Music Entertainment
Advertising Agencies of the Year
- 1. adam&eveDDB
- 2. FCB New York
- 3. Ogilvy UK
Network Agencies of the Year winners of the year are:
- 1. DDB Wordlwide
- 2. Ogilvy
- 3. Publicis Worldwide
