D&AD’s virtual awards ceremony designed by Studio Dumbar will take place on September 10 at 6pm BST. With the final design categories to be announced, the celebration will also unveil the Black Pencil winners, President’s Award and rankings.

D&AD has stimulated, celebrated and enabled creative excellence since 1962 and the distancing restrictions of Covid were not going to stop it from doing that. The virtual ceremony will be an opportunity for the industry to come together and celebrate winning work from the past year and give this year’s creative community the platform it deserves. The ceremony will be presented by D&AD president, Kate Stanners, and live-streamed via the D&AD website. A full schedule will be announced shortly.

The D&AD Awards Ceremony will feature the Graphite and Yellow Pencil winning work across each of the 37 categories, including Book Design, Graphic Design, Magazine & Newspaper Design and Packaging Design, which were delayed due to the nature of in-person judging.

As always, the highlight of the Ceremony will be the reveal of the Black Pencil. As the highest accolade that D&AD offers, the Black Pencil is reserved for work that is truly ground-breaking in its field and remains the most coveted award in the creative industries. To celebrate the influence of the Black Pencil, D&AD is running a campaign that looks back at the past ten years of the award and is holding an industry vote for the favourite Black Pencil of the decade.

This is running from August 18 – September 1 via Pinterest and invites the industry to cast their vote by saving their favourite Black Pencil pin, with the top three most saved pieces of work being announced and screened in the virtual ceremony live stream.

The President’s Award will also be announced during the virtual ceremony. Chosen by the D&AD President, the award honours an industry hero whose contribution has been nothing short of inspirational. D&AD will also unveil the most awarded companies of the year for Advertising, Design, Production, Client and Network from the 2020 awards.

Kate Stanners, D&AD president, commented, “The impact of the coronavirus has been hard-felt across the entire creative industries, in particular events-based organisations such as D&AD. Being unable to celebrate the outstanding creative talent exemplified by this year’s winners felt like a disservice to the industry. We hope that the D&AD virtual ceremony will provide a platform to honour and commend the 2020 winners during a time when the power of creative thinking deserves more recognition than ever. By showcasing the highest level of creative excellence, alongside celebrating the legacy of the Black Pencils, we also hope to create a space that stimulates and inspires the future generation of creative practitioners.”