D&AD’s New Blood Awards gives budding young creatives and students an opportunity to have their work seen and judged by some of the world’s leading companies and top thinkers and doers, and to win a career-boosting Pencil.

New Blood  is open to young people aged between 18 and 24, and to students and recent graduates of any age. The awards give emerging new talent an opportunity to experience the reality of the creative industry, to understand the pitch process, the competition, the demands from clients and to develop executions that are both engaging and elegantly delivered.

This year, D&AD’s include returning favourites BBC, John Lewis, Nationwide and Pearson, as well as new partners including adidas, Bacardi, JCDecaux and Microsoft. Hasbro, who ran its first brief in 2017 is also returning with a brief to redesign a traditional board game to appeal to iGens and Millennials.

The New Blood Awards briefs are written with leading creatives to reflect industry trends, and challenge the next creative generation to finesse and apply their skills to a wide range of business challenges and societal issues. 2018’s challenges include putting paper at the heart of a tactile experience to inspire creatives to rethink the medium; shaking up the in-store experience for future shoppers; using graphic design to champion a cause; empowering older generations through informal learning; and bringing the #LondonIsOpen message to life on Oxford Street.

This year D&AD is also launching the first ever New Blood Side Hustle, in partnership with Adobe. The New Blood Side Hustle is more than just a creative brief. It looks for creatives with an entrepreneurial spirit. Entrants will provide details on their project – an innovation, a product, a start-up, an app, a zine, a podcast, a brand, an event. Winners stand to win a share of prize money, as well as D&AD training courses relevant to their field, a D&AD judge to serve as their mentor and their work promoted on the D&AD website and in the 2018 Annual.

D&AD Foundation director, Paul Drake, commented, “The New Blood Awards are a unique opportunity for emerging creatives to cut their teeth on real projects with some of the world’s leading brands. They challenge entrants to work on complex themes and develop them into great ideas, beautifully executed. And winning gets you noticed. Plenty of those shaping the industry now got their break thanks to bagging a New Blood Pencil.”

What some of this year’s New Blood Awards Brief Partners said about the experience:

“We’re really looking forward to see our new partnership with D&AD come to life. Creativity is important for adidas from our culture to our products, so partnering with the next generation of creators is close to our heart. The brief is simple – how can we collaborate in cities across the world to help change lives using sport as the catalyst?” [Emily Maxey, VP Global Newsrooms]

“The quality of the D&AD ideas were great and most importantly unique!  Your designers’ creativity was young, hip and fresh which caused many concepts to make it to our R&D department with the real possibility of becoming a genuine Hasbro product. More of the same please!” [Tanya Thompson, Global Product Acquisition, Hasbro]

New Blood Awards 2018 partners:

• Adobe
• adidas
• Antalis in collaboration with Conqueror
• Bacardi
• BBC
• Beano
• Burger King
• Digital McKinsey
• Dropbox Paper
• giffgaff
• Hasbro
• Hellmann’s in collaboration with WPP
• Hotel Indigo
• JCDecaux
• John Lewis
• Mayor of London
• Microsoft
• Nationwide in collaboration with Shelter
• Pearson

Explore all the New Blood Awards briefs and enter here.

You have until 5pm GMT, March 20 2018 to submit your work. Winning work will be selected by a panel of judges and awarded a Wood, Graphite, Yellow, White or Black Pencil. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony in early July 2018 in London.