D&AD is taking over The Stable next week. Keep coming back for awards results, interviews, behind-the-scene views and reports live from London.
Of course, you want to win a Yellow Pencil. If not this year, then one day. It’s really hard to do. Always has been, always will be. And in the deepest recess of your heart, you’re even holding the glimmer of a hope that a Black Pencil is not a dream too far to reach.
D&AD is an ardent supporter of really, really awesome creativity. But not only through its awards. This year’s speaker sessions, panel discussions and workshops are both a toolbox and a treasure trove for creatives who want to be not good, but great.
Here’s The Stable’s pick of a brilliant bunch:
Ben Priest: The importance of getting things utterly wrong
Priest co-founded creative hot shop, Adam & Eve in 2008, sold it to Omnicom in 2012 and merged with DDB London to create Adam & Eve/DDB. Its creativity never diminished. In February, Priest announced his departure. His talk is sure to be a D&AD highlight. This is its blurb.
“In Ben’s career, he’s only ever got things right by completely cocking them up the first time around. Free yourself from a fear of failure by listening to the story of his haphazard climb up the advertising mountain.”
26 April
The Adobe Stage
10.00 – 10.45
Judge Insights: There are five of these panel discussions with this year’s D&AD judges – Global Trends (moderated by The Stable editor, Candide McDonald), Creative Collaborations, Crafting Winning Work, Creativity & PR, Creativity & Media.
Explore what it takes to make Pencil-winning work, how it’s judged and what the future holds, via:
- Global Trends: The world’s most inspiring creative advertising and the trends emerging from it that will feed the next most inspiring creative advertising
- Creative Collaborations: The recipe for successful client collaboration and what clients, agencies and production companies can learn from the great work
- Crafting Winning Work: The winners setting envy-inducing standards and what their magnificent executions can teach
- Creativity & PR: The rise and rise of PR and how to keep coming up with innovative PR-led ideas
- Creativity & Media: Media can make or break and idea. How to make use of its power
NOTE: Dates and times to be confirmed. Keep your eye on the speaker sessions timetable.
Jeff Goodby: How Vandalism Will Save Advertising
Goodby co-founded Goodby, Silverstein & Partners with Rich Silverstein in 1983. Since then, they’ve won just about every award imaginable. They still are. Goodby believes that all our futures are dependent upon a sense of fun and we all need to be more naughty to be famous.
You wouldn’t want to miss out on knowing all about that, would you?
1st Avenue Machine’s #MakeItHard: Exploring creativity and craft in one interactive session
1stAvenueMachine with Cut+Run and Massive Music will create and shoot a music song and video using props found in the room. And you’ll get to be part of the action.
25 April
Microsoft Stage
17.45 – 18.45
RARE: Let’s take a second to not talk about diversity
Creative people from under-represented groups are often invited to talk about what it’s like to be them. Sure, their personal stories are inspiring and can motivate change, but D&AD RARE is doing something even more valuable – it’s going to focus on their work. “Because one day, we hope, labels won’t matter.” This session will present three RARE talents – their work, their projects and their future dreams.
24 April
The Microsoft Stage
17:30 – 18:15
The Talent Business. How to not, not get a job as a creative
There’s a door to your future and it’s locked? Stu Outhwaite-Noel, creative partner at Creature London, and Anna Green and Will Knox, partners at The Talent Business, know what the key looks like. This session of stories, advice and answering questions is about how to get into an agency stand out once you’re there, build up your own brand and portfolio, and explore the directions in which your career might go.
25 April
Foundation: Pitch Futures, Floor 1
16.15 – 17.15
Patrick Collister. Oh Shi*! I’m in charge!
Want to be a great creative leader? Patrick Collister is. Collister resigned from his role as creative lead of Google’s creative think tank, The Zoo, for the EMEA region in February and is now coaching people aspiring to make it on the top tier. In his workshop he’s going to ask a lot of questions like: Where are you going to lead to? Will your bosses let you head off in that direction? Will anyone want to follow you (that includes your clients)? Find out what the answers will be.
24 April
The Toolbox, Floor 1
11.45 – 12.45
Fringe: The art and soul of Karma Cola. How to make money without losing your soul
Simon Coley, the creative brain behind Karma Cola will explain why a cola tastes best when it’s also doing good and how Karma Cola is creating an army of activists with design and storytelling to help every customer become an advocate.
24 April
Huckletree Shoreditch, 18 Finsbury Square London EC2A 1AH
17.30 – 18.30
Note: limited tickets. Available via the D&AD Festival App
Happy Finish: Creative and Commercial Possibilities of 2.5D Imagery
What’s 2.5D imagery? It’s a new medium that bridges the gap between stills and motion. It’s also the beginning of a whole new world of possibilities that Chris Roome, Nick Nedeljkovic, Alex Goodwin will explain via different projects they’ve been involved in.
25 April
The Anthony Simonds-Gooding
11.45 – 12.30
Nick Eagleton: Ideas, ideas, ideas
How to get ideas, how to push them and how to share them. Eagelton, creative partner at Superunion promises you “an intense, high-energy and completely interactive session full of tips and techniques on how to have brilliant ideas, especially under the pressure of time,” no matter what your role is.
24 April
The Toolbox, Floor 1
14.45 – 15.45
Fringe: Mother – Not for Sale
Mother produces amazing creative work. Not all of it is commercial. Come and see the exhibition of 21 years of its non-commercial projects, because, “these projects are a love letter to creativity, free from commercial constraints. Inspired from and influencing culture. They demonstrate the power to incite real, positive change and provoke conversation.”
26 April
Mother London, Biscuit Building, 10 Redchurch Street London.
16.00 – 19.00
Note: limited tickets. Available via the D&AD Festival app
Caroline Pay: Do Not Watch This Talk
True creative freedom comes from not doing what you’re told, says Caroline Pay, joint CCO at Grey London. She wants you to know “why it’s vital to take advantage of the old men trying to keep the old system in place.”
Pay is taking the stage to celebrate the rebels and the next generation of makers and explain why you can finally break all the rules.
25 April
The Microsoft Stage
12.00 – 12.45
