D&AD are a Global Association for Creative Advertising and Design Awards whose pencils are widely considered one of the most prestigious and difficult-to-win awards in the industry.
There was so much to see at the awards exhibition and this post would be miles long if I wrote about everything, so here is a selection of my favourites from different categories displayed at the show. Hope you enjoy!
Books and editorial design:
Now I really love books, especially ones that are beautifully designed and crafted with so much time, effort and thought gone into all the details. Here are a selection of the ones we saw on display and the all speak for themselves really!
Poster adverts and campaigns:
There were a whole range of adverts and poster designs from politics, the London Symphony Orchestra, empowering women, protecting the environment and the problem with American gun laws. There were far more than I have photographed but these are some of my favourites for lots of different reasons.
The very first one shines a comical light on an incredibly tense and possibly disastrous global issue. The JBL noise cancelling headphones playfully uses the negative space to show their product blocking out the drama around them. Using very relevant global issues in this way is relatable for so many people and drowning out the noise of certain individuals makes these headphones seem very appealing!
The next campaign 'Highlight the remarkable' is very moving as it points out women in history who deserve recognition yet are simply in the background of these black and white images. Often, the photograph is focusing on their male counterparts yet this campaign literally highlights that what is in the background is just as important, if not more.
The navy poster with the silhouette of the little child's head is raising awareness of America's absurd gun laws. The text is so small at the bottom that you probably can't read it in this photograph but it says 'There are an estimated 10 billion bullets sold in the U.S. every year. That's 31 bullets for every man, woman and child. The Chicago Sun-Times is arming people with the knowledge, education and social ammunition to fight gun violence. 31 bullets to counter the negative effects of the actual bullets.' This particular poster is called 'Bullet 1 of 31: Guns in Classrooms' and is part of a whole series of posters tackling this issue. To find out more about this campaign they have a website called 31 Bullets and I would definitely recommend checking it out!
The body positivity posters for Mothercare show different mums after giving birth. Social perceptions of body image and the way we 'should' look is such a huge issue to tackle nowadays because it is literally everywhere! This campaign celebrates what our bodies can do, showing the natural way a mother would look after childbirth not the photoshopped or surgically removed version and personally I think there should be more of it!
The London Symphony Orchestra posters use colourful coral to draw beautiful parallels between our senses showing us a visual representation of what we would hear. The colour, depth and texture all give us a sense of the kind of music each poster is portraying. I particularly love the typeface distorted by the movements of the conductor's hand, creating a sense of personality with the type where an unaltered typeface could have seemed distant or empty. This brings all elements of the poster together creating a sense of movement throughout the whole image.
Packaging:
There was a lot of packaging on display but these ones really caught my eye. Especially the foiled sun over the mountain range. Each layer is individually wrapped around the box giving the appearance that they've been burnt at the edges creating the shadow of the mountains. The design is beautifully crafted I don't even know what's inside but I would buy it just for display!
New Blood Awards:
This section of D&AD is very exciting because it allows students to showcase their work with global brands at the most prestigious design awards exhibition in the world. I particularly like the project that uses different typefaces to personalise stoma bags. This brief was all about celebrating a chosen community through type and during my second year I also did this brief. I wanted to celebrate children of all abilities and designed a children's book of Makaton sign language which has been a very exciting project for me. I will be writing a post about it shortly to keep you updated because big things are happening!!
The next project is with The Sunday Times, encouraging young people to read newspapers rather than get all of their news updates on social media. This brief 'letting the truth unfold' aims to raise the awareness that online sites are often laced with heavily biased or outright false articles. The clever and playful idea to fold the article and distort the image and text, therefore changing the whole message is such a powerful visual representation of this problem. Mocking certain individuals and having this satirical approach will definitely appeal to young people and will make a newspaper seem a little more fun to read.
Finally, the Virgin brief empowering women to travel alone cleverly plays with typography and distortion of words to change the negative underlying concerns with a much more positive outlook. The project's research states that in a survey of 400 women '80% of women said they consider personal safety issues when booking a trip'. These statistics show how deep-rooted the level of concern is and working with a huge global brand like Virgin to encourage and ensure the safety of women is the perfect place to start.
