Imagine Everything.

Imagine a year when the whole world united around a common enemy.

Imagine a global lockdown.

The constraints of 2020 have presented an unprecedented challenge, but for creatives, we have found fuel for our creativity. This year’s Annual is a celebration of that creativity, in all its glory, its passion, its ingenuity, its stories, its beauty and its magic. It captures a unique moment in history with work from a pre-Covid world sitting in stark contrast to work that reflects and responds to the unfolding pandemic.

And yes, it is digital, the first ever digital D&AD Annual.

The Annual has always acted as a wonderful record of a year’s work, but it has been for the few and not the many. Until now.

D&AD exists to celebrate excellence, to inspire and to educate. This year’s Annual does just that in ways that it has never previously managed to do.

It is of paramount importance to me that EVERYONE  has the chance to see the very best that our industry can produce so that we can all be inspired.

Here, you can enjoy both shortlisted and awarded work from those working in the industry but also from those who represent the future of it, as we showcase the amazing talent from the New Blood Awards. Plus, there’s the opportunity to see the concepts from the Impact and Future Impact awards.

You can hear from the best practitioners in the industry, the judges, to better understand what makes award-winning work. And you can find out what it takes to make that work from the people who made it, so that we can all learn how we all might raise our collective creative bar.

You can explore work that you might never have discovered before, from different disciplines, categories and countries, both awarded and shortlisted. You can refer back to it again and again and again. And you can share it. Bookmark and share links to your own work and to work that you love and admire.

This annual also allows us to see broader cultural themes emerging: how we are using the unreasonable power of creativity to tackle issues like gender equality, diversity and inclusion, accessibility and sustainability to not just change attitudes but policies; how work reflects our increasing need to be connected to each other and the natural world; and how behaviours from one platform are recontextualised in another. This is how creativity works: it originates, it subverts, it changes behaviours and it adds value.

It is important that many of these themes are not just reflected in the work we make, but how we behave as an industry. We need to respond to the climate emergency with actions within our own businesses. It is essential that we as a creative industry actively seek diverse talent, only then will we create work that reaches and resonates.

In the world we live in right now I have started to appreciate creativity even in the most mundane things. So as we emerge from this extraordinary moment in time it is my hope that creativity is respected and be valued more. By business. By everyone. Because creativity has such a profound impact on who we are and what it is to be Human.

Please explore, enjoy and share.