About D&AD Awards

The D&AD Awards are recognised globally as the ultimate creative accolade, awarding excellence in design, creativity and advertising.

Founded by a group of designers including David Bailey and Colin Forbes in 1962, the D&AD Awards have been the ultimate creative accolade for over 60 years. Starting in its first year with just 25 judges, D&AD has now grown into a member-run organisation led by an elected Board of Trustees.

In 2023, over 300 creative leaders, practitioners and innovators from 50 countries came together in person at Truman Brewery in London, to identify the world’s best design, advertising, production and craft. D&AD Awards elevates this work above its context onto the global stage, inspiring the international creative community to learn, grow and set new benchmarks for creative excellence.

Our categories span the full spectrum of disciplines, from graphic design to product design, book design, and magazine and newspaper design; art direction to writing, editing, illustration, photography, typography and animation; creative coding to UX, e-commerce and gaming; PR and media to social good, and much more. We also have special categories for rising stars who are making waves in the early days of their career and for side projects that are ready to start-up or scale-up.

Entering your work actively supports D&AD's mission as an education charity by funding learning programmes that bridge the gap between education and industry.

Here, in the 2023 D&AD Annual, you can deep dive into the year’s best creative work. See what judges had to say about their pick of the work, as they discuss why it represents creative excellence. Discover interviews with the people who made the Pencil-winning work, sharing insights into how they did it, and zoom out and consider the wider context around some of the year’s big themes from voices offering their perspectives on the current culture.

Winning work is also promoted around the world at D&AD’s international exhibitions. Past venues include The Ad Museum Tokyo, Louvre Museum, Paris, Shanghai Institute of Visual Art andArts Centre Melbourne. A selection of shortlisted work was also displayed at the D&AD Festival in London in May this year.

D&AD Impact celebrates creative ideas that are making a real and positive difference to the world. It helps creative ideas grow by providing mentoring, training, visibility and funding to work that shows potential. While the Future Impact programme is for early-stage designs and initiatives, still in research and development, that have the potential to benefit the world. It includes prototypes and MVPs. New product or service lines are also eligible under the same conditions. Work must have proof of concept and be commercially viable.

The top award in this category is the Future Impact Pencil and a place on the D&AD Impact Programme, which includes access to a £25,000 D&AD Impact Fund and 12 months of mentoring, training and peer support. One recent Future Impact winner was Cloudneo by On, which went on to win a Yellow Pencil in Product Design and Wood Pencil in Impact at the 2023 Awards. Learn more about the Impact Programme here.

Explore over 1,200 of the most striking, effective and inspirational pieces of creativity from the professional community in the fourth digital version of the D&AD Annual, this time with more insights. This year we have entries from over 70 countries, with winners ranging from boutique design studios, freelancers and production companies to global creative agency networks.

Get to know the Pencil levels and what they mean here.

Shortlist
Work that demonstrates merit, worthy of recognition and in the top echelon of entries. It’s awarded in all categories in the first instance.

Wood Pencil
The best of the year in advertising, design, craft, culture and impact.

Graphite Pencil
For stand-out work that rises above the rest, worthy of consideration for a Yellow Pencil.

Yellow Pencil
The iconic D&AD Yellow Pencil, awarded only to outstanding work that achieves true creative excellence.

Black Pencil
​The ultimate creative accolade, reserved for groundbreaking work. Only a handful of Black Pencils are awarded every year, if any.

White Pencil
Exceptional projects that use the power of creativity to drive behavioural, policy, commercial or societal change. Replaces the Yellow Pencil in the Impact category.

Future Impact Pencil
Early-stage projects that demonstrate the potential to drive behavioural, environmental, societal or policy change through creativity. Awarded to work in the Future Impact category.

Side Hustle Pencil
​Awarded to inspiring, scalable projects that demonstrate creativity and innovation. Awarded to work in the Side Hustle category.

Our rankings table tots up the allocated points for each win, in order to recognise: Advertising Agency of the Year, Design Agency of the Year, Production Company of the Year, Client of the Year, and Independent of the Year.

President’s Award
Every year, D&AD honours an industry hero; a legend whose contribution to the industry has been nothing but inspirational. The recipient is chosen by the D&AD President.

Collaborative Award
The Collaborative Award recognises the long-lasting relationships between clients and their design, advertising and production companies – leading to the creation of amazing work over time.

Now in its 43rd year of kickstarting the careers of emerging creatives around the globe, the New Blood Awards showcases need-to-know new talent. This year, 17 big name brands set briefs spanning disciplines, on the hunt for top-notch ideas and execution. There were over 2,000 entrants from 63 countries. Out of these, 168 judges from across the world chose 179 Pencil winners from 28 countries. Explore the New Blood winning work in D&AD 2023 Annual here.