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D&AD's Annual has once again been published as a freely available resource – building on the success of the last two years, which saw our digital Annual reach 130,000 people. Of these, 26,000 were young creatives, 24% were based in the UK, and 76% were international. In 2022 under our first President for education, Rebecca Wright, we aim to reach even more professional and emerging creatives. 

Last year opened up a two-way conversation, with Judges and Annual users curating and sharing their picks of the work. This year our Insights section once again provides insight into how the winning work was made, as well as perspectives on some of the major ideas it represents.

Designed by Studio Dumbar, the third digital edition of the D&AD Annual showcases the best of creativity, presented for deep diving. To unpack insights, we have produced a series of written interviews and videos featuring winners, who explore learnings from their Pencil-worthy work, and draw out key learnings to share with the creative community. In this third digital edition, you’ll once again find our Voices section, where we’ve invited experts in their field to zoom out and provide wider context to some of the ideas within the year’s winning work. 

Whether you’re looking to hire, or checking out the competition nipping at your heels, you can also discover talent from the next generation as we present work from the New Blood Awards right here in the Annual too.

There were 41 Categories in the 2022 D&AD Awards, spanning 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 Impact, and much more.

Sustainability was a key theme in this year’s Awards, with subcategories specifically created for sustainable work. These included Experiential / Responsible Activations (3 Pencils), Packaging Design / Upstream Innovation (2 Pencils), Product Design / Responsible Products (2 Pencils) and Creative Transformation (1 Pencil). 

There were 11,726 entries, comprising 29,315 pieces of work. An increase of 18% on 2021 awards entries. 

Out of the 11,726 entries, 1,362 (11.6%) were awarded. Of those,702 won a Pencil – a total of 5.9%. 

Of the winning entries, 428 won either a Wood, Future Impact or Side Hustle Pencil, 188 won a Graphite Pencil, 78 won a Yellow Pencil, 2 won a White Pencil, and only 5 entries won a coveted Black Pencil. There was 1 Pencil winner in Collaborative.

There were entries from 76 countries, 39 of which won Pencils, meaning 70% of countries that entered were awarded a shortlist or higher. 51% of those countries that entered won a Pencil.

This year D&AD 371 Judges were located across 53 different countries and 61 different nationalities were reported. Judging panels comprised leaders and practitioners across disciplines, and were drawn from design and advertising agencies, brand in-house teams, the freelance community and the production world, in order to create a global cross section of peers who represent and recognise creative excellence. Get to know them here.

More than 56.3% of the Judges identified as female (for the third year in a row), with 0.6% identifying as non-binary or third gender, and 1.4% identifying as different gender to the one assigned to them at birth.

53.5% of Judges reported being from a marginalised ethnic group and 18 different ethnicities were represented in 2022.

25 Judges, representing 7%, identified as having a disability. 11.4% of Judges reported being from a marginalised sexuality group.

9.9% of 2022 D&AD Awards Judges began in the industry without a university or tertiary qualification.

Although we are proud of these figures, we recognise that we have areas to work on; in particular increasing the diversity of education and sexuality amongst our Judges.

Over the last 60 years, the D&AD Awards ceremony has been the pinnacle of all industry events, drawing creatives from around the world to recognise and celebrate the best work of the year. In D&D's 50th year, Johnny Ives and Apple’s entire creative team made a rare appearance, bucking their usual policy of never attending Award shows. This year, the ceremonies were streamed live on May 25 and 26, hosted by D&AD President Rebecca Wright and presenter London Hughes. Five watch parties were held in London, New York and Dubai, giving the creative community a chance to meet in person after two years of lockdown. The ceremony is now available to view on YouTube.

This year D&AD Awards had 526 entries in Impact and Future Impact, a 3.95% increase from 2021, with work from 312 entrants across both categories. There were a combined total of 55 winners across both categories in 2022, as opposed to 49 in 2021.

The top 3 entrant countries, with a combined total of 219 entries were the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. 

The highest increase in entries was from the Middle East and India. Work submitted into new subcategories (Collaboration, Creative Use of Budget and Upstream Innovation) accounted for 18.1% of entries – making up 22.22% of winning entries in the Impact discipline overall.

Much more than just awards, at its heart D&AD exists to inspire the next generation of creative talent and stimulate the creative industry to work towards a fairer, more sustainable future. This work is primarily delivered through three programmes: Masterclasses, New Blood and Shift. As a non-profit advertising and design association, all D&AD's surpluses go straight into these programmes.

D&AD Masterclasses are creative workshops, on-demand learning, and long-term training, designed to help power up careers and future-proof businesses. Led by industry-leading creatives and Pencil-winners, these workshops directly connect individuals and businesses to the people making the most outstanding, award-winning work today.

Our Masterclasses cover core skills anyone working in the commercial creative industries needs to take a step-up in their career or creative practice, from art direction and copywriting, gaming and new media, to sustainable practices and strategy. This year, we've taught over 3,000 individuals and teams from companies including Accenture, YouTube, IPO, Publicis Groupe, Kraft Heinz, the BBC and more.

D&AD New Blood Awards are open to students, recent graduates and emerging creatives worldwide to help kick-start careers in advertising and design. With real briefs, set by real clients, judged by the industry's top creatives, the awards provide an opportunity to land a job in the creative industry.

This year, 18 big name brands set briefs spanning disciplines, on the hunt for top-notch ideas and execution. There were over 5,000 entrants from 57 countries. Out of these, 169 Judges from across the world chose 186 Pencil-winners from 37 countries.

It was our third year going digital with our New Blood Festival, aimed at supporting graduates as they emerge from study and make tentative steps into the professional creative industries. Three days of talks and insights, along with in-person events in a number of cities, provided inspiration and practical tools.

We boosted the year's top talent with collated graduate shows and portfolio showcases, exhibiting 30 courses from across the UK. D&AD also collaborated with advanced website creation platform Editor X on New Blood: The Portfolios – a brand new competition recognising creatively excellent portfolio websites across several disciplines, including advertising, animation, illustration, graphic design and digital. We had over 800 entries, and over 50 industry-leading Judges selected 182 portfolios to showcase.

We have entered into a ninth consecutive year of partnership with WPP on the New Blood Academy – helping 55 awarded creatives hit the ground running with a ready-made network of contacts, collaborators, mentors and more. Through immersive training and unrivalled support, attendees meet the evolving zeitgeist of the industry, uncovering roles they never knew existed and opening up the possibilities of their own paths. The 2022 Academy is an opportunity like no other – not only getting feet in doors, but skills up to speed and offers on tables.

Our partnership will continue to evolve in 2022, aiming to reach more young people through delivering learning content at schools, and offering more equitable learning experiences to those that need it most through ongoing learning and development opportunities.

Challenging the conventional assumption that talent comes from only a few universities, Shift with Google is a free, industry-led night school for outstanding self-made creatives who don’t have a university degree or industry networks, but are looking to kick-start a creative career.

This year we launched Shift in Sydney, as well as running programmes in London and New York. With the support of over 15 creative agencies and 35 teachers and mentors, 17 Australia-based Shifters are now launching their careers into a creative industry that is in critical need of improved representation. In the year ahead, Shift will be launching in Berlin and Hamburg, followed by São Paulo in 2023.

With the support of Google and adidas we're launching a free digital training tool, Shift Campus, that aims to open up access to Shift's world-class learning to anyone, anywhere. We've continued to develop 'earn while you learn' opportunities with partner agencies including DesignStudio, Superunion, Huge and Hope&Glory through our Shift Select initiative. 2022 also saw the introduction of Shift Studio, an industry-led learning experience that enabled Shift alumni to continue to develop their portfolios through guided, paid, brief responses with partners Here Design and Disney. 

We're working on ways to further engage and activate our global alumni network of over 180 creatives, 67% of whom are now working in our industry. Shifters now write for Apple. They strategise for Spotify. They have creative ideas for Disney. They are called 'Ones to Watch' by Campaign and It's Nice That. Shifters art direct and design for AKQA, Wieden+Kennedy, Mother, Lucky Generals, Droga5, McCann, BBH, BBDO, VCCP, VMLY&R, Superunion, DesignBridge, SeymourPowell, Area23, Exceptional Alien and more. They direct Stormzy and Dave and animate for Katy Perry. They sit on the board at D&AD and win D&AD Pencils. Talent like this doesn't need a degree.