Ad.ventures

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 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 2022, more than 400 creative leaders, practitioners and innovators from 61 different nationalities came together 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.

Apart from the deep dive into the year’s best creative work in the Annual, we also present Judges’ Insights and a behind-the-scenes look at work throughout the year on our digital platforms.

Winning work is also promoted around the world, and this year we’ve had exhibitions in Tokyo, Singapore and Taipei; hosted by Ad Museum Tokyo, DesignSingapore Council and Fable and Taiwan Tech University.

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. Learn more about the Impact Programme here. 

Explore over 1,300 of the most striking, effective and inspirational pieces of creativity from the professional community in the second digital version of the D&AD Annual, this time with more ways to explore and share. Get to know the Pencil levels and what they mean here.

Shortlist
Work that demonstrates merit, worthy of recognition. Awarded in all categories in the first instance.

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

Graphite Pencil
Standout work, beautifully executed with an original and inspiring idea at its core.

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, and Client of the Year.

Collaborative Pencil
The collaborative Pencil recognises long-lasting relationships between clients, agencies and production companies that have resulted in consistently inspiring creative outputs over time.

President’s Award
The yearly President’s Award honours an industry hero, a legend whose contribution to the industry has been nothing but inspirational. 

New Blood Awards
Now in its 42nd year of kickstarting the careers of emerging creatives around the globe, the New Blood Awards showcases need-to-know new talent. 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. Learn more about the New Blood Awards in D&AD in 2022.