Nominations have been announced for one of the most prestigious nights in the advertising awards calendar, the star-studded D&AD Awards.

From a staggering 24,500 entries from 61 countries, 745 pieces have been selected for the annual, and 142 nominated for awards.

The usual suspects figure large in the TV and cinema advertising category with Fallon's Sony Balls spot directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, Guinness's noitulovE from Danny Kleinman through AMV BBDO and Jonathan Glazer's Ice Skating Priest through Lowe for Stella all picking up multiple nominations. Sony leads the pack with five nominations, closely followed by Ice Skating Priest - nominated for four awards - and Guinness with three.

After two years of taking every award under the sun including an armful at last year's D&AD and no less than two black pencils for Grrr, Honda has just two nominations this year for Use of Music and Direction for Ivan Zacharias's Impossible Dream.

DDB London looks a dead cert for silverware at next week's event for its press work for Harvey Nichols. The ads picked up the most nominations overall with four. The agency also gained two nominations for its VW television spots Boot and Singin' In The Rain.

In the Viral category, nominations go to The Viral Factory's Ravenstoke spot for Lynx and Chris Palmer's affecting Cameraphone for Department For Transport through Leo Burnett.

The winners will be announced next Wednesday night at Old Billingsgate, London.

For a full list of the nominations, click here: D&AD Nominations 2006