D&AD Professional Awards 2013: Winners Announced

A total of 51 Pencils – including four Black pencils – were awarded to the best work in design, advertising and communications last night at the 51st annual ceremony for the D&AD Awards at London’s Roundhouse.

McCann Erickson Melbourne’s Dumb Ways to Die (below) for Metro Trains (Integrated and Earned Caigns) bagged one of the Black Pencils – which are awarded for work that is not just considered the best in the world in its category, but for pieces of design or advertising that have fundamentally changed the rules of the category. The caign also received the highest number of Yellow Pencils, across five categories (Art Direction, Earned Media Caigns, Digital Advertising, TV & Cinema and Writing for Film Advertising).

4Creative’s Meet the Superhumans for Channel 4 (TV and Cinema Communications), Heatherwick Studio’s Olympic Cauldron for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Spatial Design/Installations), and GOV.UK’s website for Her Majesty's Government (Writing for Websites & Digital Design) also scooped the top accolades on the night.

Elite industry figures from the worlds of design and advertising convened to watch as prizes were handed out by D&AD CEO Tim Lindsay and president Neville Brody and for the first time a coveted White Pencil was also incorporated into the Awards, presented to Droga5 for its Help! I want to save a life caign for Help Remedies.

Brody also handed his coveted President's Award to production designer Alex McDowell.

Another significant winner was 4Creative, for its Meet the Superhumans caign, which was awarded Yellow Pencils across four categories for Editing for Film Advertising, TV & Cinema Communications, Direction for Film Advertising and Use of Music for Film Advertising, as well as the aforementioned Black Pencil.

Other caigns taking multiple awards were R/GA’s Nike+ FuelBand, which took three Yellow Pencils, whilst Leica Store São Paulo’s Soul and 20th Century Fox’s Prometheus Viral David each won two Yellow Pencils.

“Our 51st Awards was another outstanding year for global creativity, with thousands of pieces of work recognised by the juries. So, a big thank you to our almost 200 judges who have once again helped to make this the awards ‘for creatives, judged by creatives’,” comments Tim Lindsay, CEO of D&AD.

“The quality of entries this year has been astounding. The craft skills of making great pieces of graphic design, TV & cinema, direct, film and illustration are as strong as ever. However it’s also great to see the written word being employed in such a diverse and multifaceted way. It demonstrates a big shift in understanding of what words can bring to design.”

The theme for the event cleverly incorporated the word DEAD into D&AD (pictured) and was created and designed by Ben Chatfield and his team at Bravo Charlie Mike Hotel.

Guests drank, dined and danced into the early hours as musical entertainment was provided by Norman Jay, AlunaGeorge and Blamma Blamma.

To take a more in depth look at the winners in their categories go to D&AD and read our live updates from the night by following @shotscreative. To see a selection of Pencil winners at the Roundhouse click the gallery below.