Explore the creative projects which have been awarded a coveted D&AD New Blood pencil.
Last night saw the future creative superstars receive the coveted D&AD New Blood Pencil Awards in a ceremony in Shoreditch, London. With entrants from 58 different countries competing with one another, competition was fierce.
The New Blood Awards are a platform for students and other new creatives to test their limits on real briefs, set by real clients. No other programme offers such a comprehensive test, or a more accurate representation of the challenges that await on the other side.
Paul Drake, D&AD Foundation Director said: "D&AD New blood is all about inspiring the next generation, which is where our 'Win One, Teach One' mantra really comes to life.
"Winning a New Blood pencil is a huge turning point in a young creative's career, not only are they recognised for being the best at what they do, but they get access to a wealth of contacts and advice from professional award Pencil winners and industry experts alike."
A total of 24 young creatives were the recipients of a Yellow Pencil award, with four going on to win a White Pencil. Only two were selected for the ultimate accolade, the much sought-after Black Pencil.
Being a teenager is a universally awkward time that everyone can relate to. In Bottles of Squash, Wuds explores these angsty and rebelious experiences in a beautifully crafted film. Jonny Kanagasooriam, the Creative Strategy Director at Dazed Media, describes it as a "truly excellent stand out piece of work. Funny, poignant, cool and accomplished."
Brief: Use The Power Of Typography To Activate Your Cause
Retro Serif is a project that revolves around restoring abandoned Russian glyphs. These lost symbols were part of the original language, and by reviving them it is an act of protest against the presecribed dictatorship of the language.
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"Powerful. Political. Poignant. Rarely does a piece of work have the potential to inspire change and have such a profound impact on culture and society," says Craig Oldham, Creative Director & Founder, Office of Craig Oldham.
Brief: Break Barriers Between Young Adults and Amnesty International
How often do you call home? Every day? Once a week? Once a month? Thousands of minutes are wasted by phone providers every month because people simply don't call. For refugees, however, these lost minutes are a horrendous waste.
Every Minute matters aims to solve this problem with a campaign where phone users can transfer the time they spend calling onto special SIM cards that are sent to refugees.
Brief: Team Up With Ford To Mobilise City-Wide Change
Ford Fu is a screenless token that strives to enable safe mobility for Shanghai's elderly population. Easily attached to key, jewellery or a cane, the Ford Fu token is a GPS and proximity device that can dial taxis, check-in to locations and alert emergency services.
Brief: Use The Power Of Typography To Activate Your Cause
For children with a visual impairment, learning to read usually means working with a tactile typeface. Better Together is a redesign and revival of Moon Type, an embossed typeface originally created by William Moon in 1845. The result is Moon Two, which aims to bridge the gap between children with normal sight.
Human Filter explores how washing clothes in a photocatalytic water solution can absorb the same amount of nitric oxide produced by a car, effectively turning every person into a human filter.
College: Westerdals Oslo School of Arts Communication and Technology
Brand: Adobe
Brief: Remix the Adobe Creative Cloud Identity For Future Creators
By turning a brand identity into a user experience with added functionality, this project covering the Adobe brief aims to make CC more accesssible and useful to its users. By interacting with the work of creative users, the intelligent logo provides a more immersive experience that brings the brand to life.
Colleges: Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Loughborough University, Miami Ad School San Francisco
Brand: Amnesty/WPP
Brief: Break Barriers Between Young Adults and Amnesty International
It's an often remarked, if not entirely true claim, that young people don't care that much about injustices. With social media, games and apps providing easy distractions, how can young people be engaged?
With PROFUCKATION, Soedarwanto and Wijaya aims to bridge the gap and provoke the youth to take injustice personally. It does this by taking all the meaningless occurances of the word 'fuck' floating arond the web and turning them into a hyperlink to an Amnesty microsite, which enables them to send a petition.
Brief: Use The Power Of Typography To Activate Your Cause
Pubs are the foundations of a lot of communities. There were people forge friendships, find romance, and even raise money for charity. But an increasing number of pubs are under threat of demolition or being converted. The Protecting Pubs Campaign wants to stop this trend, using typography – a perfect response to Monotype's brief 'Use The Power Of Typography To Activate Your Cause'.
Ryan Leckie, Hana Ovčina, Aditya Sunilkumar, Lukas Bruhn
Brief: Focus Nationwide’s Service For The Next Generation
How do you reinvent the banking system for a generation that is disengaged with its investments and savings habits? In this project, Nationwide collaborates with YouTube to present a unique solution to tackling three different problems: educating the youth about their financial futures and the importance of saving and growing their money, the lack of financial resources for content creators on YouTube, and getting the viewer more invested into the video creation process.
Game On is a campaign to fund raise money to protect endangered species. The campaign is done from the point of view of the audience playing a game to engage the future generations in this issue, making them aware that animals do not have extra lives and that you are just a click away from the game to make a big difference. Donate and make a positive change in the world.
This is just a selection of the D&AD New Blood Awards 2016 winners. To find out more about the winners, click here.
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Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.
