Seven Black Pencils at D&AD Professional Awards

Cristina Blanaru Creativity, Festivals & Awards

The juries of the 52nd D&AD Professional Awards gave away the highest number of Black Pencils ever awarded as socially progressive, ethical and innovative advertising and design took centrestage. Highlighting the crop of Black Pencils were the two honors handed out by the White Pencil jury for the first time. “Gravity Light”, the life-changing invention of Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves was recognised in the Design category, while the powerful and provocative “Sweetie” campaign, praised by the UN for its role in helping children’s charity Terre Des Hommes identify over 1,000 online sexual predators, was awarded in the Advertising and Marketing Communications category.

The seven Black Pencils were awarded to creative work from six different nations, with the Netherlands taking home two:

There were 54 Yellow Pencils and two White Pencils awarded to campaigns from 17 different countries at the 2014 D&AD Awards. 144 campaigns achieved Nominations whilst a further 480 were awarded In Book status, resulting in 680 awarded entries in total across 43 different countries.

Three different campaigns tied for the most awarded campaign. “Sweetie” by LEMZ, “Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989” by Dentsu Tokyo and “The Epic Split” by Forsman & Bodenfors each picked up two Yellow Pencils in addition to their respective Black Pencils.

Other campaigns taking home two Yellow Pencil awards included “Real Beauty Sketches” by Ogilvy & Mather Brazil for Dove, “Magic of Flying” by OgilvyOne Worldwide for British Airways and in the returning Music Video category “Gesaffelstein – Pursuit” by Les Telecreateurs.

Dentsu Tokyo’s “Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989” was the most highly awarded campaign overall. It’s haul of one Black Pencil, two Yellow Pencils, one Nomination and four In Book Awards; helped Dentsu to the prize of Most Awarded Digital Agency.

Also on the night, Ogilvy & Mather Paris was crowned Most Awarded Advertising Agency, following a string of Nominations and In Book awards for its work with IBM. Apple was recognized as the Most Awarded Design Agency, earning a Yellow Pencil for its Mac Pro, Unilever for Most Awarded Client and Bacon rounded off the Awards by winning Most Awarded Production Company.

United Kingdom topped again the rankings with 182 awards in total, including 9 Yellow Pencils, one White Pencil and one Black Pencil. Its closest competitor was United States, which got 12 Yellow Pencils amongst its 123 awards.

France capped an outstanding year for Europe with 48 awards (3 Yellow Pencils) – a 200% increase on its 2013 tally of 16. Sweden’s five Yellow Pencils (13 total) and the Netherlands’ tally of two Black Pencils, one White Pencil and three Yellow Pencils proved the continent’s creative output to be in fine shape.

Across the world, Australia followed up its strong 2013 showing with 37 awards, including three Yellow Pencils and one Black Pencil, while Japan led Asia with 40 awards (including six Yellow Pencils and one Black Pencil).

Brazil improved its last year’s score and topped Latin America with 37 awards (including two Yellow Pencils). Still, the country that made the biggest new impression was India, which took 25 awards.

Since 1962, D&AD has been inspiring a community of creative thinkers by celebrating and stimulating the finest in design and advertising. A D&AD Award is recognised globally as the ultimate creative accolade, entered and attended by the best creative decision makers from around the world. Set to reward, promote and enable creative brilliance in all areas of creative communication, a Yellow – or Black – Pencil remains the pinnacle in many careers.