The 97th ADC Annual Awards calls for entries

Cristina Blanaru Creativity, Festivals & Awards

The One Club for Creativity, the world’s foremost non-profit organization celebrating creative excellence in advertising and design, officially launched the call for entries for the ADC 97th Annual Awards.

The ADC 97th Annual Awards, this year with the theme “Where Craft Will Take Us”, continues the organization’s historic focus of honoring global work that exemplifies the very best in craft, design and innovation.  This year’s jury includes top advertising creatives and designers from around the world.  Deadline for entry is January 31, 2018.

The biggest news for this year’s competition is a tiered pricing structure designed to make it easier for smaller agencies, studios and freelancers to participate.  Companies with 21 or more employees pay the standard entry fee; smaller shops with from 2 to 20 employees get a discount on entries (amount varies by discipline) and freelance creatives and one-person shops are eligible for an even greater reduction in their entry fee.

The goal of the ADC Annual Awards is to identify and celebrate the absolute best in craft, design and innovation from around the world, regardless of how large or small the agency or studio might be (…) This new tiered pricing helps to level the playing field, making it easier for smaller shops and freelancers to get their works judged by an all-star jury and potentially elevated on a global stage.

Michael O’Rourke,

Executive Director ADC

At a time when other awards shows continually look for ways to increase their entry fees, it’s literally unheard of for a show to reduce their fees (…) This tiered pricing structure reflects our new mission to support and celebrate the success of the global creative community, no matter the agency location or size.

Kevin Swanepoel,

CEO, The One Club for Creativity

Among this year’s changes at ADC 97th Annual Awards are:

  • Creation of the ADC Design for Good award for excellence in work that fosters societal or political change.  This new reduced-fee subcategory exists within each of the categories, with the winner  selected from among the top vote getting Design for Good entries in each category.
  • Once each jury has selected its ADC Gold, Silver and Bronze Cube winners, they will choose which Gold Cube winner stands out to receive an ADC Best in Discipline award.
  • The ADC Black Cube, formerly a Best in Discipline award, is now elevated to represent the Best in Show overall.
  • Freelancers can now enter for their contribution to a campaign or project created by an agency.  For example, a self-employed illustrator can now enter their work in the Design-Illustration category for illustrations they here hired to do by an agency for a brand’s print ad campaign.
  • The Design discipline now consists of categories for Illustration, Photography, Typography, Brand Communications Design, Publication Design, Experiential Design, Product Design, Packaging Design, Motion and Film Craft, Innovation and Design for Good.  Entries in each category are judged by a jury that includes members who are professionals in that particular category.

Entries can be submitted online, while the final deadline for all categories is January 31, 2018.  Judging takes place in March and winners will be announced and celebrated at the ADC 97th Annual Awards Gala on May 7, 2018 as part of Creative Week in New York.