A Glimpse into the D&AD Awards Judging Process
D&AD season is upon us once again. On November 7th, D&AD (Design and Art Direction) announced that they are officially open for entries. This esteemed annual design award showcases and celebrates the very best of what creatives can offer worldwide. The 2024 D&AD Awards involved 300 judges looking over 40 different categories—marking the first time the awards involved two Indonesia-based judges, Andi Rahmat and Woon Hoh. Among the thousands of D&AD entries, three Indonesian entrants were shortlisted and two, Jordan, jordan Édition and Ardneks’s Coastal Vision and Innocean Indonesia’s Yellow Canteen, were awarded Pencils. So what does it take to catch the eye of this esteemed accolade? Grafis Masa Kini was able to meet and interview several judges of the 2024 D&AD jury panel to understand the judging process that goes into selecting the best creative works of the year.
“We have about 30,000 individual pieces. Some of those pieces will be entered in different categories, sothere’s about 12,500 unique pieces to judge” Jack Renwick, ‘23/’24 D&AD President and founder of Jack Renwick Studio, explained. 61 of those 30,000 submissions originated from Indonesia, a record number of submissions from the archipelagic nation and double the amount of entries of the year prior—plenty of competition to say the least, and a lot for the judges to sift through. “I think you always approach judging thinking that you’re gonna see 900 entries that will blow your mind and you think you’re going to be seeing the best of in the world and it’s like you are, but you have got to find it. You have got to plough through a lot of stuff that is fine. It’s good, it’s okay, but it’s just maybe not excellent and that is exhausting. Because you have to make sure you’re taking the time to give every entry a fair shot and a fair opportunity.” Jack elaborated.
While the jury panels of each category are looking for something different, clarity is key and a full understanding of the D&AD judging criteria is the best starting point to effectively communicate your project. In their approach to evaluating the entries, members of the D&AD jury keep three key questions in mind; Is it a brilliant idea? Is it beautifully crafted? Is it fit for purpose? The jury is expected to give each entry a fair chance and your submission must meet them. Understanding the challenges they face in the judging process can help you construct a cohesive and comprehensive entry which addresses the three points of consideration above and is important to convey your project as a whole, especially among thousands of competitors.
D&AD is an international accolade with an equally international panel of judges hailing from across the globe. “My jury is spectacular. Filled with people from all around the planet—Italy, Brazil, China, the UK, the United States,” Brian Collins, Founder of COLLINS and jury president of the Branding category, remarked. Participating creatives must be able to showcase their project to an international audience. “[Participants] make assumptions that people will know this project and then they put like two things and then you’re looking at it and thinking, ‘I have no idea what this is. What do I do with it?’ So, to give your entry its best chance, always make sure you understand what the criteria is and how to put an entry together to give it its best chance, and put enough good images together or a film explaining it. You want people to be able to understand it immediately,” Jack explained. With this in mind, the entry submitted must leave a strong enough impression to be shortlisted and push the judges to champion your work at the in-person deliberation session prior to the awards ceremony.
The three-day deliberation session is critical in determining whether entries rise above the shortlist and are awarded the iconic D&AD Pencils. There is no quota to meet—meaning that it is not enough to be the best of the available lot. If a category truly has no works submitted that the judges feel are not deserving of a Yellow, or even Wood Pencil, none will receive those awards. For some judges, determining which works are rewarded with which award comes down to a gut feeling. “You know you read the brief, you see the piece of work, and quite often you’ve been engaged by the piece of work visually before you’ve even understood what it’s for. And good pieces of work, you don’t really need to read too much about. It should be quite clear and quite apparent what it’s for. Things that are usually clearer and you understand quicker are the things that tend to cut through a bit more…And that takes a room full of jury members to all want to champion that piece of work. If they’re all feeling really passionate about it and they can’t stop talking about it and it’s usually something you end up talking about, and talking about, and talking about it over lunch you’re like, ‘Have you seen that thing? and have you seen that thing? and those are the things that usually start rising up because it has planted a seed in peoples’ brains and then they can’t get rid of it.” Jack elaborated.
“I think as designers we uniquely, quickly bonded. I think we all understand what’s good and what’s not. We’re all holding ourselves to a very high standard, here. What I’ve seen the jury has done well is that people immediately have instant opinions on whether they like or they don’t like something. And then someone will say, ‘Well let me explain to you what it is that I like about this piece,’ and then in that reasoning, and in that conversation, and in that defense, I’ve seen people's minds be changed,” Brian explained. “So people's point of views change which means that my jury is incredibly open-minded. Which is what you want. Now, they still maintain really high standards of excellence but it means that they’re willing to examine different understandings of what excellence is and so that’s been great. I’ve found that wise people know how to change their mind-and do. Idiots ne’er do,” he continued.
Not only is the quality of your work important but so is the context. This goes back to the third point of deliberation for D&AD judges: “Is it fit for purpose?” Does the entry provide the right and effective creative solution to a problem? With D&AD being a global accolade, the jury panels are paying close attention to how context, practical or cultural, has informed your project. In fact, Theseus Chan, designer of WERK Magazine and jury president of the Book Design category, found that one of the main challenges in the judging process for him was to maintain objectivity in the face of such a diverse range of creative styles and cultural perspectives. “Each judge brings their own experiences and biases, so it’s crucial to foster open discussions to arrive at a consensus. Another challenge is balancing technical excellence with innovative design, ensuring that both aspects are equally valued,” he continued to elaborate. Andi Rahmat, Principal Designer at NUSAÉ and a jury member of the Typography category affirmed this concern saying, ”The submitted projects come from various countries, [we have to] work quite hard to understand the context of each project being judged.” For him, context was something he prioritized in his deliberation process, “Of course, the first thing that is looked at is the context of the project, the background of the project, then the success of the objectives for what and who,” he explained.
This is why D&AD gathers such a global jury panel. Brian recalled one such case in the Branding category. “There was a brand we were looking at that was based in China and there were two people in our panel who are Chinese. So, the way we looked at it, it was beautiful but then it was translated and Liu [Zhao] said, ‘Well, it is beautiful but the concept doesn’t fit the copy.’ And you read the copy and what I see is a huge disconnect between what it says and what it looks like. So we removed it from contention because while we were mesmerized by the form and the case study Liu said, ‘It’s not working in the copy. So the text and the words are not supporting what the images are saying.’ Alternatively, someone else, who is also Chinese, had articulated a vision for work that we didn’t see and explained what the use of certain iconography and images were. And we said, ‘Oh now we have a better understanding of it!’ and decided to put it in review. So, it’s always important, whether it’s in Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Farsi, Chinese, French, Spanish, that we try to get an understanding, and cultural understanding, of what’s going on so you can make sure that we’re fairly judging something that you might not be as sensitive to culturally,” Brian explained.
One way to help communicate the effectiveness of your entry is data. At the Transforming Brands panel, Emma Follett of Design Bridge and Partners and Michael Johnson of Johnson Banks, part of the Packaging Design and Branding jury panels respectively, pointed out the importance of patience. Michael explained that one of the reasons why the Toledo Museum of Art rebrand was his project of choice yesterday was in part due to the fact that it was “real.” This points towards giving the project enough time to be properly implemented and actualize how it impacts the environment the project is implemented in beyond a set of mockups in a proposal deck. “We talked about waiting. Obviously, you’re very excited when something launches but just by waiting a year, you get to see how all those amazing thoughts that you have actually are coming to life. Then you have a richer story to tell and you have the evidence to back up how your design has affected the brand,” Emma elaborated.
D&AD is an incredible platform to let your work shine. This award is a way to put your practice out there and establish yourself in the international creative industry. “I don’t know that the phone rings when you win an award so much anymore but I think what it does is it establishes you as being relevant in that year and I think that’s really important. You can have your website. You can have your case studies. You can have your social media, which is also promoting your work, and gets lots of likes, and you know people comment on, but I think there’s something about being captured in that year where all your contemporaries are in that moment of history. And I think being part of that moment of history is a really priceless thing to establish for yourself and for your agency,” Jack explained.
D&AD is now open for entries. Submit your work here before December 4, 2024, to get the 30% Super Early Bird discount.
