Salute to craftsmanship in advertising: @dandad 2014

Design and Art Direction (D&AD, formerly known as British Design & Art Direction) is a British educational charity which exists to promote excellence in design and advertising. D&AD ‘exists to stimulate, enable and award creative excellence in design and advertising’. It is a highly respected award and recognises great design beyond advertising – some of the categories include Product Design (in 2012, Apple was named best design studio and best brand of the past 50 years), Book Design, Graphic Design, Music Videos, Packaging, Spatial Design and Writing for Advertising. The results of the 2014 D&AD Awards are out and among the many categories, ‘Crafts for Advertising’ honours great work in Illustration, Photography, Typography, Animation & Illustration for Digital Marketing, Animation & Illustration for Mobile Marketing and Sound Design & Use of Music for Digital Marketing.

Herewith a few of the winning work which caught my eye:

Sunlight: Pig – Illustration

A much-awarded piece of work last year, the ads are not just striking but extremely well ‘planned’. The central idea of ‘separating food from the dishes’ is brilliant.

Agency: Lowe Bangkok

Pepsi: Iconic Refreshment – Illustration

Incorporating the Pepsi logo’s distinctive red and blue colour scheme in a series of images depicting the human cardiac system, we were able to illustrate the product’s energising quality. To reinforce the brand’s identity, we also added a small Pepsi logo that can be found in each image, adding a level of interactivity to the design.

Agency: BBDO Germany

The Sun: Dream Team – Photography

Loved the refreshing take on playing fantasy teams – ‘if you can’t play, manage’. The insight is universal as many believe that fans (as well as critics) cannot actually do anything and can only comment or critique.

Agency: Grey London

Fiat: Letters – Typography

Again, a much awarded PSA urging people to not text and drive.

Agency: Leo Burnett Tailor Made

The Land Rover campaign from Y&R, Dubai was also a winner for Photography in the Advertising Crafts category.

See the full list here. It is inspiring to see the level of craftsmanship, attention to detail and the sheer will to get things done however big they are in scope & imagination, especially in areas like Sound Design, Digital and Mobile Marketing.