The 2023 D&AD Awards are open for entries. Since 1962, D&AD Awards have been regarded as one of the world’s most prestigious awards for design and advertising.
Each year D&AD invites the commercial creative industries to enter their work to be judged by more than 330 of the world’s leading creatives.
Winning a D&AD Pencil will earn your work exposure to an audience of millions in the creative industries around the world through international press coverage, exhibitions, promotion on the D&AD website, social platforms, and newsletters, and the opportunity to be featured in D&AD content unpacking creative excellence within the D&AD Annual.
Creativity is one of the most powerful drivers of commercial success and social and cultural change. Creative awards create a paradigm for the industry against which all the work can be measured. Being recognised for achieving creative excellence helps you progress in your career, attracts talent to your business, wins clients and creates a standard others strive to achieve.
A fraction of that work will be deemed worthy of a D&AD Pencil, the benchmark for game-changing creative work. For those that win one, it’s a career-defining moment that drives the entire industry forward. It’s the award for the ever-hungry, never-satisfied, forever-curious minds who re-define what we think is possible in communications every day.
Times have changed over the past 60 years, but the Pencil-shaped award that their founders created to recognise excellence in design and art direction still remains at the very core of D&AD today.
In order to be eligible for entry into the D&AD Awards, all submissions must relate to work that was commercially released or otherwise made available to the public during the period of 1 January 2022 – 18 April 2023.
Awards’ categories span the full spectrum of disciplines from graphic design to product design, book design, and magazine and newspaper design; art direction to writing, editing, illustration, photography, typography and animation; creative coding to UX, e-commerce and gaming; PR and media to social good, and much more. There are special categories for rising stars who are making waves in the early days of their career and for side projects that are ready to start-up or scale-up.
Photography in focus will be a new category in 2023. The Photography category has evolved to include personal style, where you can now share your portfolio to be judged.
To reflect the rise in Fashion films D&AD has added Fashion Film to 6 categories – Film, Art Direction, Cinematography, Direction, Editing and Production Design.
D&AD has re-structured the Branding category so that work is grouped according to the size of the client.
Type Design has been renamed Type Design & Lettering, with subcategories arranged by font family instead of genre and dedicated subcategories for Lettering, Symbols and Variable Fonts. Book Design has undergone a restructure with new subcategories including Young Adults, Photographic Books, Exhibition Books, Promotional Books, Anthologies and Revised Editions.
In addition, craft subcategories have been reintroduced to music videos, including Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design and Visual Effects.
D&AD Awards 2023 – Entry Fees
Entry fees vary depending on the date of entry and the competition category.
Super Early Bird Discount Deadline: 7 December 2022 – 40%- Early Bird Discount Deadline: 8 February 2023 – 20%
- Freelancers and businesses with less than 10 employees are eligible for 25% off entries.
Please visit the official website for further information.
