LONDON, UK — D&AD has announced the Pencil levels for the 2024 New Blood Awards, the annual program that recognizes up-and-coming creative talent and offers chances to tackle briefs set by top brands.
The New Blood Awards is among the world’s largest student competitions, showcasing top emerging talent from around the globe. Winners, selected by leading experts in design and advertising, impressed the judges with their innovative thinking and practical skills, earning one of the industry’s most esteemed awards: a New Blood Pencil. The competition had over 6,000 entrants, from over 60 countries and more than 3,000 entries were judged anonymously by over 150 judges. The work was evaluated based on idea, insight, and suggested execution. Although all work is conceptual and the intellectual property belongs to the entrant, any of the brands setting the briefs can choose to move forward with a winning idea by employing the winning creatives and collaborating with them professionally to develop the concept further.
This year, emerging creatives were invited to respond to a series of briefs set by leading global brands including Google, Adobe, Airbnb, Bumble, Coca-Cola, Nandos, Universal Music, HSBC and more. Covering a wide range of disciplines including UX/UI, animation, advertising, typography and experiential, the briefs were designed to provide new talent with the experience of working on client briefs. These 18 briefs tackled varying commercial challenges and social issues, including asking entrants to create a festival event poster (Universal Music), create a banner icon for the fossil fuel free movement (Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty), a design brief to break down barriers to sexual freedom (Durex and Design Bridge), and a brief to create an inclusive future for the connected home (Sky).
Paul Drake, Foundations Director at D&AD, commented, “In a time when creativity is becoming increasingly vital to global economies, it has never been more important to celebrate the next generation of talent. For 44 years, D&AD’s New Blood has showcased the best emerging creatives from various disciplines, who are getting ready to leave education and join the industry. Explore the winning work, meet the creators behind it, give them an opportunity.”
In recognition of the exceptional creative responses to these briefs, 179 Pencils were awarded, including three Black Pencils (the highest D&AD New Blood accolade), 22 Yellow, 45 Graphite and 107 Wood Pencils. Three White Pencils were also awarded for outstanding work that uses the power of creativity to do good.
Work that was awarded a 2024 New Blood Awards Pencil includes:
- “ffamous ffones” (White Pencil) – People buy refurbished phones because they need to, not because they want to. Despite being better for the planet and your wallet, they lack coolness. This winning entry for giffgaff proposes the launch of “famous ffones,” the first celebrity line of refurbished phones, transforming a practical purchase into an aspirational one.
- “DurED” (White Pencil) – 54% of kids encounter online porn before age 13, leading to misunderstandings about sex and relationships. Enter winning idea: DurEd, a sex education initiative for Durex. A browser plugin, which can be installed by parents, redirects sex-based searches to the DurEd website, offering age-appropriate resources and encouraging offline discussions between parents and kids.
- “Scan to Revolt” (Black Pencil) — This idea aims to arm Gen Z’s creative rebellion against sameness and design clichés using Adobe Express and Photoshop. It provides them with a platform to scan clichés and replace them with their own creations on platforms like TikTok.
- “Swift Cans” (Yellow Pencil) — The Coca-Cola Company, in collaboration with design agency JKR, challenged New Blood to bring Gen Z into the world of the brand. The Yellow Pencil-winning entry turns Coca-Cola cans into collectibles for Taylor Swift fans, featuring trinkets for Gen Z to create friendship bracelets.
- “Bumble – AI Reply” (Graphite Pencil) — AI can be helpful in hundreds of different ways, but for people with autism it offers them the ability to be more understood in society, especially when it comes to dating and reading social cues. The Graphite Pencil winning idea, uses AI to break down the barriers of miscommunication for people with autism on the Bumble dating app.
The winners of this year’s awards were celebrated during the New Blood Awards Ceremony which was streamed live online on Thursday, July 04, with an official watch party at London’s Protein Studios and local watch parties encouraged around the world.
The official New Blood Awards Ceremony Watch Party, closed this year’s New Blood Festival sponsored by Adobe, taking place on July 03 to 04 at Protein Studios in Shoreditch, London. The winning work has been on display in a graduate showcase of more than 40 exhibiting universities, with exclusive exhibitions of the winners of New Blood Awards and New Blood: The Portfolios winners. The festival also offered aspiring creatives a number of opportunities ranging from talks and insights by industry leaders which provided inspiration and practical tools, as well as boosting the year’s top talent with portfolio reviews from leading agencies and activations by Adobe.
New Blood Festival
Over the two days of the festival, leading industry professionals shared their advice and experiences through a series of portfolio reviews, and talks aimed at helping emerging creatives navigate the constantly shifting industry as they launch their careers. This included a conversation with D&AD Shift Alumni Tyler Pierreseon and Sheila Nortley, Netflix Producer, on entering the world of production, a live podcast from Get Sh*t Done with Creative Director Rebecca Rowntree and Group Creative Director at Dentsu Creative Sue Higgs, a lesson on bouncing back from rejection from F*ck Being Humble’s Stefanie Sword-Williams, plus a live panel discussion on how to enhance the creative tools we already have through AI led by: D&AD President, Jack Renwick; Landor ECD Chris Moody; Adobe ACD Tasnim Bhuiyan; Channel 4 Creative Director Landy Slattery; DEPT ECD Jeff Bowerman.
For information on all of the Pencil-winning entries, please see the D&AD website.
