D&AD New Blood Awards 2021

Kick start your career in advertising and design with an award for students, graduates, and aspiring creatives.

This year's New Blood Awards winners have been announced. See the Pencil-winning projects below; browse by Briefs or Pencil Levels. The New Blood Awards 2022 briefs will be launched mid-October.

New for 2021, New Blood Quickfire is shorter, timed briefs, accompanied by short courses and paid opportunities. The latest Quickfire brief with IBM is now live, deadline 9 September 2021.

Winners
Quickfire
Key dates
Tips & tricks

Real briefs, set by real clients, judged by the industry's top creatives

New Blood Awards is open to advertising, design, digital and marketing students, recent graduates and emerging creatives worldwide. It's your opportunity to land a job in the creative industry by getting a head start while you're still at university or gaining the exposure you need to kick start your creative career.

Your Butterfly Effect

Your butterfly effect is the step you take when you enter the New Blood Awards, When you find your team, When your idea sparks, When you speak to real people to solve a real problem.

Your butterfly effect is the stimulation of your creative ideas, the space to explore them, the tools to learn how the commercial industry works, and how you can make it work better.

The creative spark that keeps going, growing, every decision, every step, every ‘mistake’.

Your butterfly effect is your own, unlike any other, an unfathomable shape, a unique texture, constantly moving, accepting new parts, new roads, new paths.

Your butterfly effect.

Meet the 2021 winners...

Pencil levels

The D&AD New Blood Awards Pencil levels have been announced. See who won what, below.

Key dates

- 13 October 2020
  
  D&AD New Blood briefs launch
- Top brands issue real world briefs
- Early 2021 — Entry site opens
  
  Entry site opens
- Enter your response to the brief
- 23 March 2021
  
  Entry deadline
- Enter your work by 5pm GMT
- April–May 2021 — New Blood judging
  
  New Blood judging
- Judges decide on Pencils
- Late May 2021 — Winners revealed
  
  Winners revealed
- Winners will be announced without Pencil levels
- Summer 2021 — D&AD New Blood Ceremony
  
  D&AD New Blood Ceremony
- Pencil levels revealed at the ceremony

New Blood Quickfire 2021

Applying for creative placements and jobs right now? New Blood Quickfire [formerly known as New Blood Shots] is a brand new set of shorter briefs and accompanying short courses. Quickfire is aimed at recent graduates, emerging creatives and students looking to continue their learning, develop their portfolio and find paid opportunities.

The latest brief with IBM on sustainability is now open for submissions. Deadline 9 September 2021. There's an exciting opportunity to land yourself a role at IBM and to have your work turned into a real life project.

D&AD Side Hustle

Creative competition to start-up or scale-up your passion projects. Pitch your big ideas to investors and creative directors, with a chance to win the mentoring and resources needed to help you succeed.

Find out more

Keep up to date

Be the first in the know. Sign up for articles and videos to keep the inspiration flowing, tips and tricks to take you to the top, and of course the latest D&AD News.

Get in touch

New Blood Team

+44 (0) 207 840 1111
Contact D&AD New Blood

Partnerships Team

+44 (0) 207 840 1129
Contact Sammi

Press Team

Contact Bianca
Contact Jack

Quick Links

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D&AD New Blood Awards 2021

Real briefs, set by real clients, judged by the industry's top creatives

Your Butterfly Effect

Meet the 2021 winners...

Pencil levels

Not sure what each of the D&AD New Blood Pencil levels mean? Read this.

Essential information on who can enter D&AD New Blood Awards and how to do it.

All the nitty gritty small print that you need to respond to a New Blood Awards Brief.

Learn how to get your New Blood entries all ship-shape and ready to submit.

Key dates

New Blood Quickfire 2021

Creative Directors reveal where they look for inspiration, and where their ideas come from.

L.A. Ronayne shares her killer tips on how to make your ideas next-level

Your step-by-step guide to making your work more brave, and more ballsy.

Stuck for ideas? Try these 6 tips to get you back on track

Before you find that winning idea, craft it and enter it – you have to do the hardest part. Start.

Henry Hicks knows just what it takes to create work for change

What makes big ideas 'big'? Simple. It’s the fact that they’re, simple.

Use real connections and tangible experiences to bring your experiential activations to life.

Keep your eyes on the prize, with tips from New Blood Alumni

Have you got the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that’ll drive our industry forward?

Are you onto a winner? Try asking yourself these five key questions

Brief asking you to rebrand, refresh or reimagine? Be inspired by these makeovers.

These ideas created more than just a reaction. They provoked real action.

We’re throwing a spotlight on purveyor of ‘mammamerch’, Mère Soeur

Tech got you feeling like a robot? These big winners prove the power of tech when it’s driven by emotion.

Here's how to turn that difficult creative challenge into a chance to shine

Keen to impress? Get the inside scoop on what the Judges want

Ready to get the Judges’ attention? This is how you do it

Vikki Ross reminds us why words are the copywriter's weapon of choice

The best creative work knows what’s next and how to change it up

Get down to the nuts and bolts with a brief-busting exercise

Understand the issue that's affecting the industry as a whole

Learn how to turn facts and figures into creative building blocks

How about using your New Blood entry to get people talking?

See our handy cheat sheet to find out what each Pencil represents