7 D&AD Pencil-winning pieces of copywriting that elevated design
“Copywriters can easily melt into the background,” says freelance writer and communications consultant, and D&AD Awards 2018 Jury President, Fiona Thompson. “We tend to listen more than we talk and you'll often find us sitting in the quietest part of the office, wearing noise-cancelling headphones.”
D&AD's Writing for Design category shines a light on these language-loving creatives, who have the power to influence, inform and change minds – all with a clever bit of copy. In celebration of their craft, we've uncovered seven D&AD Pencil-winning pieces of work that show the powerful influence words can have on a campaign, and what can be achieved when design and language work together in harmony.
The Slave Calendar
Geometry Global Cape Town and Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town gave voices to the tens of thousands of slaves who were torn from their homes and brought to South Africa, where they were renamed after the month in which they were arrived.The Slave Calendar tells these all but forgotten stories.
Agency: Geometry Global Cape Town and Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town.
Client: Melody Kleinsmith
Wood Pencil / Writing for Design / Writing for Printed Materials & Graphic Communications / 2017
GetColeman.com
Copywriter Joe Coleman wrote no less than 60 iterations of the same piece of copy for his own website – ranging from shoulder-shruggingly soft to brutally hard sell. A slider lets users choose which tone of voice they’re after.
Agency: Joe Coleman Copywriting
Client: Joe Coleman Copywriting
Graphite Pencil / Writing for Design / Writing for Websites / 2017
Could I Be Any Clearer?
These tongue-in-cheek Christmas cards, by adam&eveddb, look festive at first sight but carry a distinctly un-Yuletide message once recipients read further.
Agency: adam&eveDDB
Client: Harvey Nichols
Wood Pencil / Writing for Design / Writing for Design / 2015
Talk Rugby Like A Pro
Clever copy is the hero of this Whybin\TBWA\DAN campaign, which uses stripped back graphic design to really let the language do its work.
Agency: Whybin/TBWA/DAN
Client: New Zealand Media and Entertainment
Wood Pencil / Writing for Design / Writing for Design / 2015
A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words
There’s not an image to be seenin these promotional postcards for photographer Paul Thompson, which instead use words to describe his photographs. Each piece of copy was exactly 1,000 words and set to fit the proportions of the original image – encouraging recipients to visit his website to see the photograph described.
Agency: The Chase
Client: Paul Thompson Photography
Yellow Pencil / Writing for Design / Writing for Design / 2011
Corpoetics
To promote the writing side of a new creative partnership, Asbury & Asbury rearranged copy found on company websites to create haikus, limericks, ballads and syllabics that playfully subvert their source material.
Agency: Asbury & Asbury
Client: Asbury & Asbury
Yellow Pencil / Writing for Design / Graphic Design / 2009
Cards Against Domestic Violence
The Joy Agency borrowed a Valentine’s Day tradition to get Australians discussing domestic violence. At first the cards seem to offer a typical saccharine message, but it's one that holds an entirely different sentiment on closer inspection.
Agency: The Joy Agency
Client: Domestic Violence NSW
Yellow Pencil / Writing for Design / Writing for Printed Materials & Graphic Communications / 2016
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