Three ways to keep creativity in craft alive
47 by Klick Health for Café Joyeux, which won a Yellow Pencil for Craft in the Animation category at D&AD Awards 2025
Celebrating the rebirth of creativity in craft with confetti at D&AD HQ
Is creativity dead or alive? This is a question we’ve been debating a lot this year at D&AD – so much so that we decided to open it up to experts in their fields from our wider community by hosting an event series on the topic at our London HQ. The first in the series took place on 10 February, where we brought together moderator Bee Pahnke, Creative Director and Head of Voice at Grey London, and a panel including Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes, Executive Creative Director at BBH; Copy, Brand and TOV Consultant Vikki Ross; and Marilena Vatseri, Creative Director and Managing Partner at the Emmy-nominated animation studio NOMINT, to discuss whether creativity still has a pulse in craft. Our panellists discussed whether speed has killed craft, whether generative AI is really replacing the human hand, and how work can break through in an attention economy drowning in content.
It was a dramatic event – we held 30 seconds of silence to commemorate the death of creativity in craft as we knew it, making way for a rebirth. Here are the main takeaways from the event on how you can keep creativity alive in your craft.
Defend your craft and gas your industry up
For creativity in craft to thrive, we, the creatives, must first believe in our craft and in the industry. Explaining that we can do this at every level, especially when presenting work to others, Vicki Ross said, “We're all sensitive and passionate, and we love what we do, and we should show that. When we're presenting work, don't just send it over and hope for the best; you need to sell it – with heart.” Ross went on to say that she likes to present her case as if she's a lawyer in court, because simply saying, "I've written this line because I think it works" isn't always enough when people have lots of criteria to judge it against. Ross says, “Put a case together. What are your client or boss's competitors doing? How are you standing out? How are you creating difference? My point is this: defend your craft, defend yourself, look after yourself.”
Diary of a Head Injury by The Tuesday Club for AUT Traumatic Brain Injury Network, which won a Yellow Pencil for Craft in the Animation category at D&AD Awards 2025
Meanwhile, Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes spoke of his home country Brazil, where he says the advertising industry is part of popular culture, alongside film, music, and art. “There was a moment in Brazil where creatives were creating shit that people really cared about and engaged with,” says Guimaraes. “We're the ones who talk down on our industry and make it disposable and make it this thing that just gets spit out. So I think there is a kindness in us, kind of propping this industry back into a place where we want everyone to be like: Andy Warhol made ads. Keith Haring made ads. There are these people that we put on our walls that were also making ads. There is something about us gassing ourselves in terms of, it's the best industry in the world that I think we are fully lacking.”
"Andy Warhol made ads. Keith Haring made ads. There are these people that we put on our walls that were also making ads."
Know that AI can’t actually do what you do
Ross mentioned that she set out to see if AI could actually write good copy lines, giving it prompts to see if it could replicate a campaign line for an Apple MacBook that reads “Light. Years Ahead.” “I spent an hour teasing it and then thought, fuck it, I’m just going to give you the actual words ‘light years ahead’ and see what you do with that,” says Ross, “And the best it could come up with was ‘battery that outruns the stars.’ It’s such a waste of time, and loads of people will come back to you and say you’re not prompting it right. So I’m going to quote Thomas Kemeny, as I always do. He might take a restraining order out on me soon, because I pretty much quote him every week, because it’s so true. If you know the exact right prompt, you’ve already cracked the brief.”
An ad for Apple's MacBook
Embrace failure and be naive
Vatseri mentions that we are too used to seeing perfect, beautiful work these days, and in order to keep creativity in craft alive, we must embrace the potential for failure.
“We should be ready to create things that may turn out poorly, and that’s okay – let’s move forward anyway,” says Vatseri. Adding, “Another point I want to make is that we should find beauty in mistakes, not only in our own work but in others’ as well. We’re so used to seeing polished work that when something is new or different, we may judge it harshly just because it’s unfamiliar. I think we need to pause, step back, and truly appreciate the efforts of other creators.”
“We should be ready to create things that may turn out poorly, and that’s okay – let’s move forward anyway."
Guimaraes also mentions that because his background was in sport (he tried his hand at professional tennis and skateboarding), he has the mentality of a sportsperson. “It's naivety – because no one goes into professional sport thinking they might be average. There is this sense that maybe you can be the greatest of all time,” explains Guimaraes, recommending we bring that optimism into work. “I think naivety, that the project that you're on could be the best thing that the world's ever seen is something I love about this industry,” he says, “Because you don't know where it will come from, you don't know who's going to make it. Risk, for me, is more in the shape of being so stupidly naive that it doesn't look like a risk. I think there's something in that that we're missing or over intellectualising, having to put order to everything where we could just be a bit more like, fuck it. See what happens.”
Feel like you missed out? Come to our next event D&AD Dead or Alive: AI on 5 March 2026 and stay up to date with all future events here.