A letter from D&AD CEO Jo Jackson

The pencil – the ultimate accolade in a creative’s career. This is what most people know D&AD for. They have, and will always be, notoriously hard to win. Our judging process is meticulous, from our selection process that ensures the best possible representation of international creative talent across our juries, to the intensive days of in-person judging. As Dick Powell, our Chairman from 2010-2019 once put it, “Nothing is missed, and nothing is dismissed. It is the combination of passion and rigour, alloyed with D&AD’s ‘not-for-profit’ remit, that lifts D&AD Awards above others.” This is still true today.

We’ve had a record-breaking year across all accounts; nearly 30,000 individual pieces of work, from over 70 countries, making up 12,243 entries, were judged by over 300 judges from over 50 countries. And a total of 639 Pencils were awarded.

It’s a solid place to start my first year as the new CEO. I’ve tried not to run ahead to future-proof us too fast (which has been tough on occasion) and keep front-of-mind D&AD’s reputation that needs to be protected and enhanced – to be the campaigner for this creative excellence, always. However, some things were clear from day one:

1. What creative excellence stood for 61 years ago is different from what we would celebrate as excellence today. As such, D&AD needs to evolve and grow with this.
2. We need to improve our digital experience with a website upgrade.
3. We can, and should, reach more people with our incredible initiatives we are doing globally (like D&AD Shift with Google, our free night school for self-taught creatives without a degree, running across London, New York, Berlin, Hamburg, Sydney and now São Paulo that helps 74% of the graduating talent get employment in the creative industry).
4. The respect and love for D&AD goes deep, really deep.

So, as a team, our mission is to champion the first point, improve upon the second two points, and nurture the latter.

We believe that great creative work creates better outcomes for all, and creative excellence is only really achieved through a diverse, inclusive, sustainable industry, making relevant work representative of the communities it serves.

We’ll start with the website – the key to our international future. We have a collective vision for it to be the digital destination for Creative Excellence throughout your creative career, wherever you are in the world. A fully integrated platform that enables & connects the world’s best emerging and professional creatives, celebrates their award-winning work, and inspires us with relevant, engaging and thought-provoking content.

Exciting new developments mean we’ll reach more people in more places, supporting more creatives to access the industry and achieve creative excellence.

Here in the D&AD Annual 2023, you can explore all of this year’s winners across D&AD Awards and New Blood Awards for free; hear what judges had to say, and learn from insights from leading voices and the creatives themselves. And if you are one of the winners – first of all congratulations – for your outstanding achievements, and in many cases for sharing insights into how you did it. Paying it forward is an important part of D&AD, and our ‘Win One, Teach One’ ethos.

For all the creatives that have donated their time in 2023 to judge the awards, sit on our board of advisors and trustees, attend our events, mentor and teach the next generation of creatives, donate their space to celebrate local D&AD Shift with Google graduates around the world, or generally support/comment/like anything the incredible team at D&AD have produced this last year – Thank you. We can’t do this without you.