Tony Clewett’s D&AD Diary – Day Three
Tony Clewett, creative director of DraftFCB NZ, is a judge on the D&AD Direct jury which has just wound up day three. He writes exclusively for Campaign Brief.
Day three.
It was yellow pencil day.
Careers were made. Pay rises were secured. Creative teams were gearing up to go on all night benders. Well, after the awards are announced tomorrow night at least.
And I experienced just why it’s so hard to win that elusive pencil.
From our shortlist (with plenty of Aussie contenders – a real theme in Direct this year) we poked and prodded the work trying to find any weak points.
The D&AD has always stood for creative excellence – and we weren’t going to let it down. Which means we turned into stingy bastards.
What I can reveal is that only two pencils were awarded in our category. Scary really after such a mountain of work.
But here’s a couple of tips for winning next year. Do some amazing Direct copy. You’ll win for sure. Do some amazing Art Direction for Direct. Again, the pencil will follow. And bizarrely, do some great DM (include idea please) and fame will be yours (check out the pic of the stripped-bare DM tables with the shortlisted work left on it – sad sight really). If you want to make things difficult for yourself, play in the Direct integrated space. Good luck with that.
Now, I’m off to have a pint in a good ‘ole fashioned English pub. It’s thirsty work making (and destroying) people’s careers.