D&AD14 launches at London Design Festival; true showcase of global design for 52nd D&AD Annual

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1. D&AD Annual 2014 Cover.jpgD&AD has unveiled the 2014 edition of its famous Annual, following a special launch event during the London Design Festival.

 

Produced in partnership with Hogarth, the D&AD Annual is the indispensable guide to the celebrated work from the D&AD Awards 2014. The book is considered to be the authoritative archive of advertising and design, featuring all the awarded work from the 2014 D&AD Professional Awards and New Blood Awards.

Hotly anticipated within the advertising, digital and design industries, previous designers include Peter Saville, Bob & Roberta Smith, Neville Brody, Sir Peter Blake and Allen Jones. Each year, the president of D&AD is tasked with choosing a theme and selecting a designer to bring their idea to life.

2.Inside Cover.jpgThe D&AD Annual is seen as a great opportunity for creative expression, with each president seeking to draw the curtain on the year with a memorable cover that symbolises their time at D&AD’s helm. For the 52nd edition, D&AD president 2013-14 Laura Jordan-Bambach aspired to create one of the most ambitious Annual designs ever by utilising five very different designers from around the world.

 

Choosing to reflect D&AD’s growing international composition by showcasing a new wave of emerging design, The Kingpins (Australia), Elaine Ramos (Brazil), Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.49.49 am.jpgCodesign (India), Rhizomatiks (Japan) and Rice Creative (Vietnam) were each tasked with designing one of five sections, with the overall editorial direction coordinated by Laura to ensure a cohesive design. Here, each explains their approach:

 

Técha Noble and Emma Price, front cover designers, The Kingpins, Australia: “We wanted to make the D&AD Annual look like a book of spells and elude to the magic and alchemic projects that lie in it. We also wanted to treat the book as an object, so that the image reads differently depending on where you are in Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.50.13 am.jpgrelation to the object. This strategy of image making, which we’ve used throughout various projects, destabilises the ontological form and extends the physicality of the body using cheap tricks. We like to make images that amuse us.”

 

Says Elaine Ramos, D&AD14 Crafts section, Cosac Naify: “When I was asked to design the opening pages for the ‘Crafts’ section, D&AD told me this was ‘for all the disciplines that involve the skill to ‘make’ things’. When I thought about this idea of making things, I decided to go back to experimental work I had done with my colleague Maria Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.51.02 am.jpgCarolina Sampaio.

 

“We collected obsolete objects used for creative activities, like letrasets, rulers, slides, films, French curves, molds, etc. We placed them over blueprint sheets in a light protected environment and recorded the silhouettes of the objects, then processed the sheets to make the objects visible. Finally the blueprint sheets were scanned and fragmented throughout the pages, keeping the objects at actual size.”

 

Says Codesign of the D&AD14 Design section: “There is a beautiful dichotomy in the canvas that we design in and for. There’s the ‘hidden’ Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.52.09 am.pngframework of order that the designer works on. And there’s the ‘visible’, vibrantly chaotic frame within which design artifacts are eventually displayed and consumed.

 

“For the opening pages of the ‘Design’ section in this Annual, we wanted to bring the two together into one composition: distinct visuals of underlying structures, and the instances of usage/consumption from everyday life. The intent is twofold – a celebration of the beautiful contrast that is, in many ways, representative of everyday life in India; and a reminder to step out of our studios, into the ‘real’ world, to find Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.52.26 am.pnginspiration.”

 

Says Rhizomatiks of the D&AD14 Advertising & White Pencil sections: “We created a series of graphics based on the brain data of Seiichi Saito (director of Rhizomatiks) while he was watching specific film ads. We devised a programme that records the activity of brain waves and translates them into a visual. The device captured the alpha, beta, gamma and theta brain wave frequencies and translated them into graphs. The activity of these waves is affected by emotions and sensations such as tiredness, excitement, agitation and relaxation. So, in effect, Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.51.19 am.jpgwe could see the brain activity change and ‘calculate’ emotion depending on the ad watched. To finish it off, we applied colours to the graphs.”

 

Says Rice Creative of the D&AD14 front & end sections, end papers: “The work is inspired by Saigon, and internal discussions about the identity of our city. It’s an attempt to find order and beauty in the chaos and foggy history, and a way to discover something new. When D&AD contacted us, we got to work looking for clues as part of our practice, rediscovering forgotten typography and symbols to re-interpretScreen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.51.37 am.jpg them into something new.”

 

This year, the Annual is self-published by D&AD with a strictly limited run of 3,000 copies. D&AD14 is available exclusively from the D&AD Shop and this year also is accompanied by a free DVD featuring some of the best work from the previous year. Awarded D&AD members will receive a special copy of the Annual featuring a black-edged page finish to mark their achievements.

 

The full list of work that will appear in the D&AD Annual 2014 can be found online here.

Retouching, colour management, general reprographics and Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 7.51.51 am.jpgproduction for D&AD14 was provided by Hogarth Worldwide.

 

(Images: 1. D&AD Annual 2014 Cover by Kingpins; 2. Inside Cover; 3. D&AD14 Contents; 4. Digital Marketing Divider by Rhizomatiks; 5. Digital Marketing Page; 6. Graphic Design Divider by Codesign; 7. Graphic Design Page; 8. Art Direction Divider by Elaine Ramo
s; 9. Art Direction Page; 10. Writing for Advertising Page)