Your chance to enter the D&AD New Blood Awards

The D&AD New Blood Awards are an incredible opportunity for budding young creatives to show off their skills and demonstrate that they have the talent and know-how needed to succeed within the creative industries. Celebrating outstanding design work, a D&AD Pencil award is recognised the world over as a symbol of the very highest creative achievement, and is a great way to make a name for yourself if you’re starting out.

Open to any young creative aged 23 or under, plus current students and recent graduates, entrants are encouraged to tackle one (or several) of the award briefs, each of which reflects a challenge faced by brands in the real world.

The brief

This year, we’re asking you to dig deep into your hard-won wisdom and life lessons and celebrate them through illustration or photography. Identify the advice you’d like to give, and create a series of three posters or prints to visually bring your insights to life. It’s time to draw on your life experience and visually declare what you’ve got to share!

Can you communicate wisdom without words? They say a picture’s worth a thousand. Create images that pack a punch and get to the core of the heartfelt advice you’re trying to express. Though this is all about craft, so feel free to incorporate lettering if that’s your illustrative style. Whatever you create, it should help spread your message or declaration to the world.

Who’s it for

You get to decide who your target audience is. It can be who or whatever you want it to be, just be sure to tell us when you submit your work. Is it for your peers, a message to your future self, those about to tread ground you’ve already explored or those that are older but no wiser…?

Things to consider

Our brief is designed to stimulate creativity, self-promotion and discovery, so be as expressive as possible and make it count. All image-making approaches are welcome across illustration and photography: hand-crafted to computer generated, lo-fi to high-tech, image-only to typographic, comics to collage, the options are endless. The judges will be looking for real skill in your chosen craft, but remember that craft is most powerful when driven by a strong concept.

There’s room for you to think beyond the page – your three images need to work in print, but interactive, motion or physical extensions of these are also welcome. The judges will look first and foremost at your three static images but it’s worth considering how you could give your idea and craft space to breathe and flex. Ultimately, we want you to have fun with it.

What’s up for grabs

Impress the judges and you’ll not only get the chance to walk away with a coveted D&AD Pencil award, but you’ll also get a free annual Adobe Creative Cloud membership and the opportunity to have your work featured across Adobe’s channels.

How do I enter?

Think you’ve got what it takes? Check out the full brief here and be sure to submit your entry before 22 March 2017.

Good luck!