Check Out the Three Black Pencil Winners of This Year's D&AD Awards

Following the second of two digital ceremonies, today, D&AD announces three Black Pencil winners, alongside the President's Award and the remaining Pencil winners across the Culture, Design and Impact categories. 

This year D&AD were proud to see that despite an unprecedented year for the creative industries, the standard of work submitted reached the same exceptional level. As such they are proud to award 3 Black Pencils, the creative industry’s most coveted accolade, reserved only for truly groundbreaking work. The recipients are:

#wombstories, AMV BBDO, Art Direction, Film

Women animators from across the world aiming to open up the many narratives and break taboos around the experiences of people with wombs.

True Name, McCann New York, Experiential, Community

A collaboration with Mastercard to support the rights of transgender and nonbinary people to use their chosen names on credit cards. 

Boards of Change, FCB Chicago, Spatial Design, Public Spaces

Turning plywood boards used to barricade storefronts during the Black Lives Matter protests into polling booths, empowering Black Americans to use their right to vote. 

President’s Award 

This year’s President’s Award, reserved for true industry heroes, was awarded to Kim Gehrig, Director at Somesuch, for her outstanding contribution to creativity.

Naresh Ramchandani, D&AD President, commented: “For me, creative excellence is work that acts both for the brief and for the world, putting social purpose at the heart of commercial success, and showing us that great creativity lifts everybody up. Kim Gehrig’s work lifts so many people up - women trying to get fitter in the case of This Girl Can, men who stand against toxic masculinity with We Believe, and people unafraid to speak up about periods with Viva La Vulva. Kim is not just an ‘issues director’, because when she addresses issues, they’re not issues at all - they’re national and international provocations and celebrations that touch the hearts of everyone who cares and many more who didn’t know they did. For this reason I believe she couldn’t be more deserving of this year's President’s Award.”

Companies of the Year 

The top ranking advertising winners of the year are: 

AMV BBDO

Publicis Italia

Africa

The top ranking design winners of the year are:

COLLINS

John Knowles Ritchie

Superunion

The top ranking production winners of the year are: 

DIVISION 

Somesuch London 

Stink Films 

The top ranking clients of the year are: 

Apple

Essity

Academy

Alongside these special awards D&AD also announced the Pencil winners across the Culture, Design and impact categories. Across these, the top ranking countries by number of Pencils are: 

United States - 59 Pencils

United Kingdom - 53 Pencils

China - 13 Pencils

Canada and France - 11 Pencils each

The top ranking companies for these categories, by number of Pencils are: 

John Knowles Ritchie, COLLINS and Superunion - 5 Pencils each

Adam&EveDDB, Africa, Apple and Google / Google Creative Lab - 4 Pencils each

The total number of Pencils in each category are: 

Impact: 24 Pencil Winners 

Impact: 6 Graphite, 13 Wood

Future Impact: 5 Future Impact pencils

Culture: 41 Pencil Winners 

Entertainment: 3 Yellow, 7 Graphite, 5 Wood

Gaming: 1 Yellow, 3 Graphite, 6 Wood

Music Videos: 6 Graphite, 10 Wood 

Design: 166 Pencil Winners

Book Design: 1 Yellow, 3 Graphite, 6 Wood

Branding: 6 Yellow, 12 Graphite, 36 Wood

Design Transformation: 1 Yellow, 2 Wood

Digital Design: 2 Yellow, 5 Graphite, 6 Wood

Graphic Design: 1 Yellow, 7 Graphite, 21 Wood

Magazine & Newspaper Design: 1 Yellow, 2 Graphite, 17 Wood

Packaging Design: 2 Yellow, 3 Graphite, 15 Wood

Product Design: 1 Graphite, 7 Wood

Spatial Design: 1 Yellow, 2 Wood

Type Design: 3 Graphite, 3 Wood

The 231 Pencil winning works and all shortlisted entries are showcased on the D&AD Website.

The winners were announced during the second of two digital ceremonies hosted on the D&AD website, which featured speeches from D&AD President Naresh Ramchandani in celebration of the winners. 

Donal Keenan, awards director at D&AD commented: “D&AD Black Pencils are an incredibly special and rare industry accolade. I am delighted that this year we have three projects that are driving real behavioral change, from helping empower communities, to increasing freedoms and smashing taboos. The discussion in all three Black Pencil juries was insightful and rigorous this year. D&AD would like to say thank you again to all our fantastic judges in making these Black Pencil choices.”

The total number of Pencils awarded for the D&AD Awards 2021 by level are as follows:

Overall Total - 664 Pencils

Black - 3 Pencils awarded

Yellow - 63 Pencils awarded

Graphite - 190 Pencils awarded 

Wood - 390 Pencils awarded

Side Hustle - 2 Pencils

Future Impact - 5 Pencils

Next - 9 Pencils awarded

Collaborative - 2 Pencils awarded

D&AD this year continues to platform the most exceptional work from the past 12 months, following the same rigorous judging process that holds creativity to the highest standards. Famously tough to win, there are no quotas for D&AD Awards, meaning that the number of awarded entries fluctuates each year. In some years, no Black Pencils - the highest creative accolade - are awarded. The highest ever awarded in one year currently stands at seven. 

Winning work will not only receive an esteemed D&AD Pencil, it will also be featured in the D&AD Annual – the definitive guide for creatives all around the world.

D&AD will be launching the Jury Insights series, a programme of panel discussions in which judges from select categories will discuss what makes Pencil-winning work, alongside the trends and themes from the 2021 Awards. The series will be released fortnightly from 8 June on the D&AD website.