Judging D&AD Illustration Category "Might Be What Nirvana Feels Like": Katrina Alvarez-Jarratt

In a year where the mood of the industry feels like a rabbit on roller skates, it has been a sheer delight to travel to a place where pure commercial creativity is actually being championed, celebrated and valued. That place is D&AD.

Sandwiched between the Tate modern and the design museum, the location of the festival is not all that’s been highly curated -- even the signs for the loos are immaculately kerned.

For an ad nerd and design obsessive, judging the D&AD Illustration category just might be what nirvana feels like.

Hundreds of beautiful pieces which must be whittled down to a mere handful of excellence with a group of genuinely lovely people from all over the world.

There were details in the details. We debated line weight and scale and texture.

We drooled over perfectly balanced colour palettes.

At one point we crowded around a packaging example and people actually ‘ooohed’ as the lid came off the box, revealing even more delightfully rendered work.

And while there were knock-your-socks-off stand outs, some work felt too familiar. Like it hadn’t moved far enough away from the Pinterest reference. Some were crafted without the critical key ingredient, an idea. These were dispatched to the ‘no’ pile swiftly.
We even hit that wonderful spot that you hit in every judging room at about 4.45pm -- existential crisis mode -- “What even is illustration?!”

But always, always we came back to just two questions; How is the craft in service of the idea? And does it move the Illustration category forward?

The whole show is a brilliant reminder of not just the power of creativity, but the power of craft.

The truth is craft takes time and time, unfortunately, costs money.

But original and well crafted work can do something amazing. Elevate a brand.
Because craft is deeply human, it’s a physical manifestation of care.

Craft says ‘this product or service is worthy of your time’, and when it’s at its best, craft says something about the person holding the product. The craft magically turns into discernment.

In a world where mediocrity is easier than ever for more people to achieve faster, there is really only one way to keep the value in our creative industry, to keep the value of what we do -- make really good ideas, then craft them to heck and back.

As an old lecturer of mine once said “Why make ugly, boring things?” Why indeed.