Two Black Pencils, three White Pencils and 61 Yellow Pencils were handed out Thursday night in London at the 54th D&AD Professional Awards Ceremony.
Winning an ultra-exclusive Black Pencil were U.K. technology startup what3words for "The World Addressed," a campaign to gives every 3-by-3-meter square in the world an address; and Japanese design firm iyamadesign for its spatial design of the "mt expo 2015" on behalf of masking tape brand Kamoi Kakoshi.
See videos about those campaigns here:
The what3words work will be familiar to those who follow advertising awards, as it won the Innovation Grand Prix at Cannes last year and was named best of discipline in mobile at The One Show last week.
The iyamadesign work for Kamoi Kakoshi was an exhibition and sale of the brand's popular "mt" tape. The agency decorated an entire venue in tape, including 80,000 rolls hanging from the ceiling and "mt" dotted cars parked next to it.
Giles Rhys Jones of what3words picks up his Black Pencil
"We talked a lot about work that we viewed as game changing," said Christian Davies, executive creative director for the Americas at Fitch and foreman of the Spatial and Experiential Design jury. "We talked about the responsibility of sending a message to the design community to say [a Black Pencil winner] will change the way we look at design. We also talked about the iconic work that had won in the past, and how you remember the impact it had.
"mt expo 2015 was beautiful in its simplicity. I thought it was a piece of work that inspired wonder in the people that experienced it. There was a common theme that was to discuss the backlash against 'digital for digital's sake.' So I voted for something that was beautifully simple."
Koji Iyama of iyamadesign shows off his agency's Black Pencil.
Three White Pencils were awarded, honoring creativity for social good. They went to Ogilvy Brazil for Sport Clube do Recife's "Security Moms," which used mothers as security to stem violence at soccer games; seymourpowell for the Fairphone 2, the world's first ethically sourced smartphone; and M&C Saatchi for Optus' shark-detecting "Clever Buoy."
See those campaigns here:
Meanwhile, Y&R New Zealand was the most awarded agency, winning 10 Pencils, including 6 Yellow Pencils, 1 Graphite Pencil and 1 Wood Pencil for its work on Burger King's McWhopper campaign. Droga5 and AMV BBDO tied to second, and Grey London was third.
Members of the seymourpowell pick up their White Pencil for Fairphone 2.
The U.K. won 217 Pencils, including 14 Yellow Pencils, 1 White Pencil and 1 Black Pencil. The U.S. was second with 143 Pencils overall, of which 12 were Yellow. France came in third, winning 6 Yellow Pencils and 48 Pencils total.
Y&R New Zealand won 8 Pencils for Burger King's McWhopperand 10 Pencils overall.
"We've seen a record number of entries and some truly wonderful work, including stand-out pieces of creative thinking in our new Media and PR categories," said D&AD CEO Tim Lindsay commented. "Equally pleasing is that putting purpose alongside profit and seeking to 'Do well by doing good' is driving increasing numbers of incredibly high quality work for some very big brands. We love it when the commercial agenda and the sustainability agenda begin to intersect."
This year's winner of the Next Photographer Award, Hong Kong-Chinese photographer Tam Hoi Ying.
This year's winner of the Next Director Award, British animation director Daisy Jacobs.
