AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Close-Up: Live issue - D&AD Annual: nice book, shame about the cover.(Viewpoint essay)
This year's D&AD Annual is addressing some of the global advertising awards schemes' tricky issues, Ed Morris writes.
At the beginning of the new D&AD Annual, there is an appropriate obituary to the remarkable Alan Fletcher. It's ironic and somewhat fortuitous that he didn't live to see this year's front cover. He would have wept.
The first glance is a let-down. It's yellow and square, the same as last year. Some copy (a few paragraphs of it) on the front and back cover restates D&AD's history and purpose. It is preaching to the unconverted, the rest of the world. D&AD is now global.
I understand the need to repeat the mission statement, but the way it is done lacks a little confidence. One particularly unconfident sentence says that its membership is 'made up of the creative A-list'. I cringed a bit. If I was a truly creative person, pursuing a truly creative endeavour, for example, Milan Kundera or Paula Rego, I would giggle to myself at this clambering conceit. If you truly are, you never have to say it.
In prime place next to the logo at the head of the cover is the book's title, D&AD Annual 2007. It should have stopped there, but under that reads 'D&AD 2007 Annual', which apparently is in a different language Then under that 'Anuario de D&AD de 2007'. By now, whatever language you speak, you're kind of having your intelligence underestimated. It goes on, eight languages in all. Which is a shame for a book that is responsible for championing graphic communication and its ability to transcend borders. It certainly misses the opportunity to have done so. Coincidentally, the rest of the Annual is in English.
OK, you've gone global and you want the world to know what a giant, international, A-listing, standard-setting, cutting-edge, leading, creative, championing, inspiring, outstanding, innovating, contribution to creativity stroke registered charity you are (all your words, not mine).
Well, you've done it, but not with any flair, confidence or, more importantly, any creativity. The front cover (the biggest ad D&AD ever gets) is an example of exactly what it shouldn't award. It's the committee's favourite flavour, vanilla.
- D&AD Annual Review.(First Sight)
- Magazine article from: Creative Review April 1, 2004 700+ words
3 D&AD ANNUAL REVIEW Designers Harriet Devoy and Steve Royle at The Chase, London had the idea of creating a "cheesy calender--kittens...
- D&AD Annual provokes a passionate response.
- Magazine article from: Design Week November 12, 1999 700+ words
Pugnacious goings on at the D&AD Annual launch at the Royal College of Art last week. In the words of The Specials, there was a bit of 'fighting on the dance floor...
- D&AD Annual's Italian job.(contracts of Fabrica)(Brief article)
- Magazine article from: Design Week January 4, 2007 700+ words
This year's D&AD Annual will be designed outside of the UK for the first time, with the...Monica Gautier as lead graphic designer. The Annual's theme this year is 'global creativity'. As part of this, 500 individuals have...
- D&AD Annual sucks.(Editorial/Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
- Magazine article from: Creative Review Raban, Dom February 1, 2004 700+ words
I scoured your piece on the D&AD Annual [Jan], searching for withering criticism of this preposterous tome. Since I could find none I feel I must provide it myself...
- D&AD annual review 2002. (New Design).
- Magazine article from: Creative Review June 1, 2002 700+ words
D&AD celebrates its fortieth birthday this year. To mark the occasion, the 2002 annual review has been treated a tad differently: art directed by designer Vince Frost, all...
- Body language.(Brief Article)
- Magazine article from: Design Week February 4, 2000 700+ words
...been selected to go in the D&AD Annual are invited to join. Members receive free copies of the D&AD Annual (also on CD-ROM and DVD) Showreel...have won a place in the D&AD Annual, the book' compiled from entries...
- -BRITISH DESIGN & ART DIRECTION: UK's first hybrid DVD.
- Press release article from: M2 Presswire October 6, 1998 700+ words
...COMMUNICATIONS LTD RDATE:051098 This year, for the first time ever...each copy of the D&AD Annual, which remains the undisputed...to editors: 1998 D&AD Annual including C-ROM and DVD GBP...launch of the 1998 D&AD Annual, DVD, CD-ROM, 1999 Call...
- Print design. (2003 Design Week Awards).
- Magazine article from: Design Week March 20, 2003 700+ words
...Richard Cooke for Royal Mail D & AD Annual 2001 by GBH for British Design...points to the relevant day of the year as it is eased down daily. SHORTLISTED...GBH's concept for the D&AD Annual is based on the idea that the work...