We spent most of the tutorial yesterday looking at previous pieces of work that have won D&AD awards. While we were looking through these David talked about how important the concept of the project is over the actual outcome, some of the winners end results aren’t professionally created or executed perfectly. I will need to make sure that the concept I decide to take forward is very strong and that it answers the brief in a way that could be taken forward to be executed in the professional settings they are asking for.
To understand what makes a good project for D&AD I will be looking at 3 pieces of previous work from some of the winners to see what made their work successful and also to see how they executed their final outcomes.
D&AD 2014 – DCM – Bringing Cinema to Life – 100 Faces by John Beveridge, John Igle and Joshua Lake
For this brief they were asked to create a 25 second ident for the Digital Cinema Media that shows the individuals own interpretation of what the true emotion of cinema looks like.
This individual decided to record the reactions of 100 people watching the same clip from cinema at the same time. His end result captures the reactions of each person and showed their emotion through narrow slivers of each person which when layered up create a face from the 100 different people.
I think that this project was particularly successful because of the use of real life reactions, it met the brief in a way that made the element of emotions obvious to the viewer but still looked professional, and sleek. They visualised their idea by using the screen as a platform to show that emotions are experienced differently by everyone and that this should be celebrated within cinema. By using a broad range of people in the visual it makes sure to show that the company are inclusive.
D&AD 2016 – John Lewis – Looking through Binoculars by Kasia Serafin
The student for this brief created a window display for John Lewis, aiming for it to look like the shoppers outside are looking through binoculars into the store. They used multiple different layers of illustrations to create an intricate visually aesthetic design.
What makes this project so successful is the way that it represents the brand so perfectly. They have incorporated the ever changing products that John Lewis sell and shows that the company are diverse and ready to grow with their customers.
By making the design so intricate it makes people stop to look, the longer the person looks the more they find within the design. They visualised the project in a way that draws people in to the shop, they’ve also thought about each element of the design and also implemented changes to show that John Lewis are eco conscious by saving electricity and innovative with the use of glow in the dark ink.
D&AD 2020 – LEGO – Six Brick Kit by Lavinia Chandwany, Rhea Kumar and Rachel LeBlanc
This brief asked the students to find a way to get teens to start using LEGO again, on their terms. They created a small and portable kit which includes only 6 pieces of LEGO that they can use to build and rebuild what they want or need. They based this around helping the planet by reusing items instead of binning them.
Out of all of the competition winners I looked at, in my opinion the idea for this one is the strongest. They have thought about the project from conception to future scope and have addressed it in a completely unique way. It is so successful as it’s made the challenge relevant to the current trends of their target group, TikTok is a massive media platform that is developing into one of the most popular social sites of the last year. They’ve also been conscious to add in an environmental issue and a way to help stop the spread of throwing away items and buying new every time. I think that saving the planet is something that our generation finds to be extremely important, so targeting the campaign to help with this issue gives it an even bigger selling point.
By executing the concept with a physical element it makes the idea more engaging, this gives the target group something to actually use, by making it a reusable project it also means that it is a financial benefit and reminds the target group that LEGO are environmentally conscious and care about saving the planet.
References
All work taken from D&AD website from the previous winners archive
Daisy's Learning Journal 