D&AD has launched a brand new model of its iconic Pencil, created particularly to rejoice the manufacturers supporting its international Shift programme for self-taught creatives. Conceived and hand-carved by Gray Brazil, the award serves as a tangible image of sponsorship, highlighting the worth of investing in rising expertise from non-traditional backgrounds.
The Pencil is deliberately rougher than the polished variations awarded every year on the D&AD Awards. Its uneven edges and hand-sharpened type are intentional, designed to reflect the unconventional paths many Shift members have taken into the trade. No two are precisely alike, and every was carved with a machete and completed with a knife, embracing individuality and imperfection as core design options.
Gray Brazil explains how the method was about aligning with the values of the programme itself. “The thought is rooted in craft, which is central to D&AD’s mission to rejoice and elevate inventive excellence. It additionally stands for individuality. No two hand-sharpened pencils ever look the identical,” the staff defined. The outcome, they added, is a reminder that “the best concepts will also be the simplest.”
Since its launch in 2016, D&AD Shift has advanced into a worldwide programme that gives coaching, mentorship, and reside briefs for creatives with out formal training in promoting or design. The objective is to open up entry to the trade for people whose abilities have been developed exterior conventional pathways.
The design of the brand new Pencil displays this journey, because it embodies “resourcefulness and curiosity” – two qualities that completely outline self-taught creatives. “That journey isn’t polished, however it’s ingenious and decided. The Pencil embodies that spirit, sharpened by effort into one thing really unique,” they added.
This ethos challenges an trade that always defaults to hiring expertise with typical {qualifications} whereas concurrently demanding innovation. D&AD says: “A few of the strongest creativity comes from surprising locations, from lived expertise, from folks sharpening their abilities on no matter floor they will discover.”
The brand new award made its debut on the commencement of Shift São Paulo, the place Uber, Natura and Surf (a Unilever model) turned the primary recipients. Their function went far past monetary backing, as every model offered an actual transient to the 19-strong cohort of scholars, who labored on reside initiatives all through the programme.
Direct encouragement is essential to the programme, in accordance with D&AD. “It’s one of the simplest ways for manufacturers to see what occurs when individuals who have no idea the ‘guidelines’ of the trade are requested to unravel an issue,” they defined. “With out these limitations, Shifters typically push previous them in essentially the most inventive means doable. That’s when manufacturers discover themselves saying, ‘How have we not considered that earlier than?'”
By the top of the programme, sponsors walked away with recent concepts and views which may in any other case have been missed. D&AD is eager to emphasize that this isn’t company charity however “a strategic benefit”, because it provides an opportunity to attach with voices and audiences which are typically the toughest for established firms to achieve.
Sponsored awards can typically really feel tokenistic, however The Pencil for Sponsors is a deliberate try and reframe sponsorship as energetic participation in shaping the trade’s future. D&AD explains: “When the trade overlooks rising creatives, it misses out on the very concepts and views audiences are craving.
“This hand-sharpened Pencil is a technique to recognise the manufacturers which are keen to take dangers and again typically missed factors of view, whereas additionally crediting them as ones serving to push our trade ahead.”
Kwame Taylor-Hayford, international president of D&AD, attended the São Paulo occasion to current the awards and underline the significance of the Shift programme because it expands internationally. By awarding Pencils to sponsors, D&AD goals to bolster the notion that significant change necessitates collaboration between manufacturers and expertise.
Because the programme continues in cities the world over, extra manufacturers may have the chance to obtain the Pencil. In doing so, they’re recognised not only for writing a cheque however for opening doorways, commissioning work, and giving self-taught creatives the prospect to show themselves.
