Design and Art Direction

Its education programmes in their infancy, D&AD launched graphic workshops in association with the Royal College of Art in the mid-1960s.

Six years later, then-president Alan Parker gave the first D&AD President’s Award for outstanding contribution to creativity to Colin Millward of Collett Dickenson Pearce.

[1] Bridging the gap between college and work, the awards present students with real world briefs to tackle.

It was described as a ‘summer school’ for college lecturers and creative practitioners updated participants on the latest industry trends.

D&AD celebrated its 40th birthday in 2002 with Rewind, a retrospective exhibition and book of some of the most iconic work since the 1960s at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

A new benchmark was set at the turn of the century when a double Black Pencil was awarded to the AMV.BBDO ‘Surfer’ for Guinness for its visuals.

[3] Design Workshops were relaunched in 2006 and D&AD North, its first regional network, in Manchester the same year.

[citation needed] It celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012 by honouring the most successful award-winners in its history with a special edition Taschen D&AD Annual featuring 50 different covers.