D&AD launches briefs for the 2020 New Blood Awards marking 40 years of New Blood

D&AD has today released the briefs for the New Blood Awards 2020, marking the 40th anniversary of one of the largest awards for emerging creatives.

Set by iconic brands including Nike, Google, Twitter, and spanning disciplines such as games design, experiential, advertising, branding and typography, the briefs are designed to provide aspiring creatives with experience working on client briefs. Entrants will also have the chance to showcase their work and have it judged by some of the industry’s most prominent figures, alongside the chance of winning a prestigious Pencil and participating in the D&AD New Blood Academy.

Partnering with some of the world’s leading brands to create the briefs, emerging creatives are invited to harness their creativity to tackle commercial challenges alongside social issues. From sustainability to female sexual health, entrants are given the opportunity to apply their ideas and use their skills to propose solutions for both cultural issues and business problems. Designed to help make young creatives work-ready, D&AD New Blood Awards aims to fuel the future of the industry through upskilling aspiring creatives to help people succeed in their careers, alongside meeting the demands of the ever-changing industry. New for this year, D&AD has this also removed the age requirement for entry, to reflect how people are increasingly kickstarting creative careers at various stages of life.

As D&AD New Blood enters its fortieth year, the original mission – to champion, educate and support emerging creative talent to get a foothold in the creative world – remains. In its anniversary year, D&AD New Blood hopes to spotlight and champion the importance of creative education, in a climate where costs of higher education are rising, creative subjects are in decline and creative careers can still be largely misunderstood.

Says Paul Drake, foundation director at D&AD: “D&AD is globally renowned for championing creative excellence and we have a deep-seated belief that new talent and education is fundamental to excellence, which is why D&AD New Blood is at the heart of D&AD.

“We’ve developed the briefs to challenge emerging creatives, in order to prepare them with the skills needed for the world of work to ultimately help bridge the gap between what education teaches and what the industry requires. We want to help new talent realise what they can achieve given the right platform and opportunity. Over the past 40 years of New Blood, we have grown our network of expertise so that we’re best equipped to help people to break into creative careers. We believe that creativity is not limited to any age, which is why we removed the age requirements for our Awards. We hope to inspire others to discover their creative potential.”

Entrants to the D&AD New Blood Awards will be in the running to win with one of the industry’s most prestigious creative accolades, a New Blood Pencil. D&AD New Blood winners will also be eligible to apply for the ultimate prize, a place on the D&AD New Blood Academy. Run in conjunction with WPP, the Academy is a creative boot camp where participants learn from the best in the business and gain skills and insights to help kick-start creative careers.

As part of New Blood’s mission to help and empower new creatives looking to get into the industry, D&AD has partnered with WPP for the second year of Make and Break – a six episode podcast drawing on the advice, mentorship and learnings from the New Blood Academy.

Beats Radio presenter Naina Sethi returns to host the series and is joined by a lineup of interesting creatives at various stages of their careers across different disciplines such as design, advertising and social media. This series has been designed to reflect the journey of a creative entering the industry and will be covering the top issues people need to know when starting out such as developing a personal brand, keeping to your values and defining success. The podcast will be released later this month.

D&AD will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of New Blood over the next 12 months, with further information to follow.

The D&AD New Blood Awards are open to students and anyone aged 18 or over who has not yet started their creative career. More information on eligibility, how to enter and download the briefs, can be found on the D&AD website here: www.dandad.org/newbloodawards. Applications are open until 24 March.