Droga5 wins two Black Pencils in London; Canada gets nine honours but no Pencils

Four Black Pencils were awarded at last night’s D&AD design awards in London.

The coveted Black Pencil awards were awarded for advertising, graphic design, and environmental design. Fifty-four of D&AD’s Yellow Pencils were also awarded, though no Canadians received either honour.

American advertising agency Droga5 received two of the evening’s Black Pencils. The agency won in the writing section of the viral category, for a film called The Great Schlep starring comedian Sarah Silverman. The video aimed to get Jewish voters to support Barack Obama during the U.S. presidential election.

Droga5 also picked up a Black Pencil for Million, an education campaign in the city of New York in which mobile phones were given to students who received “Million points” from their teachers for improvements at school. The points could be used to get free texts, calls, and downloads on their mobile phones.

Matt Dent also won a Black Pencil in graphic design for redesigning coins for the U.K. Royal Mint, and German agency Art+Com won the evening’s fourth Black Pencil for its environmental design work on the BMW museum.

A Black Pencil from a D&AD jury is extremely prestigious and difficult to win.

“The juries are not obliged to award any Pencils in a category in a given year,” a spokesperson for D&AD told Brand Republic today. “A Yellow Pencil is awarded for work that sets new benchmark for creative excellence, which is why it’s so hard to win, while a Black Pencil is akin to best in show, for ground-breaking work that redefines the medium.”

Though no Canadians took home any of the 58 Pencils handed out, Vancouver-based home design house Bocci received a nomination (one of 120 in total) in the home category for the design of power outlets it calls 22, and eight Canadian agencies had their work featured in the D&AD book, which has 574 entries in total.

Leo Burnett made the book twice, once for its magazine ads for Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, and again for its “Share our Billboard” campaign for James Ready—which also won Best of Show at Tuesday’s Marketing Awards in Toronto.

Other Canadians in the book include:

• Ogilvy & Mather is featured in the ambient category for Body and Soul, an original play created as part of Unilever’s marketing for its Dove pro-age line of body products

• Wax made it in the annual reports category for its graphic design of the Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities annual report

• Hi 5 also featured in the annual reports category for its Enablis annual report

•Canadian Graham Roumieu’s design of Penguin Group bookBigfoot: Not Dead is featured in the Book Design category

•DDB Vancouver’s “Chase” TV spot for Midas is included in the TV and cinema advertising category

• TBWAToronto is featured in the writing for design category for work for Skittles