D&AD YELLOW PENCILS
Michael Weinzettl talks D&AD Yellow Pencil winners and DHM, London’s Dave Dye gives us a glimpse of his work for the 50th D&AD Book.
Images: Draft cover designs by Dave Dye for D&AD's 50th book.
The winners of D&AD’s Yellow Pencils were announced last week at a ceremony right after the judging. To find out who won the even more coveted Black Pencils, however, we will all have to wait till September when D&AD is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
The Yellow Pencils all went to a very deserving bunch of work. BETC's “The Bear” for Canal+ (featured in Vol. 6/2011 of Archive) and BBH's Life Story for Barnardo's (Vol. 1/2012) won in TV and cinema. The Bear is kind of a sure-fire festival winner and I remember some teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing on the part of the organisers of the Epica Awards (the jury, which I have been part of for more than 15 years, got together for four days in Paris in mid-November) about the fact that this lovely spot, although already on air at the time, had not been submitted by the agency.
The Bear, they felt, would have been the prime candidate for the Film Grand Prix, which as a result of this no-show was, a bit faute de mieux, awarded to the Heineken “Party” spot by Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam. I am, however, a bit puzzled about the print and outdoor jury’s decision of giving a Yellow Pencil to John Smith's Commemorative Plate ad by TBWA, London thus, making it the best print/outdoor ad (along with Samsonite’s “Heaven & Hell” poster by JWT, Shanghai, which we featured in Vol. 4/2011 and was also a Grand Prix winner at Cannes 2011).
Having had a chance to see all of the entries in these categories at London’s Olympia last week, I found the jury’s decision a bit stingy. The Commemorative Plate ad may be great (however reminiscent of a similar “Commemorative Plate” put out by KK Outlet in London as early as December 2010) but surely there was other great work in those categories equally - if possibly not more - deserving of a Yellow Pencil.
My short trip to London also gave me the opportunity to finally meet in person Dave Dye, the charming man behind a lot of campaigns featured in our magazine over the past 17 years and, of course, also responsible for a wonderful print campaign and film for our own Lürzer’s Archive website for which we are very grateful.
I visited Dave at Dye Holloway Murray’s new offices at Soho Square – a meeting kindly arranged by our UK Sales Representative, Kate Brown who also joined us. Among other things, we chatted about our mutual admiration of Tim Delaney, who I first met in the late 1980s and did my very first interview for Archive with along with Leagas Delaney’s Head of Art at the time, Steve Dunn (Vol. 5/1991).
A year after that, Dave Dye had his first encounter with them when he came to the agency for a job interview. As told by Dave, the two went through his portfolio stone-faced, from time to time exchanging inscrutable glances.
Finally, they came up with their verdict: “Some of the work in here is up to a certain standard” which left poor Dave completely without a clue. What could they have meant with “up to a certain standard”? Was that good or bad? As it turned out, he soon got a job offer as Head of Art at the legendary agency where he stayed for five years creating brilliant work for brands like Adidas, Harrods and Hyundai.
Dave also let me have a glimpse at one of his current projects. He is among the 50 of the world’s top creatives – among them Rankin, David Bailey, Ridley Scott and Quentin Blake – asked to design a cover for the 50th D&AD Book (available from Taschen from September). I took a few pictures of the various versions Dave - who’s a stickler for detail and believes in careful execution - has done so far.
The main idea is to put the thoughts that went through his head when he received the invitation in writing and to colour-code them according to the feelings that came and went with them. Dave also agreed to write the introduction to our upcoming special 200 Best Food & Drink Ads (2001 -2011) to be published in June. I can’t wait to read it.
Incidentally, we are in the process of selecting our Best Food & Drink Ads cover and have called for the assistance of our Facebook fans, so hop along to the page and tell us which you like best!
Image: Commemorative Plate ad by TBWA, London [left] and Commemorative Plate by KK Outlet, London [right].
Video: Lürzer’s Archive's One Place Campaign: "Glazer". Creative Director: Dave Dye, DHM, London.
