D&AD has revealed the winners of its 2022 Awards

D&AD has revealed the winners of its 2022 awards programme, which includes five Black Pencil winners, the highest level of achievement.

The winners were announced over two ceremonies which took place on Wednesday and Thursday. A further 78 Yellow Pencils were awarded, the second tier of awards.

Google was awarded a Black Pencil in the product design category for its work on Real Tone, a suite of improvements for the Pixel 6 camera and Google Photos application which seek to more accurately capture different skin tones.

Leo Burnett Chicago won a Black Pencil in both the direction and branding category for The Lost Class, where it held a graduation ceremony for 3,044 who would have graduated this year if they had not been killed by a gun. It has special resonance in a week where the US was rocked by another school shooting, which resulted in the death of 19 school children in Texas.

DDB New Zealand was awarded the top prize in the media category for Samsung iTest, a website which allows iPhone users to try out a Samsung from their Apple device. Adam&eveDDB rounded off the Black Pencil winners with Hopeline19 in the creative transformation category, a phoneline where Brits could leave messages of support for frontline workers.

Apple Design Team was ranked as the top design studio of the year, while Porto Rocha and Pentagram’s New York office took second and third place. The US was the top ranked country with a total of 403 winning entries. The UK came in second with 271 and France third with 114.

Two White Pencils awarded

This year, the D&AD judges announced two winners of the White Pencil – awarded to projects which seek to create a behavioural, societal or policy change. No project achieved this award last year.

India’s VMLY&R Mumbai won for its work with Maxx Flash, a mosquito repellent brand which created the Killer Pack. The project was prompted by the high levels of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria, even when it was not the rainy season when the insects typically thrive. Authorities pointed to the problem of rubbish collection points, where mosquitos were flourishing.

Packaging for the Killer Pack is completely biodegradable but also contains bacteria which kills mosquito larvae, thereby aiming to reduce the threat of mosquitos at dumps and stagnant water.

The second White Pencil went to Lanfranco & Cordova’s work with fruit company Dole Sunshine Company for its leather alternative Piñatex. The vegan-friendly material makes use of the waste by-product from the pineapple industry in the Philippines. When pineapple leaves are left to rot, they also create harmful methane emissions. Piñatex reuses those leaves to create a leather-like material; you can read about Piñatex in our feature on material innovation.

D&AD chief operating officer Dara Lynch adds: “In the wake of political and social turmoil, creative excellence continues to not only survive, but thrive.”

“In the backdrop of what feels like a never-ending stream of global crises, it is incredibly reassuring to see that our community remains so resilient, and continues to move in a progressive and vibrant direction,” she adds.

Winning work will be showcased in the D&AD annual later this year. In 2020, D&AD’s annual went digital for the first time in a push towards accessibility, according to the organisation. The digital platform has been designed by Rotterdam-based consultancy Studio Dumbar ever since.

You can find the full set of winners on D&AD’s website.