So after experiencing a taste of the judging process earlier in the year, I somehow managed to infiltrate the D&AD Awards ceremony last night just up the road from work near Old Street. In actual fact I won a ticket from the kind people at Arjo Wiggins Creative Papers as part of The Blank Sheet project.

So, yesterday saw me don an actual real life shirt and tie and go along to the awards for the first time. And it was a night of firsts, as this year the professional and student awards were handed out together which was a brilliant idea. That, and the decision not to pay Jimmy Carr to do some patter, but to use the money for a free bar and ferris wheel, resulted in many people remarking that it was certainly ‘better than last year’. Well, I wouldn’t know as I have never been along before, but from my point of view it was better than last year, as in 2010 I followed the whole thing on Twitter from my living room.

Anyway, I digress. The evening was very nice indeed, pretty lavishly staged and posh food. The awards bit itself seemed to take an awfully long time, and was a little chaotic, with the different disciplines and the students/professionals all mixed up, but while a little difficult to follow it was continually inspiring. The room was huge, which wasn’t a problem for me as I’d scored a seat right up front, but at the back, the naughty kids were all chatting, doing shots and passing notes as you’d expect. In fact it got properly all Grange Hill when Sanky, D&AD President implored the crowd to ‘take the volume level down from 10 to 3 please’.

Well, as always it was all about the winners, which are well documented on the Creative Review blog this morning, and of course on the D&AD site itself, so you don’t need me to list them, but I thought it might be worth remarking randomly on some which from my perspective as a graphic designer, working with identity especially, I just liked…

The ‘Almost Extinct’ calendar for example, by The Chase sensitively brought home the perilous situation faced by various species whilst still remaining playful.

The V&A ‘Palindrome’ installation by Troika wonderfully played with reflection and symmetry.

Mucho’s Art Out typeface was elegantly beautiful, and reassuringly traditional.

The reality of the filthy rich was graphically illustrated by CHI & Partners for The Times Richlist.

And obviously there were loads more. It was a bit disappointing again though, to see that D&AD don’t appear to be particularly interested in traditional graphic design, and specifically identity. It felt a little bit like if you had done something vaguely digital, especially using an iPad, you stood a greater chance than if you had traditionally wrestled with a complex identity project and seen it through to a brilliant conclusion. There was a lot of moving image, and loads of nebulous brand campaign type stuff, but not nearly enough wonderfully executed and inventive graphic design. And don’t tell me there isn’t any out there, because there is.

Having said that, this year the student awards were given out on the same night, and they definitely did their bit to redress the balance. A lot of the student ideas were impressively imaginative and no less inspiring than the professional stuff. For example…

This brilliant idea from students at Design Factory International would turn a whole city into a sketchpad drawn on via GPS movement. It was in response to a brief set by Arjo Wiggins, who in conversation after the awards, sounded like they were thinking of doing it for real…

This project from students at RMIT University cleverly shows how important copywriting is to advertising.

But the star of the student show was the branding work for Oxfam by students from Miami Ad School, Madrid, which focused on what Oxfam employees wanted to do with their lives once the need for their charitable work was finally fulfilled. Genius, and not done justice by the following JPGs.

The star of the professional show? Well that was Neville Brody who received the President’s Award to rapturous applause.

Oh, and of course this guy…

Overall, after feeling all warm and fuzzy towards the D&AD during judging week, when it was all informal and drenched in sunlight, this felt much more elitist as you might expect. I think because during judging there was a lot of work on show of varying standards it all felt very accessible and democratic, whereas on awards night obviously only the best got through and some of the egos and agendas in the room were tangible. One winner of a black pencil was heard to remark “I’ve waited 25 years for this” which just goes to show how very important it was to almost everyone there. In contrast to some of the po-faced professional recipients, most of the students were elated, and one even danced all the way up the stage and punched the air. After seeing that, you wondered why some of the luminaries of the industry couldn’t crack a smile.

And so that was it, I had a great evening and managed to avoid spending the night wandering around on my own. Big thanks must go to Jonathan and the guys from Arjo Wiggins for making me feel so welcome. It was especially nice to meet a few people who before that night I had only ‘met’ via Twitter too. But of course next time I go to one of these things, it would be nice to be in the running for a pencil.

I can dream can’t I?