D&AD reveals the award-winning work for 2025
This year three Black Pencils were awarded to the design of the Paris 2024 Olympics, a surrealist music video for A$AP Rocky and an Excel spreadsheet-coded animation for Spotify
Last night, at the 63rd D&AD Awards ceremony in London, the three top awards went to Designing Paris 2024 by W Conran Design (graphic design), A$AP Rocky’s Tailor Swif music video by Iconoclast LA (music videos) and Spreadbeats by FCB New York (digital marketing). A total of 48 Yellow Pencils were also given out.
According to D&AD, while the 2025 jurors focused on the importance of the commercial viability of creative work and the impact ideas can have on business success and changing consumer behaviour, there was a noticeable resurgence in craftsmanship among the 688 Pencils awarded.
With overall entries at 11,689 (slightly lower on 2024, which saw the most entries since 2007), this year also saw submissions from 86 countries worldwide, the highest ever in the awards’ history.
Of the Black Pencil-winning work, Designing Paris 2024, entered by French studio W Conran Design, was selected for illustrating how design thinking can transform a city’s attitude and behaviour.
The judges highlighted how the design system differed from traditional sports marketing aesthetics and avoided clichés, calling the design playful and scalable, with a unifying but distinctive feel that blended heritage and sport.
Iconoclast LA’s music video for A$AP Rocky’s Tailor Swif track showed the importance of visually captivating narrative storytelling, according to the judges. In Tailor Swif the music is integral to the narrative – which is stuffed with surrealist and meme-inspired scenes referencing digital culture – rather than an afterthought.
FCB New York’s Spreadbeats music video also pushed the boundaries of what the medium can do (and its intent). In an example of a brand working its way into an existing platform, FCB New York created a music video, coded directly into the mediaplan spreadsheets that Spotify sends to clients: rows and columns transform into a dynamic, living canvas – a 10mb file made solely with the same Excel tools that media planners use every day.
D&AD’s Production Company of the Year went to Division for a fifth year in a row, while FCB New York won Agency of the Year and FCB itself won Network of the Year. Serviceplan won Independent Network of the Year and Serviceplan Design was named Design Agency of the Year. Apple was awarded Client of the Year.
“With three prestigious Black Pencils awarded, the jurors emphasised that innovative ideas must possess both aesthetic appeal and tangible impact,” says Dara Lynch, CEO of D&AD. “As also seen in the winning entries, the resurgence of craftsmanship stands as a reminder that in an era of automation, true excellence lies in the thoughtful execution of ideas.”
All of this year’s winning work and shortlisted entries can be viewed on the D&AD website. It will also be featured in the D&AD Annual and its free-to-access online archive.
