D&AD Awards: winners announced

The winners of Britain's top design and advertising awards, the D&AD Awards 2013, have been announced, with the highest honours going to three campaigns we made a big noise about on Creative Bloq when they were originally released last year.

Dumb Ways to Die, a viral ad for Melbourne's Metro Trains we first told you about last November, won a Black Pencil (the top award) as well as getting the highest number of Yellow Pencils (five). Meet the Superhumans, Channel 4’s superb trailer for its Paralympics TV coverage (above) which we touted back in July, and GOV.UK’s website, which we showcased in October, also won a Black Pencil.

A fourth Black Pencil went to the Olympic Cauldron, Heatherwick Studio's stunning creation that kept the flame alight during the the 2012 Games.

Over 600 awards were given out in total by D&AD (which stands for Design and Art Direction), including 51 Yellow Pencils, four Black Pencils and the first ever White Pencil, which went to Droga5 for their Help! I want to Save a Life campaign for Help Remedies.

Other campaigns taking multiple awards were R/GA’s Nike+ FuelBand, winning three Yellow Pencils, Leica Store São Paulo’s “Soul”, and 20th Century Fox’s Prometheus Viral ‘David, each taking home two Yellow Pencils.

But what do design awards really mean in this industry? To find out, head to the latest issue of Computer Arts, which includes an in-depth exploration of the subject, including case studies on two of this year's Yellow Pencil winning projects: Marion Deuchars' Let's Make Some Great Fingerprint Art and Ogilvy Shanghai's #CokeHands campaign for Coca-Cola.

Find out more about issue 215 of Computer Arts, and how to buy either a digital or print edition, here.