16 Comments

The murky world of awards nominations was the subject of one of our recent blog posts.

http://www.matdolphin.com/blog/2011/04/18/gold-star/

With all the questions about the financial outlay of entering, the shortlist confusion and the questionable merits of actually winning an award – is it actually a worthwhile use of designers time?
Mat Dolphin
2011-04-19 17:52:00

Perhaps it'd be wiser of D&AD to call the category "Honorable Mention" as that's what it is. A shortlist is something announced in advance when all shortlisted entries are still in the running.. You don't announce a shortlist after the fact.
Gray
2011-04-19 19:06:26

I too 'eagerly tweeted' the fact that we had been shortlisted in the branding category, and also blogged the result here: http://bit.ly/goNAYj. At the time, we did understand that this didn't mean in-book sadly, but were still very pleased, especially as there were no in-books in the medium-sized branding results.

Soon afterwards, other agencies mentioned that this did indeed mean we were in the annual an though not nominated, made the in-book stage but didn't receive enough of the judges votes to make it through to the nominations. It was clear that the situation was confusing so we looked to the D&AD site for clarity.

For me, the D&AD site confused the issue further. On the results and shortlists page it does state, as your article says, that "Shortlisted work survived the first round but was not awarded" yet on the 'About' page of the 2011 awards, the judging process stated that the in-book phase was all the work that survived the first round of judging. It then referred to the next level up as 'Nominations - Shortlist'. This page now appears to have been taken down from the D&AD site: http://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2011/about.

Personally, I'm very happy that D&AD took the decision to publish the shortlist this year, as it does add transparency to the process and I'd rather have known that we'd been shortlisted, than not known. However, in future if they decide to continue with the shortlisted results, they need to think more carefully about the naming and ensure that the 'About' page is up-to-date to reflect this.
Ryan
2011-04-20 09:38:33

Completely agree with the above comments.
It seems these days a lot of award nominations and competitions are overly expensive to enter, and / or seemingly made to confuse to help cut down and disqualify due to the amount of entries.

'Shortlist' would be the list of people still in the running for an award, in my opinion, not the 'runner-up' as D&AD seem to imply.
Giant Squib
2011-04-20 09:42:53

Obviously this organisation does not know what it is doing.
If one is going to run a competition then it is essential to lay out the process of stages.
E.g.
1 conditions of entry
2 Round one results - reduced selection forwarded to round 2 (Forwarded)
3 Round 2 (Selected: (for consideration))
4 Round 3 (Nominated: (for award))
5 Result: (Awards)

The branding of the result of each level (as in brackets above) should clearly distinguish that level of placement.

As I have found in the past confusion arises from insufficient forethought.
I previously ran Building sites and spent many years trouble shooting and found that most difficulties arose from lack of pre-assessment and planning.

Have fun
Richard Aris
Richard Aris
2011-04-20 10:26:37

For an organisation at the head of the design profession, assessing others' ability to present information intuitively, the whole episode demonstrates a surprising lack of clear thinking.

It's just a case of naming the 'Shortlist' properly, as really they are 'Runners-Up' of some kind, or as Gray suggests above 'Honorable Mentions'. It has to still be something a studio or designer can value and use as an accolade - eg "D&AD Honorable Mention 2011". In which case it would be an admirable attempt to recognise more work and include more participants without diluting the quality of the Annual contents.

The almost-made-it shavings from the pencil which hit the cutting room floor? 'Close-Shaves'? Perhaps they should issue a naming brief for it...

®
Richard Holt
2011-04-20 11:13:47

We are very pleased to announce that we have been longlisted for a nomination to be selected in-book with an opportunity of winning a yellow and/or black pencil if we are shortlisted for consideration, right?
Grogger
2011-04-20 11:16:54

Perhaps Sanky could explain it in 63 different languages
david janes
2011-04-20 11:58:37

Further to my previous point, the D&AD judging section has now been updated:
http://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2011/about

However, they still state that, for 'In-book'; "During the first round, judges vote for the work that will feature in the prestigious D&AD Annual". How can this be the case, if "Shortlisted work survived the first round but was not awarded"? (Ie, not in-book).

To be fair, they have removed the word 'Shortlist' from the 'Nominations' tier of judging, but I still feel they need state more clearly what the 'Shortlist' is referring to.
Ryan
2011-04-20 14:22:54

One of the downsides of being the toughest creative awards to win is that a lot of people will inevitably be disappointed, so publishing the shortlists is our way of providing a little more encouragement to entrants. Work that got shortlisted was already judged better than the vast majority of the overall entry, and we want entrants to know that. This is the first year we've done this, though, and it has caused a bit of confusion - obviously, that wasn't our intention.

For D&AD a level of tranparency is incredibly important because we aren't just about awarding, we're about supporting the progression from 'good' to 'great' - and that extra layer of information can make a real difference. Combined with the interviews with judges on our site, it gives real insight into what otherwise can seem like a mysterious process. A process that, once you've actually experienced it, turns out to be nothing more suspicious than a bunch of very passionate, serious and credible people discussing one of the things that they, like most practitioners in this business, hold most dear - creativity.

Based on the feedback we've been getting, most people who got shortlisted have been happy about it - and so they should be, since their work got further than 88% of the entries. There might not be a gong attached, but it's not something to be embarrassed about: anyone shortlisted should be shouting about it to their peers and clients. Bloody well done, we'd say.

Having said that we'll take a long hard look at our syntax around this. Shortlisting is practiced in other awards schemes using similar language, but we've obviously caused some confusion in some corners of the community and perhaps haven't been as careful as we should have been with the breadth of our communications. We're very sorry for any confusion that may have occurred, but we are committed to providing more transparency for our entrants, so we'll be working on the way we present the shortlists again next year to make it much clearer for everyone.

Finally, our heartfelt congratulations to all of those who were shortlisted, got in the book, and were nominated for a Pencil. This is already a significant testament to the quality of your work. Now, get ready for June.....
D&AD
2011-04-20 15:23:09

The Phrase 'at least we're good enough to be shortlisted' is born. It could have been alot worse, D&AD could have done a Design Week and published the longest shortlist in the history of shortlists just to sell tickets to get people to attend the ceremony!

I admire the transparency of D&AD and appreciate the work they do and how hard they are working to move the organisation forward. My concern is that by trying to keep everyone happy by publishing shortlists will, in the end I'm afraid, have the complete opposite effect. Time will tell.

What the shortlist does show, and we have to thank D&AD for this, is the extraordinary lengths and cost some studios will go to win a pencil. The words carpet and bombing come to mind. This brings me neatly onto No Contest – an article we were asked to write back in January for Design Assembly. You can read the post here: http://www.designassembly.org/2011/01/11/no-contest/
John Dowling
2011-04-20 15:58:24

I'm very proud to have been a D&AD judge twice, including this year. But I have to agree that the categories are confusing. Gold is black. Silver is yellow. Bronze is a nomination (kind of). And below that is In-Book.

That makes In-Book sound a bit of a lame gong, when in fact it's a truly stellar achievement, given the fiercely (but fairly) uncompromising judging. (Which just goes to show how precious those pencils really are.)

The confusion over 'shortlist', which is well understood as a term for most award schemes, is clearly connected to the general confusion. Not least because elsewhere 'shortlisted' tends to mean 'nominated'. Here, it's two levels below that.

Speaking entirely personally, I think it's time D&AD grabbed this bull by the horns. Richard Holt is right - a communications organisation needs to be clearer than this.

We should keep the Black, Yellow and now White pencils. They're iconic and glorious. But the system needs simplifying.

Why not Black, Yellow and In-Book? It cuts out the Nomination layer, so I can see that those who reached that point might be put out by the loss of recognition. But it would raise the perceived status of In-Book, and create a more familiar Gold/Silver/Bronze format. (The White Pencil is rightly a thing on its own.)

Having said that, let's drop the names Gold and Silver. They're almost wilfully muddying. Most of us talk about Black Pencils and Yellow Pencils. That should be the official name too.

Just a thought.
Mike Reed
2011-04-21 00:34:39

Hmm, it would be nice to win a penicl. But do you do your work to win awards?

I do it because i love it.

My heart goes out to people who felt they had won, but also you have a job, and clients, which is better than a lot of people.

So your all winners to me :)
Chloe
2011-04-21 11:24:57

Hm I was nominated for a D&AD one year and nobody won in that category...so I was second to noone...there was no gold? D & AD said that it is because there was no work up to gold standard that year. Then what is the point of having the competition every year? Surely the Gold winner for 2008 would be the best work submitted that year? but apparently not. They also retracted the £1000 that my gold pencil winning friend had won, informing her that now all winners and nominees would be receiving £280. It was a good opportunity but some goings on created an atmosphere of distrust that this shortlist is only adding to.
emma Fitzgerald
2011-04-21 11:37:50

@Emma: I think the fact that awards are not always given is critical to D&AD's credibility. If a Gold (Black) was always given, it would be quickly devalued. The Black Pencil is treasured precisely because it's so bloody hard to get.

The same goes for all the pencils. With things as they stand, we can all be confident that the majority of judges in a category genuinely felt that a pencil winner was an outstanding piece of work. Not just the best of what was entered.
Mike Reed
2011-04-21 12:11:33

I agree with Gray: "Honorable Mention" should be the category name.

D&AD, read and heed.
Nikola
2011-04-28 04:51:59

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