D&AD’s noticeably pencil-free festival identity for 2019

Village Green has been tasked with creating the look and feel of this year’s festival, opting for a mixture of 2D and 3D abstract letterforms and a bold colour palette

D&AD has revealed the annual rebrand of its festival, ahead of the event’s return to London’s Old Truman Brewery in May.

This year’s identity has been created by London-based studio Village Green, and sees the D&AD acronym reimagined as a series of moving 2D and 3D elements to show the connection between the different creative disciplines featured during the festival.

“The abstract letterforms for us are like the foundations of graphic design,” says Village Green Design Director Tom Fearn. “We were keen to take this thinking into 3D as a representation of broader disciplines at the festival, such as film and advertising.”

The studio has also incorporated a bold colour palette for each iteration of the identity, to help it stand out on digital platforms and physical marketing materials without looking too busy, Fearn adds.

 

One thing noticeably absent from the identity is D&AD’s distinctive pencil symbol used for the trophies in its annual awards, which are announced during the festival every year.

“As the campaign rolls out the pencil [will] feature, but D&AD was keen in the first instance not to simply focus of the iconic pencil and its associations with industry awards. Opening up first hand experiences such a talks debates and workshops to a much broader audience is very much the thinking behind the festival,” says Fearn.

 

D&AD Festival takes place from May 21-23 with three days of talks, workshops and exhibitions. Speakers confirmed so far include Dazed & Confused founder Jefferson Hack, CR favourite Emily Forgot and Head of BBC Creative Susan Ayton.

Find out more info about this year’s D&AD Festival here; villagegreenstudio.com