Guan Hin’s D&AD president’s diary – Last days

Tay Guan Hin is this year’s D&AD jury foreman for the Poster category. It’s a big honour for JWT’s Regional ECD South Asia. Here Guan gives his views on his second day of judging.

Last day D&AD poster judging.

I was anxious to see what finally made in, so arrived earlier to have a quick look. Apparently, others beat me to the chase. This time it didn’t take much effort to walk around since there were considerable less. About 60 percent of what I liked remained.

As expected, most of the highly suspicious pieces didn’t make the cut. It goes to show that if it looks ‘guilty’, not even an approval letter from client’s global headquarters can save it. Even work coming from big brands are not spared if the personality and values of what they know about the brand is not relevant. In short, a well-know logo is not enough these days. To take it to the next level, both scale and brilliant executions are essential. Highly detailed art direction that has heart usually makes it through even if the ideas are slightly expected. Simply, craft and ideas are inseparable.

Laura had no problems rounding them up, as they were around comparing notes.. Once again, we had yet another opportunity to pull out work that wasn’t in-book quality. We walked as a group to review each piece, scrutinizing every angle. Honestly, it’s got to be the hardest group to please, always finding flaws with work that had already won big in other shows. Actually the more creative it is, the more suspicious they become. “How could a brand possibly approve this?” “I’ve worked on brand XYZ and it seemed doubtful they would even buy this!” In fact, it got to a point where one of the judges got so pissed off with the time spent arguing about the validity rather than the quality. So to quickly move on, I’ve instructed D&AD to triple check in-book status by writing to agencies next week. So if you receive an email, you’d better be prepared to verify or get it pulled out even if it has been nominated. Yellow and Black pencils will be determined on the 7-8 May by all the jury foreman back in London, so it gives them enough time to prove their authenticity.

Just before lunch, we voted yet again to finalize in-book status. Before we started on nominations, we sat around to discuss the criteria. To some a nomination is a gold lion in Cannes. “It’s harsh but that’s the way it is in D&AD”. We were also looking for work that best represented the poster category, not rewarding blown up press ads. Each judge took out a piece and placed it in front to explain why it deserves a nomination. A time limit of one minute was implemented to stop others from talking too much.

Half way through the process, one “judge” suddenly flew in. As he walked, he nodded at the pieces we had already thrown out. Who knows, maybe the pigeon has better judgment then we do.

In less than half hour, we voted yet again (for the 6th time) and a few nominations emerged. Overall, except for two pieces, most came from the traditional side. I was a bit disappointed that a few interactive ones didn’t make it, compared to some spectacular ones done in the past from Japan…i.e. Vertical football or shadow wall-projection.

Overall, I’m proud to say that at least one quarter of in-book status came from Asia Pacific. A campaign from Malaysia and China got nominations. I’m also happy that the final selection is not just from England. There’s a strong representation from China, Brazil, Chile, Paris, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangkok, Germany and Australia. Which helps when out of 9 judges, 4 are overseas. And for the very first time, I didn’t feel like a token judge.

Towards the end of the day, they put together a small exhibition of some the categories that made In-Book and Nomination. It was interesting to see some similarities (not as many as I thought) between Posters and Press. The general awards results will be released on Thursday 30 April. The full list of Nominations will be out mid May with the grand announcement of the Yellow Pencils at the D&AD Awards Ceremony & Dinner on Thursday 11 June at the Roundhouse. London.

First day student judging.

As for the student awards the next day, 5 judges, including 2 clients, who set the brief, looked at over 400 international entries. For the first time, students and professional’s work were judged together. The funny thing is that you didn’t know which section began or ended. Student’s production qualities were amazing! The brief was to create an outdoor poster campaign that makes the PJ’s fresh fruit smoothie brand appealing, accessible & trendy. Apparently, there were 31 student briefs with different products and services! The D&AD education department definitely takes this very seriously. Obviously, the work was much fresher and more experimental. Ideas range from fruit sex jokes to …fruit sex jokes. Jokes aside, the winning work was brutally simple yet insightful.

Judging with clients together in a creative award show can get pretty frustrating and insightful at the same time. I’m glad that the final pieces had unanimous votes. Needless to say, because there was no vested interest, the process was much smoother, less stressful and more transparent. When the judging ended, the ironic thing was that the PJ’s brand had been retired. Too bad they didn’t do this earlier. If not they could have used the winning work and perhaps saved their brand.