New D&AD Annual

This years D&AD Annual was launched last week with the opening of an exhibition of previous annuals at the Royal College of Art in London (runs until Tuesday, 23rd). The book has been designed by Neville Brody’s Research Studios, and has the theme Digital v Anti-Digital (see what they did with the initials there?) to reflect the increasing prominence of digital work in the Awards – hence the massive URLs printed at the start of each section, like that shown below for the Magazine and Newspaper category.

Visit that link to see the winning work – plenty of magCulture favourites included – or look beyond the jump here.

Carl*s Cars won a yellow pencil.

And Fantastic Man got one too. Guerillazine, on the right, is a visual archive of all Comme des Garcons guerrilla stores.

Werk no 15, left, was a collection of commissioned work from a range of editorial designers including David Carson, Yorgo Tioupas and M/M Paris as well as many Japanese designers. A Los Invisibles was a news paper format reprtage piece about immagration in Spain, designed by Pablo Martin/Grafica in Barcelona.

I’ve been meaning to feature Dutch photography title Foam here for a while, so it’s good to have this reason to mention it. It’s published by Amsterdam’s Fotografiemuseum, and designed by Marcel de Vries.

I’ve mentioned inflight magazine Ling here before. Published by my friends LeCool in Barcelona, it has a unique standpoint for an inflight and well deserves a mention in the annual for its beautiful front covers designed by Oscar Aragon. Bad Idea, right, is a small-format UK magazine focusing on narrative writing, designed by Steve Sawyer.

Two front cover nominations: Creative Review’s sustainability issue had no cover section (design Nathan Gale). Acne Paper always looks great but this cover wittily deals with the issue theme playfulness. Last year The Guardian ran a series of poster-size pull out sections about modern architecture, right. Typically strong design, photography and infographics from The Guardian team led in this case by Mark Leeds.

Mono.Kultur is a beautiful, simple German project that I’ve mentioned a few times. Each issue interview one artist and shows a brief sample of their work. Each issue is A5 sized but features different bindings and folds.

Top left, Werk again, this time issue 14, and below that Rubbish, the UK-based hardbacked fashion title that quietly parodies the fashion world from within. Art direction by Jenny Dyson and Harriman-Steel. On the right is Glossy Zine, a title I haven’t come across before but on this brief showing looks interesting, Design by Studio von Birken. And below that, magCulture favourite Kasino A4, ‘the most melancholy magazine’. Art director Pekka Toivonen.

Quefem is the weekly listings guide from Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper. Design by Pablo Martin/Grafica. And great to see Monocle so quickly acknowledged by D&AD.

Network Magazine, top left, is a newspaper about new ideas, this issue featuring material from New York. Design director Aswin Sadha. Below it, La Stampa is a more mainstream newspaper, redesigned last year by the in-house team led by Cynthia Sgarallino. On the right, Stephen Coates’ work for The Drawbridge is a deserved inclusion, here for issue six.

The Drawbridge again, issue seven, and opposite it Portugese newspaper Publico, art direction Sonia Matos.

And finally, Publico’s weekly Ipsolon supplement, left, and Monocle again, this time featured in the D&AD’s new combined print/online category for it’s magazine/website subscription package. It’s difficult to think of another magazine doing anything as comprehensive online as Monocle.

Overall? A strong, broad selection of editorial work and two good pencil winners. Perhaps a shame there weren’t any more mainstream magazine featured, but plenty of good stuff.

Watch out for the call for entries for next year’s awards, coming soon.