First D&AD rebrand since founding 50 years ago

New D&AD logo

D&AD was established in the 1960s to celebrate creative communication, reward its practitioners and to raise standards throughout design and advertising in Great Britain. Today, D&AD is still a UK-based charity but its remit has expanded to champion excellence in creativity globally. D&AD runs global awards schemes and education programmes and works with the business community to ensure that creativity is high on their agenda.

"This is the final stage of a process that began almost three years ago," explains D&AD chief executive Michael Hockney. "We initially changed our name from British Design & Art Direction to D&AD to reflect the wide range of creative disciplines from around the world that we uniquely represent. Our new corporate identity embraces D&AD's heritage, while also recognising the multi-faceted nature of our work in the 21st century."

The rebrand retains the well-established D&AD logo designed in 1962 by Fletcher/Forbes/Gill and also incorporates the iconic Yellow Pencil in an innovative way. Garry Blackburn, creative partner at Rose comments, "D&AD is highly regarded by creative practitioners, and the Yellow Pencil is world-renowned. The organisation is now multi-faceted, so we took the original logo and combined it with a yellow hexagon - the shape of the pencil when upended. The original marque sits in the middle of the hexagon - like the lead running through the core. The D&AD 'seal of quality' will be easily identifiable from now on."

The new brand identity will cover all D&AD corporate materials including Congress, the website, membership cards, Ampersand magazine, business cards, award certificates, office signage and corporate stationery.

The Fletcher/Forbes/Gill logo was designed in 1963 using the pre-digital 3-D modelling technique of sticking the four characters into the visible sides of a wooden cube and photographing the result. In 1966 Lou Klein designed the Yellow Pencil that is now awarded to winners at the D&AD Awards and globally recognised as the true marker of creative excellence. Prior to the Pencil, winners were presented with an ebony pencil box with sliding lid designed by Minale Tattersfield. It held a regular-sized grey pencil with silver lettering.

Established in 1999, Rose is a London-based design consultancy whose work for high-profile clients, including Virgin, Lloyds TSB, Tate, MFI, Whitbread, BBC, The Old Vic and Royal Mail, has won numerous international awards for creativity. Between them, Blackburn and Elliot have been awarded two D&AD Yellow Pencils, two D&AD Award nominations, and have been included in-book seven times.