D&AD announces 2025 New Blood Pencil winners
The ceremony took place at Leake Street Arches, following the New Blood Festival at Protein Studios in Shoreditch, London from 30th June – 2nd July 2025, where the work has been on display in a graduate showcase of more than 40 exhibiting university courses.
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Wednesday, 2nd July, 2025: D&AD has announced the Pencil levels for the 2025 New Blood Awards, the annual programme that recognises up-and-coming creative talent and offers chances to tackle briefs set by top brands.
The New Blood Awards is among the world's largest student competitions, showcasing top emerging talent from around the globe. Winners, selected by leading experts in design and advertising, impressed the judges with their innovative thinking and practical skills, earning one of the industry’s most esteemed awards for emerging creatives: a New Blood Pencil. The briefs were downloaded over a quarter of a million times to students, tutors and emerging talent in 128 countries.
The competition had nearly 6,000 entrants, from 65 countries and more than 3,000 entries were judged anonymously by over 150 judges. The work was evaluated based on idea, insight, and suggested execution. Although all work is conceptual and the intellectual property belongs to the entrant, any of the brands setting the briefs can choose to move forward with a winning idea by employing the winning creatives and collaborating with them professionally to develop the concept further.
This year, emerging creatives were invited to respond to a series of briefs set by leading global brands including Google Cloud, Depop, HSBC, Xbox, On, giffgaff, Christopher Ward and more. Covering a wide range of disciplines including UX/UI, animation, advertising, typography and experiential, the briefs were designed to provide new talent with the experience of working on client briefs. These 18 briefs tackled varying commercial challenges and social issues, including asking entrants to create a guerilla marketing campaign (giffgaff), a campaign to get developers to recognise Google Cloud as an AI leader (Google), develop an experience for gamers (Kraft Mac and Cheese) and reimagine the role of typography (Monotype).
Paul Drake, Foundations Director at D&AD, commented: “D&AD's New Blood Awards brings a burst of creativity, a powerful reminder that new talent is the lifeblood of our industry. At a time when graduating students are navigating uncertain first steps, the showcase of New Blood winners provides a chance to celebrate the creatives behind the work and for our industry to support their rise with opportunities and jobs.”
In recognition of the exceptional creative responses to these briefs, 184 Pencils were awarded, including 3 Black Pencils (the highest D&AD New Blood accolade), 24 Yellow, 52 Graphite and 101 Wood Pencils. 4 White Pencils were also awarded for outstanding work that uses the power of creativity to do good.
For information on all of the Pencil-winning entries, please see the D&AD website.
