This year Mill+ continued their collaboration with the prestigious D&AD awards, creating the concept, design, art direction and animation for their 2015 ceremony.
The team, led by Mill+ creative directors Carl Addy and Nils Kloth, worked to bring the project to life from initial creative concept to the final execution, ensuring that the ideas worked across multiple touch points in an intriguing and striking way.
The designers worked in close collaboration with D&AD to develop all animated and static design elements for this year’s show, including the opening title sequence, ceremony teaser, tickets, direct mail, digital assets and book of the night.
The team set out to develop an idea that not only brought to life the core brand values of D&AD, but also conveyed the extraordinary tenacity and perseverance required when creating the world’s best work. Creative determination is a tireless pursuit, which is personified in the ‘ASCEND’ concept.
The concept takes five of the iconic D&AD pencils and visualizes them as individual mountains, each constructed from the materials represented in each award. From the Wood through to Yellow and Black pencils, we see the range depicted in varying heights, mirroring the levels of challenge associated with winning each one of these coveted accolades.
Mill+ designers created a bespoke headline font based on the classic Times typeface, as well as constructing the mountain graphics using Cinema4D, in conjunction with custom textures created by the Mill+ matte painting team. These print elements were then paired with a dynamic moving image title sequence, in which we see the mountains of creativity brought to life, paired with a gripping and emotive soundtrack designed by Grand Central Studios.
Creative director Carl Addy comments, “We really wanted to capture the obsessive nature of this creative pursuit. In an almost meditative like film, we have stripped out all the noise and distraction that comes with our industry and leave the viewer contemplating the monolithic form representing the single-minded focus on the award. That’s what it takes, a tireless journey, constantly having the goal in sight no matter how daunting.”