SapientNitro's 'Best job in the world' campaign for Tourism Queensland has continued its impressive winning streak, picking up Black Pencils in the integrated and direct categories at the 2010 D&AD Awards held in London last week.
The campaign - based around a global competition seeking candidates for the caretakership of an idyllic island off the Queensland coast - has previously won top prizes at events including last year's Cannes Lions and the 2010 AME Awards.
In all, five Black Pencils - the top prizes available to entrants - were handed out at the D&AD Awards, along with 42 Yellow Pencils. The judges aim to recognise "groundbreaking" design work, as well as ad campaigns; winning entrants therefore tend to be drawn from a wider range of sources than many ad awards (a full list of 2010's winners can be viewed here).
This year, 'The High Line', a regeneration project converting a derelict New York light railway line into public parkland, won Diller Scofido + Renfro a Black Pencil in Environmental Design (photo originally posted by ikarus50 on Flickr).
Meanwhile, Apple - which recently announced that it has already sold 2m iPads worldwide - won the top award in the Websites category for apple.com; the US tech firm is now the most successful client in D&AD Awards history, in terms of number of Black Pencils won.
TBWA\Hunt Lascaris in Johannesburg won the fifth Black Pencil for a campaign promoting The Zimbabwean, a newspaper for people exiled from the current Robert Mugabe-led regime. Hyperinflation induced by the political turmoil rendered Zimbabwe's currency effectively worthless, giving the agency a headline-grabbing new material to use on billboards.
Director Spike Jones also won the D&AD President's Award for 2010, having previously received a total of six Yellow Pencils over the years, for work including this 1997 Levi's ad. D&AD itself was founded in 1962 as British Design and Art Direction, by a group of creatives including legendary photographer David Bailey.
Elsewhere, winners of the 2010 Singapore Effies, organised by the IAS, have been announced, with a total of 23 gongs handed out. This year, three golds were awarded: to 'Beautifully Imperfect', from Leo Burnett/ZenithOptimedia, 'Whale Shark Gamble' from BBDO Proximity and DDB Worldwide's 'SunStopper' for client Johnson & Johnson.
The deadline for the Warc Prize for Ideas and Evidence passed last week, while the Romanian and Belgian Effies, along with Latvia's Golden Hammer awards, are all being handed out over the next few days; you can find a full list of dates for your diary on our Warc Awards Calendar. But the big news for the ad world this week will surely be the announcement of the grand prix winners of both the global and North American Effies tomorrow night.
Watch this space for further details later in the week...
