Brand Storytelling D&AD online course and research

D&AD (Design and Art Direction) - a British educational charity founded in 1962 by a group of designers and art directors ( David Bailey, Terence Donovan, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes) and located in London. It aims to support, promote and award excellence in design and advertising in United Kingdom and worldwide (the awards are globally respected); Global Association for Creative Advertising and Design

D&AD logo

D&AD awards

Wood Pencil: the best in advertising and design from the year, worthy of the plaice in the D&AD Annual
Graphite Pencil: stand out work, beautifully executed with an original and inspiring idea at its core
Yellow Pencil: awarded to the most outstanding work, that achieves true creative excellence
Black Pencil: the ultimate creative accolade, reserved for work that is ground-breaking in its field
White Pencil: work that affects real and positive change



Well, for a start I included some information about D&AD organisation above. Last year I have really only discovered that it exists while carrying on my research for PDP and contextual studies. This year few raw facts about it, definitely became much more.
Firstly I have started to notice their awards during our trip to London and visit at Somerset House for
'AOI World Illustration Awards Exhibition 2015'. It already was quite inspiring and motivating, seeing young people's creative work being appreciated. I was thinking then, it would be amazing to see own work somewhere in the gallery setting...for two main reasons: satisfaction and most of all a real approval of being on the right career path. It has to be great feeling.
Then I was doing research for my second brief of main module (Development of Graphic Design Processes) and I have found Future Learn, an educational company owned by Open University and offering free online courses. Completely by accident while having a quick look on the website, looking for some event listings, I have found the course that really caught my attention. And so I have registered for four weeks long, Brand Storytelling D&AD online course.
 I have completed the first week and so far I enjoy it a lot. I think it could be beneficial as a CV supplement and most of all it's relevant to design, advertising and marketing. I would possibly want to try working for advertising design agency or create own creative business one day. It's great opportunity to interact with other people around the world within the topic, hear experts opinions and their practical advice of how to create and use a narrative that can make a brand or product stand out from the crowd. Storytelling can add value (besides, facts turned into stories are apparently remembered 22 times more), and I think that greater knowledge and understanding its concepts, can help me with studies at Colchester Institute and become a better entry into the world of creative industry.
The course is accredited by D&AD as I have mentioned. It also gives an opportunity to practice learned/developed skills on a live challenge - special D&AD brief for an integrated campaign, presenting an importance of  responsible, sustainable work (showing purpose beyond profit) and looking to influence the commercial creative industries. It can then be entered into the competition.
It's very exciting and I'm going to try my best to get as much educational benefits from it as I can.
I have also gone through their website registration and I created free membership account (as suggested from the course; I didn't know there is possibility like that before) which allows me to access an amazing online archive for inspiration.

I have managed to complete this six-weeks long online study and I made a concept for D&AD campaign final project. It was quite rushed as I was really busy with my main course work. However it was definitely worth doing exercise. The nicest and possibly most remembered aspect of all of it will be my drawing feedback (one of the best compliments and feedback I've ever got!) from Susan Stokes, marketing executive working in Sydney, Australia. I don't feel this drawing were worth a lot to be honest but she thought they're amazing and raised a question if I am a professional illustrator. Amazing to hear. It made my day. The sketches were then made into a short video.

'Cuddle My World' integrated campaign

General overview: promoting sustainability and importance of responsible advertising and design where the key message is: purpose beyond profit. Campaign stands against using animals for human’s benefits, against cruelty, using animal’s fur in clothing businesses; aimed to make people think about Earth’s current condition; bad habits and its consequences such as global warming and exploitation of natural resources.

Through story of friendship between the bear and human, campaign shows relation between us and nature and points into responsibility for advertising and creative people able to act by influencing on their audience and work for good purpose

Characters: animated polar bear and young creative person

Reasons: polar bear – a victim of humans’ irresponsibility (danger of extinction because of global warming and illegal hunting); childhood memory subject signifying warmth, safety (cuddly teddy bear); creative (designer/illustrator) -  relates to the target audience (creative industry)

Plot: The story of friendship (harmony of nature and human); shown in a way of personification animal’s life to connect with the spectator more deeply

Storyline: beautiful scenes of childhood and first perceptions of the world around from bear’s and little boy’s lives (interlaced with each other and interacting with the audience emotionally by showing baby bear and his mum – a family); boy always carries little bear and looses him one day; they both grow up.  

Little bear is really curious about the world far away and as one day hunters catch his mummy, he hides on the ship following her. He gets into the city unseen, finding all about the cruelty and irresponsibility of the human.
In the meantime the boy becomes a young, freshly graduated graphic designer and starts to work for bad advertising agencies where he gets excited about work and sometimes forgets the ethical principles.
One day he says no and nervously leaves work and he realises he started to lose the values he has always believed in; bear is all alone in the big city but nobody even notices he’s there; The young man and the bear crash into each other on the side street in the evening; they look at each other for a little while with curiosity and consideration and they soon become best friends.
They start to really understand each others feelings and the creative guy starts realising more things that could be done and he let go his creative activities in order to change the world for better (with help of his new friend). He raises a great initiative to support polar bears and decrease their risk of extinction by increased protection of their natural environment and bears themselves, raising awareness and promoting harmony between human and nature. After a little while polar bear returns to Arctica to be able to stay safely in his natural environment.  The amazing experience with polar bears stays with the young graphic designer and influences his future actions in the creative field.

Available and considered platforms for my integrated campaign:

TV Commercial Advertisement (emotional engagement with the viewer by choosing the characters and the story: ‘overcoming the monster’) presented within soundtrack in the background (indicating all upcoming events/situations) and short titles to clarify the key points of the story; with D&AD logo and website in the end accompanied by introduction to the white pencil
Posters and billboards: showing an interaction of the main characters 
Newspaper and magazines advertising (few pages of interacting/relating to each other ads)
Smartphone app and game  (number of cuddles – environmentally friendly projects – given to the world enable the player to reach higher levels; story character – little polar bear also gives the player instructions and introduces D&AD archive material for this reason raising awareness of social and environmental issues)
Social media e.g. Facebook campaign page (initiating public shares and discussions regarding animals protection, sustainability and globalisation issues) D&AD logo included so it all happens within the organisation’s purposes

Product (polar bear plush toys; kids get to know the story of little polar bear; raising awareness to the youngest audience too)

In the meantime I made very amateur short video with my husband, based on a funny story/concept and skateboarding subject. It was so much fun and I got more interested in filmmaking. We also submitted it for amateur Nikon Film Festival to try our luck. I've also seen a short story video based on drawing process from a friend and Elliot Hammer's work while he visited our institute. Movement in storytelling became a great point of my curiosity and so I have found another course on FutureLearn: Explore Filmmaking by National Film and Television School. I completed that one as well. It was a good insight into another part of creative industry with intriguing examples of short movies. I gained a lot of new practical knowledge (also related to photography) from professionals in the field. I also explored the practical roles in filmmaking and glossary of terms within the field.

Explore Filmmaking National Film and Television School