D&AD has awarded its top honor of a Black Pencil to two pieces of creative work: a music video from Pharrell, 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator; and a device that turns the heartbeats of children with heart defects into musical rhythms. 

The industry awards body reserves its Black Pencil for truly groundbreaking work and gives out a different number each year (last year, there were five). Pharrell, 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator’s “Cash In, Cash Out” music video, produced by Division, claimed the first 2023 Black Pencil in the visual effects/craft category.

The second Black Pencil–in the product design category–went to The Swedish Heartchild Foundation’s Heartbeat Drum Machine, created by Abby.World. The device functions as a modular synthesizer and produces rhythms using the electrocardiograms of children with heart defects, channelling distress into art. 

D&AD awarded two Collaborative Pencils–celebrating innovative and long-lasting collaborations–to Iyama Design and Kamoi Kakoshi Co, Japan, for ongoing work with MT Masking Tape, and to Ogilvy U.K. and Unilever for a 66-year partnership beginning in 1957, when agency founder David Ogilvy wrote the first print ad for the Dove beauty bar. 

Other winners

The other top D&AD winners included U.K.-based adam&eveDDB as Advertising Agency of the Year and DDB Worldwide as Network of the Year. 

Anheuser-Busch InBev won Client of the Year (the company is also Cannes Lions’ Creative Marketer of the Year for the second year running). 

King Henry was named Design Agency of the Year, while Division took home Production Company of the Year. 

D&AD gave its President’s Award–an annual honor for individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the industry–to the founders of U.K.-based agency Mother. 

“I chose them because I’m a massive believer in the power of a creative ‘gang,’ and no one embodies that more than Mother. Their philosophy is based on the creative collective and its possibilities, and as an outsider looking in, that was intoxicating,” Richard Brim, this year’s D&AD president and adam&eveDDB chief creative officer, said in a statement. “Over the years, some of the industry’s most talented individuals have sat around that table. With that unfair share of talent comes the brilliant, funny, populist, batshit-crazy work that … showed the industry a new way.”