Graphic Design: Bravo Charlie Mike Hotel ace D&AD award night identity

The creative industries lavish a lot of attention on the D&AD awards and there’s always a great deal of discussion about those projects which scoop the big prizes. Imagine the pressure then which comes with the commission to design the identity for the industry’s big night out? This year that honour went to Bravo Charlie Mike Hotel, a studio selected in keeping with D&AD president Neville Brody’s determination to promote young creative talent. But as anyone acquainted with BCMH’s previous work would expect, the London-based agency did a sterling job, building the visual collateral around a simple play on D&AD’s ampersand, transforming it into an “E”.

BCMH said: "We were able to transform D&AD into a very colloquial English use of the word ‘DEAD’ meaning ‘really.’ For example, ‘dead excited,’ ‘dead jealous,’ ‘dead chuffed,’ ‘dead nervous’, etc. This allowed us to illustrate the heightened emotions and excitement felt in the lead up to and during the event but with a bit of humour because, after all, it’s a celebration.

“The flexibility of the concept also meant that it could be used very effectively and responsively in different contexts to unite all of the areas and situations in which the identity would be needed. Dead simple.”