Village Green talks us through its identity for the 2019 D&AD Festival

London-based studio Village Green has designed the 2019 instalment of industry giants D&AD’s annual three-day celebration of craft, creativity and culture.

The studio – who also recently produced work for the likes of Nike Football, and Tate Lates – has designed a hyper-kinetic identity for the D&AD festival. Each iteration of the campaign’s imagery generates the D&AD acronym as “a new graphic form” which, Village Green says, presents “an elementary design sensibility that speaks to the foundations of creativity at the festival.” The result is an amorphous, bright, bold, and quite brilliant identity which reflects the shape-shifting nature of creativity in the contemporary world.

Last year it was the turn of the ever-curious studio Hato to give the festival a public-facing image. Hato’s work – which took a highly-collaborative approach – was justly celebrated. Speaking to It’s Nice That, Village Green’s Seb Marling says that taking the reigns this year was “not so much daunting as rewarding – Hato set a visual tone with last year’s campaign that was fresh and covered a lot of bases both conceptually and visually, so it really set the benchmark for us to create something that we hope is as equally pleasing to encounter!”

If the previously ever-present pencil looks a little, well, less ever-present, then that’s the point. “D&AD were keen not to simply focus on the iconic pencil and its associations with industry awards,” Seb tells us, “but to open up first-hand experiences such as talks debates and workshops to a much broader audience.” It is a creative decision indicative of the thought process behind much of what this year’s festival is all about.

In a statement released today, Harriet Devoy, D&AD President, says" “For this year’s D&AD Festival, we chose to focus on the future. D&AD Festival will give us a glimpse at the upcoming trends in creativity, and those attending will get to hear from some of our industry’s leading figures. It’s going to be fascinating and inspiring.”

D&AD Festival 2019 takes place at east London’s Truman Brewery between 21 – 23 May.