Studio Nari creates campaign visuals for this year’s D&AD New Blood Awards

Yesterday (14 January 2021) D&AD launched Your Butterfly Effect, a creative campaign supporting this year’s New Blood Awards. The campaign sees D&AD collaborate with London-based creative consultancy and branding studio, Studio Nari, headed up by designer Caterina Bianchini. A studio known for bridging art and design, the new campaign aims to incite optimism during a time of continued uncertainty for the creative industries.

This year’s New Blood programme includes awards, a ceremony, festival and academy. It hopes to aid creative growth during the pandemic and support emerging creatives entering the industry at this trying time. In spite of the ongoing challenges facing creatives due to the pandemic, New Blood 2021 intends to “highlight the idea that every step taken in your career matters,” says D&AD in a statement.

Entries for the awards are now open until 5 pm GMT on 23 March 2021 here. Entrants can hope to be creatively challenged by “exploring new ideas, obtaining new tools, building their network and gaining insight into exceptional creative work,” the statement continues. This philosophy of growth will also be visually represented through the Studio Nari’s design of the campaign. Growth will be symbolised through four mixed material shapes that will evolve over the course of the awards programme, described by D&AD as “symbolising our creative selves as they continue to grow and progress.”

The initial campaign visuals see Studio Nari utilise a four colour way palette to celebrate the Your Butterfly Effect identity. Abstract 3D forms boldly feature as an abstraction of aforementioned creative growth, while the revamped D&AD New Blood word mark frames the composition. As well as posters and digital stills to promote the campaign, Nari have also expressed the sculptural objects as animations; a hypnotic display of hyperreal texture and colour.

D&AD has been championing creative thinkers since 1962, celebrating some of the most exciting talent in design and advertising. The awards are just one facet of the initiative however, as it points out in a statement, “members join a vibrant global community.” A non-profit association, all of D&AD’s surpluses go towards programmes such as New Blood and Shift in the hopes of inspiring the next generation of creative talent to blossom and contribute to a better industry.