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Norwich students win at D&AD New Blood Awards 2025

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Every year, the D&AD New Blood Awards attract thousands of submissions from graduating students around the world.

The awards showcase the most impressive recent graduate work across design, advertising and craft. Winning a D&AD Pencil not only brings valuable exposure to the global creative industry, it can also serve as a powerful launchpad for a graduate’s career.

The competition features briefs developed in collaboration with leading global brands across a range of sectors.

Norwich’s winning entries for 2025, from our BA (Hons) Graphic Communication course, were:

Write to Roam– Sam Butler

Brief: Monotype, Wooden Pencil

A bright green poster with black text visually narrowing from top to bottom, reading "What's your Right to Roam?" A description and chart explain how access to land ranges from unconstrained to constricted, highlighting restricted movement.

England’s Right to Roam laws lag behind other progressive policies, creating tension between the public and the government. While England is seen as a rural country, most people are unaware of the restrictions limiting their freedom to explore nature. This campaign aims to highlight shocking statistics through typography-led visuals, making the issue tangible. By encouraging people to write to their MPs, the initiative seeks to drive meaningful change and expand access to outdoor spaces.

The Cult of Connection– Sienna Torres Bavins and Will Fletcher

Brief: giffgaff, Wooden Pencil

A colorful infographic titled "giffgaff cult of connection" explains how giffgaff differs from traditional mobile networks, highlighting problems, key research, and insights about community and consumer freedom.

This guerrilla campaign transforms giffgaff’s community-powered ethos into a satirical ‘cult’ that spreads the gospel of true mobile freedom. Through preachers, street graffiti and confession booths, we invite the public to experience what it truly feels like to be with giffgaff. Join us and experience true enlightenment!

Once Upon a Giffgaff– Jack Charlesworth, Reiss Badhasha and Matthew Mallett

Brief: giffgaff, Graphite Pencil

A bearded man with a topknot, wearing fairy wings and holding a star wand, smiles at the camera. Bold text reads “once upon a giffgaff” on a pink background. A smaller caption highlights a problem faced by young people.

Once upon a giffgaff, aims to take the mystery out of mobile by marketing the goodness of giffgaff through the lens of a quirky magical cast of characters, and unexpected, interactive OOH advertising, as well as a comprehensive social media approach in a fun and fresh new take on giffgaff’s existing brand platform.

Secret 7″ Black Rain– Ciaran Burling

Brief: War Child, Graphite Pencil

A black vinyl record partially slides out of its sleeve, which features a black cover with white vertical lines and jagged, branching patterns in the center. The background is plain white.

This submission for Secret 7″ illustrates a vinyl cover for ‘Black Rain’ by Keane. The song communicates feelings of longing and uncertainty, through the metaphor of ‘black rain’, symbolizing emotional struggles or a sense of being lost. My design illustrates the focus of the song, ‘Black Rain’. I used repeated lines in a grid, but made them collapse in the center. This communicated the idea of rain as a literal piece of imagery, but also uncovered a conceptual way of seeing the design.

Having irregularly moving lines that communicate collapse or falling down links well to Keane’s message in the song. The links to mental and emotional struggle, uncertainty, fragility, and vulnerability are all communicated through the design.

Secret 7″ Warsong– Ciaran Burling

Brief: War Child, Wooden Pencil

A vinyl record partially in its sleeve; the sleeve is red with a grainy image of a blurry figure and an arm pointing a gun at them. The overall design is stark and graphic.
This submission for Secret 7″ illustrates a vinyl cover for ‘Warsong’ by The Cure. The song communicates the horrors of the world, specifically the themes of conflict, violence, and desperation. The world is plagued with conflicts, and many people are forced to fight in a war they don’t agree with, and for a country they aren’t willing to die for. This design is a symbolic representation of the carelessness that occurs in bringing people into war. The cover shows an anonymous hand, holding a gun to a pixelated head. The point of the anonymity in this design is that either side can be anyone. The message and interaction is lateral, but the only thing consistent is that they are people. This cover communicates the songs message, symbolising blood through the use of red as the primary colour.
Commenting on the awards, Martin Schooley, Director of Communication Design at Norwich University of the Arts, said:
“All the graphics courses at Norwich University of the Arts are multi award-winning, and these fantastic D&AD pencil wins for Graphic Communication students add to a bulging collective trophy cabinet that has been accumulating awards for many years.

“Students from Graphic Design, Design for Publishing, Graphic Communication and User Experience Design have had huge success with D&AD New Blood Awards, and also with many other prestigious national and international competition schemes. These include: The Society of Publication Designers, Type Directors Club, Pentawards, World Brand Design Society, Adobe Design Achievement Awards, Firestarters, YCN, ISTD, Creative Conscience and BulletProof – to name but a few.

“These awards are incredibly hard to win. They are judged by external experts made up of professional creatives, art directors, senior designers, commercial clients and leading academics. Our students compete with their peers from other graphics courses all over the UK, and in some cases from courses all over the world.

“Winning these awards or being a runner-up is a true mark of excellence on the part of the student. It is also testament to the very high standards of teaching and learning on our courses, and the dedicated, passionate and experienced teaching team that nurture and support our students.

“Competitions of course, are not everything; there are many ways to excel and to reach one’s potential during and after their course. But what they do signal is a clear message to employers about the quality of a student’s work, and their readiness to join the creative industries.”

Congratulations go to all our 2025 D&AD winners. Explore more work from our BA (Hons) Graphic Communication students on our course page.

“Winning these awards or being a runner-up is a true mark of excellence on the part of the student. It is also testament to the very high standards of teaching and learning on our courses, and the dedicated, passionate and experienced teaching team that nurture and support our students.”

Martin Schooley, Director of Communication Design
 

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