D&AD has appointed Havas Work Club London creative partner Andy Sandoz as its president for 2015-16.
“Sandoz is bringing the future,” said an unnamed D&AD. “He isn’t just a disruptive creative partner with big ideas, he’s a sci-fi traveller stuck in the wrong time, working very hard to help us all catch up. His manifesto isn’t about what he can do in a year; he wants us to think of the next 20 years and how we can use creativity to save ourselves.
Sandoz declares that the internet is the reason he got into advertising and names English computer scientist Professor Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee as the person who has most influenced his career to date.
A voracious reader of sci-fi novels, he embraces the idea of the future and all of its exciting innovations and worries about those that bury their heads in the sand, unwilling to change with the times. For Sandoz, creativity is what is going to save the world.
“We should all take the red pill,” he says. “The next 20 years will be a golden age, in which we envision, design and deliver a new world. With good reason, as right now this one we have really needs us. We have to design a new way to live on earth, create new ways to live with each other and work out how we are going to live with technology.
“No need to panic (too much) though. Fortunately we humans are already sophisticated problem solving machines, able to start with just an idea and the belief that it can be done. And rather than fighting against the machines as we see in the movies, we actually have technology on our side.
“Understanding how science and technology works makes you think about what is possible. Asking yourself ‘can this work?’. It makes you experiment, and to me that is the essence of creativity. To every day explore what is possible.
“How does this future-thinking apply to D&AD? The future is anyone’s guess, so why can’t it be yours? Invest in technology. Invest in creativity. In this, D&AD is your rock and your light. We are a not-for-profit platform for creativity, giving directly to initiatives that drive our industry forward.
“Our Pencils don’t just award excellence, create confidence and make careers – they show us all the way forward. Our education initiatives take the knowledge from the Pencil winners and turn it into wisdom we can all share and learn from.
“We create catalysts such as the White Pencil, awarding work for good, to encourage answers our industry and our world needs to see. We ask brands to take the responsible seat at the table. Our New Blood education program accelerates the next generation and promotes diversity helping us stay fresh and grow.
“If the answer to our problems is creativity, and I believe that it is, then D&AD is a vital platform to help us achieve our goals. Become a member of D&AD and you become a member of your own future, enter your work into D&AD and you enter your work into your everyone’s future, win at D&AD and you boost everyone’s future times 10.
“I look forward to a future filled with creative thinking, where our work has a meaningful impact on the world around us. Over time, I expect D&AD to give out exponentially more Pencils, thousands more. Not because our benchmark of quality is getting lower – we won’t drop our standard – but thanks to technology, we are about to get better.”
In addition, there are four new creatives elected to sit on the D&AD board of trustees: New deputy president Bruce Duckworth, principal at Turner Duckworth London; Nicky Bullard, CD at LIDA London, Hamish Gardner (D&AD New Blood Awards trustee), and Caitlyn Ryan, former group ECD at Karmarama London.
- More info: D&AD PR manager Elisa Barnard (elisa.barnard@dandad.org)
- www.dandad.org
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