Meet The Drum Awards for Design jury 2021
The past 12 months have been challenging for us all, but that doesn’t mean creativity can take a back seat. While we sit and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the perfect time to be stretching those creative muscles.
Meet The Drum Awards for Design jury 2021
The Drum Awards for Design highlight the best art direction, strategic thinking, and execution, and are open to anyone using design thinking to make a difference.
This year’s jury, chaired by John Mathers, chairman of the British Design Fund and Natasha Chetiyawardana, creative partner and founder of Bow&Arrow includes experts from Studio Kohl, Wolff Olins, Interbrand, DVTK, Sequoia Capital India LLP, Rapp, Templo, Design Bridge, Pinterest, The Place Bureau, The Digital Fairy, Urban Symbiotics, Pearlfisher, with more to be announced.
The deadline for entering the awards has passed but you can still be in with a chance to win by applying for an extension. In the meantime, find out more about some of our outstanding judges below.
Studio Kohl
Mira Malhotra
founder and creative director
Malhotra is a graphic designer, visual artist and illustrator. She runs an independent graphic design practice, Studio Kohl, in Mumbai, India. Her personal practice tends more towards image-making. Her interests lie in all that is encompassed by DIY culture: low-brow art, pop surrealism, self-published zines, indie music, politics, activism and more particularly gender and mental health. She is a co-founding member of Kadak Collective, an ever-expanding group of South Asian, women-identifying graphic storytellers.
It’s been a strange (and tough) year for many, and there’s been a seismic shift in the way we see things within a surprisingly short period of time. A new lens allows us to imagine solutions differently. Creative people are always who we look towards to craft the vision of the future, and I’m excited to deliberate on the best of the best with a stellar panel of judges in what I think is a really important year for design.
Wolff Olins
Forest Young
chief creative officer
Young is a design leader, educator and speaker. At Wolff Olins, he leads initiatives for the world’s most influential companies. Prior to joining Wolff Olins, Forest was executive creative director at West, leading design across a portfolio of early stage companies. Forest is a senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art, where he is also a distinguished alumnus. His work has received the highest design accolades including the Gold Design Lion at Cannes and the ADC Black Cube.
The past year was an unprecedented maelstrom of crisis. I’m looking forward to work that embodies a sense of optimism — addressing the turbulent forces of 2020 with a commanding and imaginative response through effort, intention, and skill. Regarding effort, I’m interested in how teams overcame the great impediments imposed by the pandemic. For intention, I’m fascinated by how teams acknowledged a global civil rights awakening; and skill, ultimately a compelling act of design.
Interbrand
Sue Daun
executive creative director
Daun is responsible for driving the creative passion, energy and excellence being delivered through the London business at Interbrand. With over 25 years’ experience working with global clients, across all sectors and channels, she believes, as creative thinkers, we have a responsibility to play many roles in order to create successful thriving global brands. Creative provocateur, business entrepreneur, consumer advocate, ambassador of ideas and craft and brand guardian, each role playing an important part in delivering on-going, relevant insight, value and opportunities for the consumer to connect with the brand in ways never thought of before. Since Joining Interbrand, Daun has developed the creative disciplines and standards of the Interbrand business works closely with brands spanning all channels.
I’m delighted and excited to be part of this years drum awards. The quality of creativity is always great and the diversity of entries rich. I am looking forward to seeing how the work stretches and expands creativity even when we have all been tested by an unusual year.
DVTK
Kim Boutin
co-founder and digital creative director
Boutin is co-founder of creative studio DVTK, which she leads together with David Broner. Their work has received attention from art and design communities, leading to talks, juries panels and workshops with institutions such as Tate Britain, Decoded Fashion, ECAL, Somerset House, Gobelins School of Image in Paris or London Design Festival. And has been featured in I-D magazine, Dazed, T-magazine, Creators Project, LSN Global, 032c and It’s Nice that. Alongside design practice, Boutin has been an associate lecturer at London College of Fashion since 2018.
We now have one full year of experience as living in a world with Covid. At every levels, we're all trying to deal with this new reality. Politics are taking unprecedented healthcare decisions. Individuals are inventing new daily routines for how to eat, get groceries, work or stay in touch with each other. Cultural institutions are trying to find ways to get through this without being about to welcome visitors. Despite the fact we’re all experiencing the same issues, we're all imagining different solutions – for instance, governments have all embraced different positions to face the situation. As real design essentially consists in observing the world and reacting to what it looks like to offer thoughtful solutions, I’m really looking forward to discovering what will be the take from designers’ entries for 2021!
Sequoia Capital India LLP
Gayatri Yadav
chief marketing officer
Yadav leads the Sequoia’s marketing mandate while work closely with its portfolio companies to help them scale and create legendary brands from the region. Prior to joining Sequoia, Yadav ledmMarketing and also served as president, consumer strategy and innovation for Star India (now a part of Disney), where she led a series of high impact marketing moves, including the network’s launch of Star Sports, Hotstar and the ’Nayi Soch’ brand plan on Star Plus, which aimed to empower women. Before Star India, she was the chief marketing officer for General Mills where she launched and scaled the Pillsbury brand in India.
The Drum Awards have always held a very high standard, the celebration of the best in creativity and design. I am looking forward to see work with a clear identity, because brand beats bland and fresh thinking that can surprise and move the design discourse forward.
Rapp
Hiten Bhatt
head of design
Bhatt is the head of design at Rapp, leading a team of 20 multi-disciplined experts in design. During his 20 year career, he’s worked on integrated projects for some of the world’s most prestigious brands, including American Express, British Airways, Mercedes-Benz, Montblanc, IBM, Ralph Lauren and Virgin Media. He’s a prominent judge on the UK design jury circuit and created the Design for Good Award for The Drum Awards for Design 2019. He’s also collected over 40 design awards, with D&AD pencils, Cannes shortlists and Gold DMAs among them.
Over the last year, the work that has really resonated with me has shown a sense of community, inclusivity and authenticity at its heart. Now that we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I’ve noticed a sense of optimism across the design world, with trends that espouse positivity and celebration. It’s been a challenging time creating and directing work remotely, so I’m keen to see how designers have tackled this head on. I’m also intrigued to see how brands and agencies have reacted to the global pandemic. Creative constraints often lead to innovative design solutions. I’m sure we’ll see aspects of this across all submissions, especially in the newly formed Conscious Design categories.
Templo
Pali Palavathanan
co-founder and creative director
Palavathanan is the co-founder and creative director of branding and digital agency Templo, which focuses on creativity for change. He collaborates with ambitious clients including the United Nations, Migrant Help, UK Anti-Corruption Coalition, Amnesty International and the Climate Change Committee and having work featured in Wired Magazine, Etapes Magazine, Design Museum's 'Hope to Nope' exhibition and Channel 4 News.
For me, an award winning project has to go beyond the brief, industry preconceptions, take risks and avoid the temptations of being seduced by current trends. In parallel the world is in the middle of a pandemic, growing inequality and political polarisation so I’m also hoping to see more conscious attempts to create innovative and authentic responses to some of these global issues.
Design Bridge
Chloe Templeman
creative director
Templeman counts Fortnum & Mason, Diageo, Unilever and Callaly amongst her varied client list as creative director at Design Bridge London where she’s been for over 10 years. Her passion for the big idea, beautifully crafted shines through in her work and she has won many international awards including Pentawards, D&AD Pencils, New York Festivals, FAB Awards and DBA Design Effectiveness. With 13 years experience in packaging and branding and one of the few female creative directors in the industry, she is passionate about driving greater gender diversity and likes to give back to others by playing active role in nurturing young design talent within DesignBridge as well as outside work.
“This year I’m looking for clever work that stands out from the crowd and does something different that we haven’t seen before. Also after the events of 2020 I’d love to see design solutions that help change our planet for the better, either through sustainability or using design for good. “