Last week the D&AD hosted their yearly awards ceremony at The Roundhouse in London.

Forty-two Yellow Pencils were awarded to work that set new standards in creative excellence, along with five Black Pencil’s – the creative industry’s most elusive prize, only awarded for truly outstanding and groundbreaking work. Of the five Black Pencil’s handed out the final one went to D&AD perennial award winner, Apple, for its website Apple.com. This prize was the only Black Pencil that received a lacklustre response from the audience, prompting only a small ripple of applause.

Since giving the award, D&AD has been questioned about the reasons behind awarding the highest and most prestigious award in the world of design and advertising to a site which, for most people, simply wasn’t the best website designed in the last year.

The thing with Apple is that their influence is completely clear to the world, and that’s not going to be in question for a long time. But is their website innovative and forward thinking enough to warrant a black pencil? It seems for the most part, the design community think not. Outside of the awards the decision has generated some confusion and negative responses, seen here on Creative Review’s blog.

Yesterday I posted a tweet asking…

This morning D&AD replied and mentioned that D&AD website Jury member Andy Sandoz Creative Partner & Innovation Director from Work Club had written a blog post with some thoughts on Apple winning the Black Pencil.

“Apple.com is a contentious decision for a Black Pencil. When you first hear of it i can understand a negative/confused reaction. I was the same initially. However, when you live with it for a short while, as i did, i believe it becomes a very clear-cut example of an exemplar, an influencer and, whilst perhaps less so a paradigm shift in terms of speed, certainly a tectonic shift in terms of effect over time. I’m pleased it won.”

In Andy’s blog he outlined four main points to defend the decision:

1. A black pencil should not be and is not a decision taken lightly.
He defends the decision because Apple will always be an obvious choice and therefore makes it harder to win.

2. Philosophy.
He believes Apple knows their products are cool, but the site is more about eduction about the product. “It’s not just about aesthetic it’s about the function of that aesthetic.”

3. Apple.com is a long standing exemplar of online brand and e-commerce.
He says Apple is clearly a leader and influencer to many designers and brands, and in some respects shapes visual trends.

4. This is a website category.
He reminds us that the award category was for site design, not Flash campaigns.

Andy’s post contains fair and considered points, which are great to get from an insider involved in the decision. What we don’t however know is what the contender sites were in this website category, or what the entrants must achieve to win an award.

At the end of the day awards, their winners and decisions will always generate good and healthy discussion around design as awards are notorious in their very nature to offer plenty of opportunity for criticism, whether constructive or not.

Summary
To me it seems the Apple brand and products are more deserving of an award than the website. No one ever doubts how good Apple is, but is their site ‘good enough’? As mentioned they’ve clearly set new standards and it’s their thinking that seems to be deserving of praise.

As a parting thought ask yourself this: If the Apple site were selling Dell products would they have still won an award?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Mat