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The ADC Annual Awards is the world’s longest continuously running awards program recognizing global excellence in craft and innovation in all forms of design and advertising. This year presents creatives from around the world with the once-a-century opportunity to be part of history by winning a coveted ADC Cube in the prestigious show's 100th awards season.

The One Club for Creativity is a not for profit organization that celebrates and serves the global advertising and design industries, and when the pandemic began to affect the world earlier in the year, we jumped to make adjustments to help our community.

The deadline to enter the ADC 100 Annual Awards is March 12, 2021

New this year

Fusion Cube

With the goal of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in both agency/production company staffing and the work itself, the new Fusion Cube will identify and celebrate great work which also demonstrates how underrepresented groups and DEI issues are utilized both "behind the scenes" – hiring diverse staff, ensuring equal opportunity, pay and treatment – and in the creative work, as expressed through casting, language, script and narrative.

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In-House Discipline

This year ADC has added In-House to its lineup of disciplines. An array of creative talents from In-House agencies and brands from both large and small companies will compete with one another and have their work judged by a jury of industry peers.

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Reduced Pricing for Independent Passion Projects

ADC has reduced the fee for personal and unpublished work with the Illustration, Photography, Motion / Film Gaming Craft, Fashion Design and Typography categories.

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Resources

The first ADC gold medal winning work in 1921

ADC 100TH ANNUAL AWARDS

On August 13, 2020, the 100th anniversary date of the incorporation of the Art Directors Club of New York, ADC launched a year-long ADC100 centennial celebration, kicked off with a special identity and online historic timeline developed by multi-specialty creative studio C&G Partners, New York.

The ADC100 program will provide rare insights into the observations and human exchanges of the creative community throughout the past century. Serialized monthly content will trace the history of ADC, and by extension tell the story of how the design and advertising professions evolved during major global events including recessions, world wars and shifts in consumer lifestyles.

The Art Directors Club, known as ADC, was the first global organization to celebrate and award leaders in creative communications. Founded in New York by Louis Pedlar on August 13, 1920, the club was established to ensure advertising was judged by the same stringent standards as fine art.

ADC organized the first juried exhibition of advertising art in 1921 to, in the words of ad and design legend Earnest Elmo Calkins, "dignify the field of business art in the eyes of artists" and communicate that "artistic excellence is vitally necessary to successful advertising." The ADC Annual Awards is the world's longest continuously running awards program recognizing global excellence in craft and innovation in all forms of design and advertising.

ADC 100 Partner

ADC will for the second year partner with the creative community Working Not Working on event and content collaborations, as well as special awards including the Freelancer of the Year, which was won in 2020 by artist Kadir Nelson. All ADC 100th Annual Awards Gold Cube-winning entries submitted through the freelance level of the show's tiered pricing structure will be judged again by a separate jury that includes the Working Not Working community.