The D&AD Awards — 2022 Exhibition in Japan was held at the Ad Museum Tokyo. Our brief was to develop a design concept that reflected the outstanding creativity of the previous year’s D&AD award winners, and to create posters, movies, and thematically linked decor for the exhibition venue. Our objective was not only to generate interest in advance of the event, but also to heighten the exhibition experience by providing attendees with a visually engaging and thematically coherent context in which to view the works.

Our creative idea was to use bioluminescent jellyfish to represent the complex range of stimulus-response interactions that inspire the design process. As human beings, we all experience joy, pain, sorrow, excitement and a host of other emotions in daily life. And as creators, we sublimate those experiences into our work. Just as the purpose of bioluminescence in jellyfish remains a mystery to science, so too does the miracle of the design process remain a mystery to the creative mind. It is in this state of unknowing that we work. It is a precious state, in which seemingly coincidental yet somehow inevitable connections are made—a state we call “beautiful panic”.

In our art direction, we sought to give visual expression to the mindset of the design process. Taking bioluminescent jellyfish as our motif, we placed them in the “deep sea” of a black background and used subtly feathered layers of white to render the jellyfish’s body as a series of complex overlapping geometric forms. This not only replicated the ethereal and delicate structure of jellyfish, it evoked the gentle drifting motion they exhibit in their natural habitat. Contrasting sharply with these monochromatic elements, we used bright spot colours to depict points of light that represent both the spark of design inspiration and the stinging and shocking sensation that jellyfish tentacles can produce.

Although still somewhat affected by pandemic-related restrictions on large gatherings, exhibition attendance increased to near pre-pandemic levels. Attendance by people in their late teens and early twenties was also notably higher than in previous years, and their lengthy engagement with the exhibits was a reflection of their strong interest in the fields of advertising and design.