This year’s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival launched the Design Lions, further enhancing and complementing the celebration of creativity. 

Though in its first year, the Design Lions received a strong number of entries, much higher than expected.  Design Categories included Packaging Design, Brand Identity and Environmental Design.

“I feel that this is a groundbreaking year for design at Cannes, for it is finally given the rightful recognition it deserves - to be on its own, as much as it is an integral part of the rest of the categories. This is a great opportunity for designers to showcase their work at Cannes and I strongly encourage design agencies and studios to participate next year,” said Alvin Tan of :Phunk Studio, a creative collective in Singapore, one of the Design Lions judges.

“It was a great experience judging at Cannes and an opportunity to meet other international designers.  This (Design) is a new category for Cannes Lions and as the first design jury, we had an opportunity to set the judging guidelines for future juries,” added Tan.

JWT Singapore’s “Fragile” won a Design Gold Lion. Singapore also had three shortlists in this category; Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide’s “Grocer’s Corporate Identity”, Publicis’ “Nike Stadium” and TBWA\Tequila’s “The Book”. In total, Singapore won 9 Lions – 2 Golds, 1 Silver and 6 Bronzes.

This year, six creatives – Alvin Tan of :Phunk Studio (Design), Chris Chiu of Leo Burnett (Direct), Eugene Cheong of Ogilvy (Press), Richard Copping of Saatchi (Outdoor) and Saatchi, Rowan Chanen of Y&R (Promo) and Sean Lam of Kinetic (Cyber) – from Singapore were part of the jury panel at the Cannes Lions Festival. This is the highest number of judges from Singapore so far.