ADC 105th Annual Awards
The ADC Annual Awards is celebrating 105 years of excellence in design and craft. This iconic non-profit award show honors the best creative talent and groundbreaking work across many different creative disciplines including advertising, digital media, graphic and publication design, packaging and product design, motion, gaming, experiential and architecture, photography, illustration and all points in between.
A special tiered pricing structure
makes it easier for smaller agencies, studios and freelancers to
participate. Small shops get a discount on entries (amount varies by
discipline), and freelance creatives and one-person shops are eligible
for an even greater reduction in their entry fee.
This year’s ADC Annual Awards call for entries campaign was created by Dentsu Tokyo.
Titled “Create a Beautiful Future”, the campaign highlights the Art Directors Club’s status as a global nonprofit award show which takes revenue generated from the award show and puts it back into the industry to fund a range of professional development, education, and diversity programs.
The centerpiece visual of a magnificent peacock represents the notion of courtship and putting on a show in order to attract attention. By displaying their beautiful talents and work in the form of entering the ADC 105th Annual Awards, entrants can help create a beautiful future for the industry by funding year-round programming.
The regular deadline to enter is Friday, January 23, 2026 at 11:59PM PT.
ENTRY INFORMATION
NEW THIS SEASON
This year’s awards will include the presentation of the Paul Manship Medal. Initially known as the Manship Medallion, the accolade was the original ADC competition award created by famed sculptor Paul Manship (1885-1966), best-known for his monumental gilded rendering of Prometheus, permanently installed at the heart of Rockefeller Center.
The Paul Manship Medal has now been reimagined as an enterable category, recognizing a single design or advertising creative professional who best acts as a catalyst for change, demonstrates foresight and innovation, embodies a lasting legacy, and made the most significant contribution in the past year.
"Paul Manship’s medal was more than the Art Directors Club's first award,” said Brian Collins, Co-founder of COLLINS in San Francisco and New York, and ADC President. “It became a statement: that the work we do can be both practical and profound. That commercial creativity, when done with care and conviction, can be the best of our culture, in itself. This year, ADC brings back the Paul Manship Medal to honor those whose work redefines our profession. Work that doesn’t follow the times, but helps set the direction of what’s to come.”
