Agencies and brands across the MENA region earned 17 Pencils at the 2025 D&AD Awards, with wins across design, direction, cinematography, typography and more. Held annually in London, the awards celebrate global creative excellence across advertising and design disciplines.
This year, only three Black Pencils – the competition’s highest honour – were awarded globally. In total, 668 Pencils were handed out: 3 Black,3 White, 48 Yellow, 176 Graphite, 434 Wood and 4 Future Impact.
Regional winners from this year represented the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, with the work emerging from campaigns for Riyadh Season, NBA India, Babyshop, Volkswagen Middle East and King Faisal Specialist Hospital, among others.
UAE’s wins at the D&AD 2025 awards
From visual innovation to emotionally resonant brand work, UAE-based agencies earned multiple honours.
Leo Burnett Dubai won three Graphite Pencils and three Wood Pencils for ‘The Great Indian Dunk’, an NBA India campaign that captured real, unscripted moments of Indian youth in mid-air poses, drawing parallels with the iconic dunks of basketball legends.
Publicis Middle East picked up two Wood Pencils: One for ColourCheck, a product design innovation for Babyshop and Moorfields Eye Hospitals that used a coloured pencil set to discreetly detect types of colour blindness in children. Another for Strangers, a heartfelt campaign for King Faisal Specialist Hospital, in the Health & Wellbeing – Film category.
Cheil MEA was recognised with a Wood Pencil for Type Design, for Written by GTI, a campaign that created Arabic typography from the skids and drifts of a Volkswagen GTI.
TypeType, a design agency with roots based in Kazakhstan and the UAE, won a Wood Pencil for TT Biersal, a display sans serif typeface with unconventional modular cuts and asymmetrical angles, recognised in the Typeface Family category.
Saudi in spotlight
Saudi Arabia emerged as a creative force at this year’s awards, largely driven by the General Entertainment Authority’s cinematic sports campaigns through BigTime Creative Shop.
Everything or Nothing, created for the Crawford vs. Madrimov fight, won a Graphite Pencil in Cinematography – Short Form, showcasing the fighters’ parallel journeys through emotive, high-impact storytelling.
A second version of the campaign also won a Wood Pencil for Colour Grading – Visual Effects.
BigTime’s Obsession campaign for Usyk vs. Fury 2 picked up two Wood Pencils – for Direction – Short Form and Use of Emerging Technology – Visual Effects. It combined surreal visuals, face-replacement tech, and a haunting Kylie Minogue soundtrack to depict the fighters’ mental fixation on one another.
The 4th Judge, an AI-powered boxing scoring system introduced during the same rematch, won a Wood Pencil in Experiential – Use of Emerging Tech.
Kings Slam – Call of the Kings, a VFX-heavy tennis trailer featuring Djokovic, Nadal, Alcaraz, and others, received a Wood Pencil in Animation – 3D Digital for its bold rendering of each player’s persona across dramatic, surreal environments.
Joining the ranks of UAE and KSA, Morocco also bagged a pencil with The Call of Water, a national awareness campaign by the Ministry of Equipment and Water, crafted by director Alexandre Lucain. The poetic, emotionally resonant film won a Wood Pencil in Cinematography – Short Form.
In total, the MENA region earned 4 Graphite and 13 Wood Pencils across categories including Film, Press & Outdoor, Animation, Typography, Graphic Design, Product Design, Cinematography and Experiential at the 2025 D&AD Awards.
