Design winners announced at Cannes Lions 2023

The Design Lions aim to honour visual craftsmanship, with 34 Lions being awarded this year from nearly 1,000 entries by the Cannes Lions jury. In the awards’ 70th anniversary, the big Design winner this year was Microsoft and McCann New York.

The project between Microsoft and McCann focused on Pulaar, a Fula language spoken primarily by people in Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia and Western Mali. Despite being spoken by over 4 million people, the language had no codified alphabet. To combat the possibility of Pulaar dying out, ADLaM was created – a handwritten alphabet designed by two brothers, Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry.

The project sought to ready the new alphabet for the digital age, meaning it was easy to learn, read and write with. Already available on over one billion devices which run Microsoft Office 365, ‘ADLaM – An Alphabet To Preserve A Culture’ scooped up a Grand Prix.

Elsewhere, brand design projects were recognised in the AO1 and A02 categories. Toronto-based creative agency Rethink worked with the Association of Registered Graphic Designers to create an identity for Canada’s biggest new awards show for branding and design. The RGB Branding Awards took inspiration from the building’s most overlooked symbol: the registered trademark, and was successful in winning a Bronze Lion.

Picking up a Silver Lion for a rebrand of Italian luxury fashion company Mocler, creative collective WeSayHi designed an identity which could go across product and brand. Coinciding with the brand’s 70th anniversary, the project focused on celebrating the next 70 years to come. This resulted in a 25% increase in revenue as well as rising from 13th to 4th Lyst’s ranking of the industry’s most popular brands.

Select winners include:

A01 (Creation of a New Brand Identity)

RGD Branding Awards, Rethink (Toronto, Canada), Bronze Lion
Neo Icarus (Abebe Bikila), AKQA Coala.Lab (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Bronze Lion
Aizome Wastecaretm Industrial Waste – Certified As Skincare. (Aizome), Serviceplan (Munich, Germany), Bronze Lion

A02 (Rebrand / Refresh of an Existing Brand)

Moncler 70. The Brand Of Extraordinary (Moncler), WeSayHi (Bridge Of Weir, United Kingdom), Silver Lion
Dyicta Digital Youth ICT Academy, FCB Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa), Silver Lion

A03 (Design-driven Effectiveness)

ADLaM - An Alphabet To Preserve A Culture (Microsoft), McCann (New York, USA), Grand Prix

The full list of Design winners at Cannes Lions 2023 may be found here.