Hamm will have his hands full with the D&AD presidency

We think Garrick Hamm’s got a bit of a job on his hands with D&AD (Voxpop DW 25 September). Talk to designers and there’s an opinion that D&AD has gone too ‘establishment’, too crusty and, as one designer here put it, ‘it says it’s a charity, but behaves like a golf club’. Too corporate for its own good, maybe, and some designers are simply too cool to enter.

D&AD has always been about ‘the idea’, but with the internationalisation of the judges you lose the idiosyncratic, humorous ideas that used to make its annual a joy.

And then there’s the entry fee. Lots of one-man-bands are designing great things, but can’t afford to enter, leaving the design section looking thin. Meanwhile, global ad agencies carpet-bomb every category because they have the cash. Something’s not right there.

And then there’s the design of the annual. It’s boring. What happened to the pencil cases, the sucker cover or the shoe polish duster-jacket? Hang on – designers came up with those covers, so maybe we’ve only got ourselves to blame?

Dave Palmer, Creative director, Love Creative, by e-mail