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The new chief executive of British Design & Art Direction, BDDH founder Michael Hockney, is about to announce the British Design & Art Direction’s agenda for his term of office. What would you put at the top of his list and why?

‘D&AD needs to focus on education. Its courses are good, but often little more than introductory. Designers and art directors could do with expanding their skills with longer and more thorough courses and maybe even topping them off with master classes.’

Quentin Newark, Creative director, Atelier Works

‘The new chief executive should have the following words burned on to his desk: “I must ensure to pack out the annuals of my reign with the world’s best creative ideas and not just pretty pictures”.’

Spencer Buck, Creative director, Taxi Studio

‘My top agenda item for Michael Hockney is a new building. D&AD needs a real home and some grown-up facilities. A building that will enable more of what we know and enjoy, but allowing the programme to work for us in a more joined-up way.’

Catherine McDermott, Curating contemporary design course leader, Kingston University

‘D&AD has a long history of celebrating and enabling creative talent and it should continue to do so with a mixture of new programming and the best of the old. I would also like to see the advertising industry be less insular and D&AD is well placed to help do that by taking a collaborative approach to what it does.’

Ben Evans, Director, London Design Festival

‘The D&AD Awards are a great showcase for established design consultancies. But D&AD needs to encourage more entries from the likes of illustrators, photographers and the younger generation of designers. I would therefore suggest that entry fees for sole practitioners be reduced by 50 per cent.’

Angus Hyland, Partner, Pentagram

‘The slippery territory between what we used to know as advertising and design is now mutating at an unprecedented rate. A cold, hard look at whether the traditional category definitions are still meaningful in the 21st century is well overdue. As champion of creative standards, D&AD is in a unique position to do so.’

Richard Seymour, Partner, Seymour Powell

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