The young guns

Benjamin Disraeli said, ‘Almost everything that is great has been done by youth’ – a maxim that the team behind the Young Guns awards wholeheartedly back.

Set up in 2000 by three then youngsters in the advertising industry – Kristian Barnes, Jason Williams and Michael Kean, Young Guns was established to recognise talented under-30s and has evolved to include new award categories ever since.

To celebrate its tenth birthday this year, Young Guns will be creating a number of special rankings that celebrate the best creative ideas, agencies and incubator schemes of the last decade. Some will be a straightforward one to ten list, whereas others will be decided by a public vote over the next few months. The first to be released will be Young Gun of the Decade, where the best Young Gun Professional will be selected by visitor’s to the Young Guns website.

The annual Young Guns awards will be running as normal, with the advertising, digital and student awards now open for submissions. The design and PR award categories will open for submissions next week on 14 July. The young and gifted can submit recent projects to the Young Guns jury, which is made up an international panel of industry experts.

For those that wanting to create new work especially for the competition, the Young Guns 2010 creative brief will be available on the Young Guns website on 9 July. It could be a good chance for students to break into the industry or more established creatives to get a well deserved pat on the back and cash prize.