AANT Students Win a Graphite Pencil at the D&AD New Blood Awards 2026
AANT celebrates a new major international achievement. Cecilia Conti and Iacopo Cecconi, second-year students of the undergraduate programme in Art Direction, Advertising and Graphic Design, have won a Graphite Pencil at the D&AD New Blood Awards 2026 with their project “Poetry in Emotion”.
Developed in response to the Monotype x Penguin Random House brief, the project stood out in the Typography and Graphic Design disciplines, confirming the ability of AANT students to engage with international briefs and contemporary design languages.
The D&AD New Blood Awards are among the most important international awards dedicated to young talents in communication, design and advertising. Every year, the competition invites students, recent graduates and emerging creatives from around the world to respond to real briefs set by international brands and institutions, turning the awards into a key platform for observing the new directions of creativity.
“Poetry in Emotion” begins with a reflection on the way we read, encounter and experience words today. The project takes poetry beyond pages and screens, transforming it into an urban, visible and shared experience. Through typographic interventions in public space, the walls of the city become open pages: not simply decorative surfaces, but editorial spaces capable of activating attention, reading and participation.
The proposal interprets typography as an emotional and relational tool, able to connect language, urban space and community. This approach responds fully to the challenge launched by Monotype and Penguin Random House: to imagine new forms of reading and new ways of bringing words to life in the present.
The recognition awarded to Cecilia Conti and Iacopo Cecconi, with the tutoring of Assunta Squitieri and Chiara Catalani, confirms the value of the design research developed within AANT’s undergraduate programme, where art direction, graphic design, advertising and visual culture come together in an educational path focused on experimentation, project-based practice and dialogue with the international creative scene.
A result that rewards talent, vision and method, and once again brings AANT onto the international stage of visual communication.
Congratulations to Cecilia and Iacopo!