Founded in 1920, the ADC Annual Awards is the world's longest continuously running awards program to recognise global excellence in craft and innovation in all forms of advertising and design, says The One Club.

Entries can currently be submitted, with fees increasing after each deadline period. The regular deadline is 23 January 2026, with extended deadline of 6 February 2026, and final deadline 20 February 2026. The 2025 global ADC Annual Awards launches with a call for entries campaign created by Dentsu Tokyo, adds the organisation.

Titled 'Create a Beautiful Future', the campaign highlights The One Club's status as a global nonprofit organisation, which takes revenue generated from its awards shows and puts it back into the industry to fund a range of professional development, education and diversity programs, says the organisation.

The centerpiece visual of a magnificent peacock represents the notion of courtship and putting on a show in order to attract attention. By displaying their beautiful talents and work in the form of entries into the ADC 105th Annual Awards, entrants can help "create a beautiful future" for the industry by funding year-round global programming from The One Club, adds the organisation.

The Dentsu creative team saw the famed ADC Cube not as a symbol of individual glory, but as a gathering of love for design at ADC.  With that in mind, they built the peacock entirely from Cubes, expressing how 105 years of accumulated love for design creates new chemistry and leads to a more beautiful future, says the organisation.

The peacock stands for pride, authority, beauty and flight. Its magnificent feathers are a symbol of courtship, just as a call-for-entries can be seen as an act of courtship for creators. Its feathers are structural color, shifting with the angle of light, reflecting how design mirrors the changes of society and embraces diverse perspectives, adds the organisation.

"ADC President Brian Collins recently said of the organisation, 'We are not preserving a tradition. The history of The Art Directors Club is not a weight — it's an engine for the future'. Those words deeply resonated with us," says Yoshihiro Yagi, ECD, Dentsu Tokyo.

"With that same spirit, we created this visual where entries of creators from around the world transcend language and culture," he explains. "As they layer onto the ADC's long and deep 105-year history, they spark new chemical reactions — and begin to shape a beautiful new landscape for the industries of the future. That storyline came to us quite naturally."

Yagi says the team chose the famed ADC Cube as the campaign's central motif, but internationally rendered through a two-dimensional lens, connecting and composing it as graphic design. The layering of these graphic elements represents the chemical reactions the creative team imagined and from that interplay, the image of a peacock — a universal symbol of courtship — begins to emerge, says the organisation.

"Personally, the moment that I saw this not just as 3D or 2D, but as a whole new dimension — "Infinity D" — I felt a real spark of excitement," adds Yagi. "It's something we can hand to the next generation of creative professionals, in harmony with the spirit of the ADC. In that context, I feel even the meaning of the phrase 'call for entries' begins to shift. It becomes something deeper."

Dentsu Tokyo is well-qualified to develop the campaign, having landed as the ADC number one ranked APAC agency in 2021, 2023 and 2024, and number two in 2022 and 2025, adds the organisation.

New for ADC 105th Annual Awards

The 2025 awards will include the presentation of the Paul Manship Medal, now reimagined as an enterable category recognising a single designer who best acts as a catalyst for change, demonstrates foresight and innovation, embodies a lasting legacy, and made the most significant contribution in the past year, says the organisation.

Other noteworthy changes for 2026 include the separation of Health and Wellness and Pharma into two distinct disciplines, and addition of four new categories for Film and Moving Image, Motion and Graphic Design, Experiential and Interactive, and Digital and Emerging Media within the Artificial Intelligence discipline, adds the organisation.

Tiered Pricing

A special tiered pricing structure makes it easier for smaller agencies, studios and freelancers to participate. Larger agencies and brands pay the standard entry fee; smaller shops get a discount on entries (amount varies by discipline), while freelancers and one-person shops are eligible for an even greater reduction in their entry fee, says the organisation.

ADC 105th Annual Awards Jury Presidents will be announced in October and the full jury announced in January, with judging taking place in March 2026. Finalists — all entries winning Gold, Silver, Bronze or Merit — will be announced early April, with winners unveiled at the ADC 105th Annual Awards ceremony during The One Club's Creative Week 2026 in New York in May.

For more information, visit www.oneclub.org. You can also follow The One Club on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, or on TikTok.

*Image courtesy of the contributor