By Tarun Chandy

The D&AD excuse

It’s crunch week here at the studio. Caffeine levels getting higher. Expectations are getting lower. It was just three days ago when I remember telling Max that I thought this week wouldn’t be as bad as everyone promised it would be. I figured we had our plans in order and it was just going to be like any other PB. I was young and naive back then. And it was a simpler time.

I think this feeling is what I imagine it would be like to be on the run from the cops after assassinating someone. It’s like you’ve never felt so alive, but you also might be gunned down at any second. I have written a lot at various points in my life. But I’ve never spent nine hours, staring at the same 200 words, forcing myself to make it better and getting absolutely nowhere. It’s a truly humbling experience.

However, I have found an interesting way to alleviate the trauma that this week seems to cause, and I thought I should share it with everyone. I don’t know if I’m the only one who’s doing this so I’m not going to take credit for its invention yet. But I do endorse it highly. For the sake of this article, let’s call it the D&AD excuse.

Here goes. You know how when you’re on holiday and you know you can’t afford that nice bottle of booze but you say, fuck it I’m on holiday. Or when you’re diagnosed with terminal cancer, and you wouldn’t normally take a vacation around the world with a stranger but you say, fuck it I have terminal cancer. Well, the D&AD excuse was designed in that same spirit. It works like this. Anytime you need anything that can make this week just a little bit easier, you go out there and get it. It might be for the purpose of saving time, putting you in the right frame of mind or just stress relief in general. But to not give your body what its craving this week would be to not put your best foot forward for D&AD. And you’d regret it for the rest of your life.

Just to be clear, this excuse does not extend to alcohol or drug use. Mostly just to fast food, copious amounts of sugar and avoiding the gym at all cost. But the most important part about the D&AD excuse isn’t the stuff it gets you. It’s the feeling you get when you say, fuck it it’s D&AD. The recognition that you’re not that miserable after all, gives you strength. It makes you believe you can do this. You can go the extra mile. You can keep believing you’ll win that Black Pencil, no matter how compelling all the evidence to the contrary may be.

On a more serious note, this week pushes us all to our limits. I was expecting the worst and I was still surprised. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like his world is in turmoil right now. At least, I really hope I’m not. So, I genuinely hope that this SCAB gives someone the push they need to just say, fuck it, it’s D&AD.

The copy scores 82.5 in the Flesch Reading Ease test