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Young Ones is The One Club for Creativity's competition for students and recent graduates across creative disciplines. Young Ones is home to four unique competitions — Young Ones ADC, One Show, Portfolio, and TDC.

For countless creatives worldwide, winning a One Show Pencil or ADC Cube is a dream come true. But dreams have to start somewhere, and for that, we have the Young Ones Student Awards. This global creative competition challenges students in creative studies to put their best foot forward in hopes of winning one of the first honors of their burgeoning careers.

Any award that was not collected at the 2025 Young Ones Ceremony will be mailed to the address provided in your Young Ones account. Digital Merit Certificates will be available in June 2025.

how do we celebrate the winners?

On Monday, May 12, the Young Ones Student Awards Ceremony will take over Sony Hall in New York City. Meet other Young Ones entrants and winners, professors from around the country, clients from our brief competition, members of our jury, and more! This ceremony sold out in 2023 and 2024, so if you're planning to come to Creative Week, we encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. Young Ones is not the only thing happening at Creative Week (May 12-15)— check out creativeweek.com to learn more!

Young Ones Finalists will be announced in mid-April 2025.

Four Disciplines, One Competition

Young Ones
ADC

Young Ones ADC features the best of the professional categories from the Art Directors Club Annual Awards, celebrating craft and ingenuity across creative disciplines from illustration to art direction to filmmaking to architecture.

Young Ones
One Show

Young Ones One Show is our brief competition, where young creatives show their ability to conceptualize a campaign and answer real briefs from a variety of clients.

Young Ones
Portfolio

Young Ones Portfolio gives young creatives the opportunity to be judged by their entire body of work.

Students submit six of their best projects in one of our disciplines.

Young Ones
TDC

Young Ones TDC is our student-specific typography and lettering show under the Type Directors Club Annual Competitions, celebrating creative and novel use of lettering, type design, and typography.

What's New In 2025?

Returning from its multi-year hiatus, the Young Ones Client Pitch Competition is back and better than ever. Entrants into the Young Ones One Show Brief Competition can opt to add an additional (free) entry into the Client Pitch competition. You can learn more here.

For 2025, Individual Students & School Groups/Classes can apply for a Young Ones Next Up entry fee subsidy. These applications are due no later than December 13 and are limited in quantity.

2025 Young Ones Brief Sponsors

Heinz wants to be synonymous with breakfast and Vaseline wants to be the life-hack hero of the next generation. Subway wants to generate buzz for their Footlong cookie and Philadelphia knows they have a prestige product, but how can they convince business owners? Duolingo wants to remind learners to come back to the app. And, Perdue knows that their prepared products can be a hit with families and teens!

Real clients have put forward real business opportunities and they are looking for your creative insights. Download a Young Ones One Show Brief and get started today!