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DEPT® is the Webby Awards Agency of the Year 2024

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke
VP of Marketing, EMEA
Date
25 April 2024

For the third year running, DEPT® is celebrating being named Network of the Year and Agency of the Year at The Webby Awards.

It’s been another impressive year of wins for DEPT® with 21 wins, 10 nominations, and 18 honorees for our work with brands including Gucci, Bang & Olufsen, Cowboy, and Virgin Galactic.

Setting new standards for the next era

The Webby Awards is the internet’s most respected symbol of success, attracting over 13,000 entries from 70 countries worldwide. With an esteemed jury and over two million votes cast by more than 600,000 people in the Webby People’s Voice, work by DEPT®, BASIC/DEPT®, HELLO MONDAY/DEPT® and DOGSTUDIO/DEPT® has been selected as the best in its category, reinforcing our position as a leading agency that’s setting the standard for tech and marketing.

“Winning Agency and Network of the Year for the third time straight was something I never even dreamed of when we started DEPT®,” says Dimi Albers, CEO of DEPT®. “I really want to give a big shoutout to our awesome clients, our hard working teams, the jury, and everyone who voted. Your support means everything to us. We’re pumped to keep pioneering tech and marketing, especially with our AI and impactful projects. Thanks so much, everyone!”

The winners

Bang & Olufsen: See yourself in sound
Hello Monday/DEPT®
Webby Winner & People’s Voice: Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics 
People’s Voice: Best User Experience 

For high-end consumer electronics brand, Bang & Olufsen, Hello Monday/DEPT®  created a web app that gives every user a uniquely sensory experience. ‘See Yourself in Sound’ is designed to generate a vibrant, one-of-a-kind avatar for every visitor, crafted in real-time by analyzing your Spotify sound profile and aligning your overall mood and energy levels to all the aspects of a 3D character. After your 3D character is generated, it can be shared with the world via link or a video that’s created just for you.

Cowboy: Elevating a luxury ebike website to match its brand’s elegance
BASIC/DEPT®
Webby Winner: Best Visual Design – Function

The elevated digital brand experience we created for ebike pioneers, Cowboy,  showcases its new ebikes as works of art designed to bring forth true freedom of movement. We crafted a gallery-like site that shows off the beauty of the bike and the intelligence of its design and function, ultimately inspiring site visitors to believe anywhere was possible with Cowboy.


Daniel’s Music Foundation: Raising the bar for accessible design
BASIC/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Accessible Technology 

Daniel’s Music Foundation is a nonprofit empowering people with disabilities through music and Disability Awareness programs that has been changing lives in NYC for almost 20 years.

They needed a website that could keep up, so they came to us for a new one that would build trust, share joy, showcase impact, and also be accessible to people of all abilities. We raised the bar of excellence in accessible design; rather than modifying an experience for a few, it’s about finding ways to translate it for everyone to equally join the fun.

GiveAHand
HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Responsible AI

Following on from Hello Monday/DEPT®’s multi-award winning approach to teaching the American sign language alphabet, Fingerspelling, we launched GiveAHand.ai – the world’s largest open-source image library of hands fully tagged with data to help build better hand models.

One hundred percent crowdsourced, the data collected in the platform will generate a diverse dataset of hands, building an image library that will help unlock sign language. Researchers can then download and use these fully tagged images to improve their machine learning models, truly allowing the detection and translation of the full spectrum of Sign Language.

Google Store: Bringing the best of Google to people worldwide
BASIC/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Best Practices

Our collaboration with the Google Hardware team has helped turn store.google.com into a world-class brand and e-commerce destination.We’ve contributed end-to-end services, ranging from eCommerce strategy and experience design to art direction, content creation, and campaign development.


Google Jigsaw
HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®
Webby Winner: Corporate Social Responsibility

Jigsaw is a unit within Google that researches threats to open societies, and builds technology, products and tangible methods that inspire scalable solutions. Info Interventions is a collection of four of these experiments specifically created to help people build information resilience at critical moments in their online journey.

Together, our campaign reached 3.5M users of our target audience, while helping to drive efficient awareness and traffic to this important initiative.


Gucci – Ancora Fashion Show 2024
BASIC/DEPT®
Webby Winner: Best Mobile User Interface
People’s Voice: Best Mobile Visual Design – Function

In preparation for Milan Fashion Week, The House of Gucci trusted us to collaborate on bringing the digital world of Gucci Ancora to life.  We created a digital platform that embodied Gucci Ancora’s premium visual language, while pushing innovation for delivering live content across 15 different languages. Our immersive experience meant that as soon as looks walked down the runway, they were quickly and seamlessly translated to the fullscreen experience of the site, meaning that guests all over the world could step into the show in real time.


Gucci
BASIC/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Best Visual Design – Function

We created a stunning branded commerce website for Gucci that encapsulates the luxury of this iconic brand.


Philips: One of a kind
DEPT®
People’s Voice: Best Community Engagement

The campaign we launched for the Philips OneBlade revolutionized customer engagement. Harnessing real, passionate user reviews, we transformed them into humorous, relatable films that playfully caricatured each review. This approach created a surreal yet human connection, sparking a cycle of new reviews and TikTok recreations. It proved to be a successful exercise in community engagement and creative storytelling.

Reddit: r/Place
DEPT®
People’s Voice: Arts, Culture & Lifestyle

We worked with Reddit to revive its 2017 experiment, r/Place, which saw users working together to create a digital art piece. With custom videos, time lapses, global leaderboards, and collaborations with Twitch streamers, the r/Place social content drove 218M organic impressions/views and during the week following r/Place), our social channels gained +270K followers and 56k mentions.


Jeff Koons Moonphase: Tailoring a celestial site for a lunar gallery
BASIC/DEPT®
People’s Voice: NetArt 
People’s Voice: Best User Interface

We worked with Pace Gallery’s Web3 innovation hub, Pace Verso, to design and build a digital experience for iconic American artist Jeff Koons’ first-ever foray into the NFT space. Inspired by the moon, Koons created “Moon Phases” –  a collection of sculptures and NFTs celebrating human achievement both past and present.

The project invites viewers to reflect on their place in space, with 125 sculptures inspired by influential historical figures sent—literally— to the moon via a partnership with SpaceX, while 125 corresponding replicas are available for purchase here on planet earth, each with their own NFT counterpart for art collectors to enjoy. We brought this out-of-this-world exhibit into the homes of people around the world, and easily communicated its highly complex concepts in ways that made it relatable to every visitor.

Sesame Workshop: Growing as we grieve
HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Health & Wellness

The Growing as we Grieve platform is a beautiful interactive experience for parents and caregivers to reflect on their own experience of grief and hear what has helped other families cope, thrive, and find joy.


Trainline: A rallying cry to use railways
DEPT®
People’s Voice: Sustainability & Environment

Trainline is Europe’s leading train and coach app. With a purpose for helping people make more environmentally friendly travel choices, the brand enlisted DEPT® to spread the word of its ‘I came by train’ campaign across paid social channels, inspiring people to help fight climate change and lower their carbon footprint by opting to travel by trains over cars and planes.


Undo the Firewall
HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Responsible Innovation

Undo the Firewall is a grassroots initiative between The True Story and Hello Monday/DEPT® designed to counter internet censorship. By leveraging tech for good, we’ve created a straightforward solution to empower website owners globally to actively contribute to the fight against censorship and misinformation by hosting uncensored news stories to deliver the real stories.

DEPT® – Prepare to Pioneer
DOGSTUDIO/DEPT®
People’s Voice: Best Art Direction

‘Prepare to Pioneer’ is an AI-fueled wayfinder experience created by DOGSTUDIO/DEPT®, which encourages users to discover their Pioneering profile. Through a take on the well-known mechanics of fortune-telling, it takes users on a journey that offers a very unique twist on the traditional process of content curation, combining it with an innovative storytelling experience. Try it for yourself


Virgin Galactic: Bringing users closer to space
DOGSTUDIO/DEPT®
Webby Winner & People’s Voice: Travel & Lifestyle

On a mission to accelerate the future of transportation and define the next generation of space travel, we worked with Virgin Galactic to launch its new commercial spaceflight website to connect all those who are curious about space travel. We created an immersive website experience to communicate the excitement of space travel that is truly out of this world…

In addition to the award wins, projects for the following clients were awarded as Nominees or Honorees: Design Within Reach; Doordash; eBay; GANNI; Just Eat; KFC; Louis Poulsen; Meebits; Patagonia; ReflexAI; Tempoo; Tony Blair Institute; Webex; Whoop.

Congratulations to our talented teams and pioneering clients for this incredible achievement, and thank you for voting!

Questions?

VP of Marketing, EMEA

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke

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DEPT®’s AI and Impact work among its 29 Webby Award Nominations

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
4 April 2024

After winning Network and Agency of the Year at last year’s Webby Awards, DEPT® is back with 29 nominations for our work with brands including Google, Gucci, Bang & Olufsen, Philips, and Virgin Galactic. In addition, 18 projects were named as honourees.

29 Nominations

Competing against 13,000 entries from more than 70 countries worldwide, our nominated projects are eligible to win two awards: a Webby Award as chosen by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADA) jury in each category, and a Webby People’s Voice chosen by the online public. 

Nominations for DEPT®, BASIC/DEPT®, Hello Monday/DEPT®, and Dogstudio/DEPT® span Advertising, Media & PR, AI, Metaverse & Virtual and Websites and Mobile Sites.

Shortlisted projects include two nominations for Responsible AI awards for our work with GiveAHand and ReflexAI, and multiple awards for impact projects including Trainline’s ‘I came by train’ campaign that inspires people to help fight climate change, Undo The Firewall –  a project to help combat misinformation and censorship, and Google Jigsaw which researches threats to open societies, and builds technology, products and tangible methods that inspire scalable solutions.

Huge congratulations to all of our nominated clients: American Society for Deaf Children; Bang & Olufsen; Cowboy; Daniel’s Music Foundation; GiveAHand; Google; Gucci; Jeff Koons; Philips; Reddit; ReflexAI; Sesame Workshop; Tony Blair Institute; Trainline; Undo the Firewall; Virgin Galactic; Whoop. 

Vote for us

Voting polls are now open to the public until Thursday 18 April 2024, with winners set to be announced later in the month. 

Please cast your votes for your favourite nominees via the links below:

Bang & Olufsen
Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics
Best User Experience

Daniel’s Music Foundation
Accessible Technology

Jeff Koons Moonphases
NetArt 
Best User Interface

Hometeam by ReflexAI
Responsible AI

Virgin Galactic
Travel & Lifestyle

DEPT® – Prepare to Pioneer
Best Art Direction


In addition to the 29 nominations, 18 projects for the following clients were awarded Honourees: Design Within Reach; Doordash; eBay; GANNI; Google; Gucci; Jeff Koons; Just Eat Takeaway; KFC; Louis Poulsen; Meebits; Patagonia; ReflexAI; Tempoo; Webex.

Congratulations to our talented teams and pioneering clients for this incredible achievement, and thank you for voting!

Questions?

Global SVP of Marketing

Marjan Straathof

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DEPT® Sets Record as Network and Agency of the Year at the 2023 Webby Awards

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
25 April 2023

For the second year running, DEPT® is celebrating being named Network of the Year at The Webby Awards, with BASIC/DEPT® also winning Agency of the Year. The Webby Awards is the internet’s most respected symbol of success, attracting over 14,000 entries from 70 countries worldwide every year. It’s been a stellar year of wins for DEPT®, with 6 Webby Awards, 27 People’s Voice Awards, 32 nominations and 20 honorees, for our work with brands including Patagonia, Google, Cowboy, H&M, and KFC.

Webby Winners

DEPT®’s work for HYPEWEAR by ABOUT YOU, the first online shop for digital NFT fashion, won both the Webby Award and People’s Voice award for App Features: Best Use of Web3 Technology.

BASIC/DEPT® won both the Webby Award and People’s Voice awards for Google Store in the Websites and Mobile Sites, Best Mobile User Experience category, Google ChromeOS in Websites and Mobile Sites, Best Mobile Visual Design – Function, Patagonia in Websites and Mobile Sites, Best Practices, and The Patagonia Footprints Chronicles site in Websites and Mobile Sites: Corporate Social Responsibility.

The immersive website experience for Virgin Galactic by HELLO MONDAY/DEPT® that communicates the excitement of space travel, won both the Webby Award and People’s Voice awards in General Websites and Mobile Sites – Travel & Lifestyle.


We’re super thankful to our awesome clients and our talented teams whose pioneering work sets the standard in technology and marketing,” said Dimi Albers, CEO of DEPT®. “To be named global network of the year for the second year running and for our BASIC/DEPT® team to win agency of the year is an awesome achievement; we’re humbled and grateful to everyone who voted for us. In our five word speech last year we said ‘we’re just getting started,’ I guess these wins show that we really meant that. :)”

People’s Voice Winners

The public voting declared these following projects by DEPT®, BASIC/DEPT®, HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®, DOGSTUDIO/DEPT® and STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® the winners of People Voice awards:

  • The unique Web3 experience we created for fashion brand H&Mbeyond, which turned their showroom into an immersive, virtual experience, won for Metaverse, Immersive & Virtual – General Virtual Experiences: Arts, Fashion, Retail & Culture.
  • BASIC/DEPT®’s website created for Cowboy, the connected electric bike, won four awards for Best Visual Design: Function, Best User Interface, Best Mobile Visual Design: Aesthetic, and Best Mobile User Interface.
  • The website for the first NFT project by artist Jeff Koons won Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Best Homepage.
  • The project for Google ChromeOS won General Websites and Mobile Sites: Web Services & Applications, and the work for Google Store won Best User Experience: Websites and Mobile Sites
  • Crafted, the community initiative led by BASIC/DEPT® that brings together local creators and tastemakers, won General Websites and Mobile Sites: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
  • JAMS – BASIC/DEPT®’s social experiment that connects people with curated playlists won Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Technical Achievement.
  • The Patagonia Footprints Chronicles site won General Websites and Mobile Sites: Sustainability & Environment.
  • The app for KFC is won General Apps: Food & Drink.
  • Webex won Websites and Mobile Sites: Best Navigation/Structure.
  • For HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®, Fingerspelling with Machine Learning won three awards  in the Games category for Family, Kids & Education, and Social Impact, and in the Responsible Technology category for Accessible Technology.
  • The site built to build anticipation for Digital Insight Games’ launch of Cloud Castles won two awards for Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Technical Achievement, and General Metaverse Experiences: Games.
  • Demo Festival the world’s largest festival of motion design –  organised by STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® won General Websites and Mobile Sites: Events.
  • DEPT®’s very own Meta Festival – the first 24hr event in the Metaverse – won Metaverse & Immersive Features: Best Community Engagement, and Metaverse, Immersive & Virtual – Virtual Video Features: Best Festival or Conference.

In addition to the award wins, 20 projects for the following clients were shortlisted or awarded as Honorees: Inter Milan; Lululemon Studio; Design Within Reach; Google Store; Jeff Koons; KFC; VIZIO; eBay; Adobe; HAPE; Meebits; Panasonic; Sprite; DIG: Cloud Castles.

Congratulations to our talented teams, and a huge thank you to our awesome clients who entrust us to pioneer their marketing and technology.

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DEPT® honoured with 32 Webby Award nominations for pioneering digital work

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
5 April 2023

One year after DEPT® celebrated being named Agency Network of the Year at the Webby Awards, we’re back with a record 32 nominations for our work with brands including Inter Milan, Patagonia, Webex, KFC, Cowboy, and H&M. In addition, 20 projects were named as honorees.

The unique Web3 experience we created for fashion brand H&Mbeyond which turned their showroom into an immersive, virtual experience, is up for Metaverse, Immersive & Virtual – General Virtual Experiences: Arts, Fashion, Retail & Culture.

The fresh strategy, design and development of Inter Milan’s new app and website is nominated for Websites and Mobile Sites – General Websites and Mobile Sites: Sports. HYPEWEAR by ABOUT YOU, the first online shop for digital NFT fashion, is nominated for App Features: Best Use of Web3 Technology.

BASIC/DEPT® have achieved a record number of nominations this year. The website created for Cowboy, the connected electric bike, is nominated for four awards for Best Visual Design: Function, Best User Interface, Best Mobile Visual Design: Aesthetic, and Best Mobile User Interface.

The website for the first NFT project by artist Jeff Koons is up for Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Best Homepage. 

The project for Google ChromeOS is nominated for General Websites and Mobile Sites: Web Services & Applications, and Best Mobile Visual Design: Function.

Crafted, the community initiative led by BASIC/DEPT® that brings together local creators and tastemakers, is nominated twice for General Websites and Mobile Sites: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Features & Design: Best Practices.

JAMS – BASIC/DEPT®’s social experiment that connects people with curated playlists – is nominated for Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Technical Achievement.

The work for Google Store is nominated for Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Best User Experience, and Best Mobile User Experience.

For Patagonia’s website, BASIC/DEPT® is nominated for General Websites and Mobile Sites: Fashion & Beauty, and Features & Design: Best Practices. The Patagonia Footprints Chronicles site is nominated for General Websites and Mobile Sites: Sustainability & Environment, and Corporate Social Responsibility.

The app for KFC is nominated for General Apps: Food & Drink. The site for Webex is nominated in the Websites and Mobile Sites category for Corporate Communications, and Best Navigation/Structure. 

For HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®, Fingerspelling with Machine Learning is nominated three times in the Games category for Family, Kids & Education, Social Impact, and Technical Achievement, and in the Responsible Technology category for Accessible Technology.

The immersive website experience for Virgin Galactic that communicates the excitement of space travel, is nominated in General Websites and Mobile Sites – Travel & Lifestyle.

The experience built together with DOGSTUDIO/DEPT® to build anticipation for Digital Insight Games’ launch of Cloud Castles is nominated for Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Technical Achievement, and General Metaverse Experiences: Games.

Demo Festival – the world’s largest festival of motion design –  organised by STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® is nominated for General Websites and Mobile Sites: Events.

Last but definitely not least, DEPT®’s very own Meta Festival – the first 24hr event in the Metaverse – which attracted 12,000 registrations from 109 countries, is nominated for Metaverse & Immersive Features: Best Community Engagement, and Metaverse, Immersive & Virtual – Virtual Video Features: Best Festival or Conference.

Vote for us

Voting polls are now open to the public until Thursday 20th April 2023, with winners set to be announced later in the month. 

Please cast your votes for your favourite nominees via the links below:

H&Mbeyond
Metaverse, Immersive & Virtual: Arts, Fashion, Retail & Culture

Inter Milan
General Websites and Mobile Sites: Sports

HYPEWEAR by ABOUT YOU
App Features: Best Use of Web3 Technology

Cowboy
Best Visual Design: Function
Best User Interface
Best Mobile Visual Design: Aesthetic
Best Mobile User Interface

Jeff Koons
Features & Design: Best Homepage

Google ChromeOS
Web Services & Applications
Best Mobile Visual Design: Function

Crafted
General Websites and Mobile Sites: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Features & Design: Best Practices

JAMS
Features & Design: Technical Achievement

Google Store
Best User Experience
Best Mobile User Experience

Patagonia
General Websites and Mobile Sites: Fashion & Beauty
Features & Design: Best Practices

Patagonia Footprints Chronicles
General Websites and Mobile Sites: Sustainability & Environment
Corporate Social Responsibility

KFC
General Apps: Food & Drink
 
Webex
Corporate Communications
Best Navigation/Structure
 
Fingerspelling with Machine Learning
Family, Kids & Education
Social Impact
Technical Achievement
Accessible Technology

Virgin Galactic
General Websites and Mobile Sites: Travel & Lifestyle

Cloud Castles
Websites and Mobile Sites – Features & Design: Technical Achievement
General Metaverse Experiences: Games

Demo Festival
General Websites and Mobile Sites: Events

Meta Festival 
Metaverse & Immersive Features: Best Community Engagement
Virtual Video Features: Best Festival or Conference

In addition to the 32 nominations, 20 projects for the following clients were awarded Honorees: Lululemon Studio, Design Within Reach, Google Store, Jeff Koons, KFC , VIZIO, eBay, Adobe, HAPE, Meebits, Panasonic, Sprite, DIG: Cloud Castles.

Kudos to our talented teams and awesome clients for this incredible achievement, and thank you for voting!

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Global SVP of Marketing

Marjan Straathof

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DEPT® awarded Global Network of the Year at the Webby Awards

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
26 April 2022

DEPT®, BASIC/DEPT®, and Hello Monday are today celebrating a record year of Webby wins after scooping up 16 awards, 23 nominations and 24 honorees, and also being crowned Network of the Year 2022.

With over 14,000 projects from 70 countries and nearly two million votes, the 26th Annual Webby Awards was one of the biggest in history. The Network of the Year is awarded to the agency with the most Webby and People’s Voice wins, Nominations and Honorees. 

“Wow, global agency network of the year,” said Dimi Albers, CEO of DEPT®. “Being recognised as the top network at the Webbys says a lot about how far we have come in the last six years. We’re humbled to be recognised, and super thankful for all our clients who enable us to do what we do best. We’re very much looking forward to continuing pioneering technology and marketing to help brands stay ahead.”

For DEPT®, the magical, branded experience that digitally brings de Bijenkorf’s wonderful shopping experience to life won the People’s Voice award in the Best Mobile Visual Design – Aesthetic category.

The Eurovision Village, the unique, 3D world we created for the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest, scooped the People’s Voice awards in the General Social – Events category and the Virtual & Remote – Music category.

The Fingerspelling with Machine Learning website created by Hello Monday, which joined DEPT® last month, was a stand-out performer, securing two Webby wins in the Diversity & Inclusion and Best User Interface categories, and People’s Voice awards for Technical Achievement, Diversity & Inclusion, and Best User Interface.

In addition, Hello Monday won the People’s Voice awards for the Star Atlas website in the Entertainment category, and in the Science category with The Emotional Sound Experience for Hume AI.

The innovative experience DEPT® created for Amazon Prime for the launch of Without Remorse, which saw Twitch streamers taking part in a live, real life gaming experience, won the People’s Voice award for Best Narrative Experience in the Virtual Remote – Immersive category.

BASIC/DEPT® had another hugely successful year with five awards, winning the People’s Voice award for Patagonia in the Best Mobile Experience category, and the Patagonia Footprints Chronicles received the People’s Voice for Corporate Social Responsibility.  In addition, the Silver Oak site won the People’s Voice award for Best Business Blog/Website, Crafted won in the Websites & Mobile Sites – Events category, and the Google Store won in the Shopping Websites and Mobile Sites category.

“DEPT® has set the standard for innovation and creativity on the Internet,” said Claire Graves, Executive Director of The Webby Awards. “This award is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”

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DEPT® wins two Webby Awards with Bugaboo and DEMO festival

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
1 April 2021

Today the winners of the Webby Awards were announced. A judging body existing of more than two thousand industry experts and tech innovators selected their favourites for the renowned award of excellence on the internet. DEPT® was nominated twice, received three honorees and eventually won two awards with Bugaboo and DEMO Festival.

Together with Bugaboo, DEPT® won a Webby in the category ‘Shopping’. The parties worked on the implementation of a brand new CMS, the creation of a new design with Page Designer and a platform migration to Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Within four months, they launched the new Bugaboo.com website.

The Design in Motion (DEMO) Festival received an award in the category ‘Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics’. This initiative by Studio Dumbar (part of Dept) took place last fall. It displayed the best motion design work from all over the world across eighty digital screens at Amsterdam Central Station. In total, the festival gathered over 2,700 design submissions.

“Winning two Webby Awards is an enormous compliment for our organisation and the hard work every Depster contributes on a daily basis”, says Dimi Albers, CEO at DEPT®. “To receive this recognition in the field of creativity, technology and data provides us with more energy to keep building and accelerating our clients’ digital businesses.”

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DEPT® wins 14 Anthem Awards for purpose-driven work

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
9 February 2024

After celebrating Agency and Network of the Year at the 2023 Webby Awards, DEPT® is honoured to share our 14 winning projects at the Anthem Awards – the global award show recognising purpose and mission-driven work.

Sparking global change

Presented by The Webby Awards, the Anthem Awards recognise the purpose-driven work of individuals, businesses, and organisations across the world. By amplifying the voices that spark global change, the awards are defining a new benchmark for impactful work that inspires others to take action in their own communities.

Pooja Dingidal, Global Head of Impact at DEPT®, shares: “We are so incredibly proud of our team for continuing to invest their time, skills and creativity into projects that make a positive difference in the world. Our Anthem wins this year truly speak to how digital solutions can have a deep, leveraged and reaching impact across humanity– from public health, to learning and accessibility, to social connection and community.”

Our winning work

Roche: XProject
Hello Monday/DEPT®
1 x Gold, 1 x Silver

Roche and HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®’s XProject won a gold award in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category, and a silver award in the Health category. Designed to raise awareness about the existing knowledge gaps in health and the consequences for women, XProject aims to elevate the global agenda around Women’s Health inequalities.

With a dedicated campaign site, a powerful film, social media campaign, and user stories, XProject has achieved 833 million impressions on social media, 6.6 million visits to the XProject site, prompted more than 630 women to share their stories, and sparked over 200 inquiries with a growing community of people dedicated to pursuing positive change for women’s healthcare.

Easy Genomics

AWS & WPHL: Easy Genomics
DEPT®
3 x Silver

Easy Genomics, the revolutionary project that democratises genomic sequencing, won three silver awards in the Responsible Technology, Innovation, and Health categories.

DEPT® teamed up with Amazon Web Services and the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene to create an open-source digital solution to help gain a better understanding of diseases and disease prevention. Easy Genomics is a game-changing solution that’s improving the future of public health bioinformatics, and will be used by The Association of Public Health Laboratories in all public health labs in the USA.

GiveAHand.ai

American Society for Deaf Children: GiveAHand.ai
Hello Monday/DEPT®
2 x Silver

Following on from Hello Monday/DEPT®’s multi-award winning approach to teaching the American sign language alphabet, Fingerspelling, they launched GiveAHand.ai – the world’s largest open-source image library of hands fully tagged with data to help build better hand models.

One hundred percent crowdsourced, the data collected in the platform will generate a diverse dataset of hands, building an image library that will help unlock sign language. Researchers can then download and use these fully tagged images to improve their machine learning models, truly allowing the detection and translation of the full spectrum of Sign Language.

GiveAHand.ai won two silver awards in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – Best Use of AI, and Responsible Technology categories.

Daniel’s Music Foundation

Daniel’s Music Foundation
BASIC/DEPT®
1 x Silver

Daniel’s Music Foundation, a nonprofit empowering people with disabilities through music and Disability Awareness programmes, has been changing lives in NYC for almost 20 years.

They needed a website that could keep up, so they came to us for a new one that would build trust, share joy, showcase impact, and also be accessible to people of all abilities. We raised the bar of excellence in accessible design; rather than modifying an experience for a few, it’s about finding ways to translate it for everyone to equally join the fun.

Since launch three months ago, the foundation saw a record high number in inquiries as interest grew exponentially from more people who wanted to work with and for them as instructors. This project won a silver award in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category.

Lean In Girls

Lean In Girls
Hello Monday/DEPT®
1 x Silver

A silver award in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category was given to the brand identity and digital experience we created for Lean In Girls, an initiative dedicated to breaking stereotypes for girls, and giving them tools and resources to unlock their full potential as leaders.

Dossy

Dossy: A simple video app for meaningful connections
DEPT®
1 x Silver

The Dossy app, which is designed to bridge the gap and reduce social isolation among elderly individuals, was recognised in the Responsible Technology category (silver) and in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category (bronze).

Together with Dossy, we pioneered the use of technology to focus on designing and developing an accessible solution to empower seniors to achieve face-to-face communication effortlessly. Dossy helps them stay connected with their families, friends, and virtual volunteers for meaningful conversations through easy-to-use and secure video calls.

The Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum: Reshaping the way researchers engage with art
DEPT®
1 x Silver

The project we undertook with The Van Gogh Museum to digitise 200 paintings and nearly 500 drawings by Vincent van Gogh into accessible, immersive digital experiences, was awarded silver in the Education, Art & Culture category.

Google Jigsaw

Google Jigsaw: Info Interventions
Hello Monday/DEPT®
1 x Silver

A silver award in the Human & Civil Rights category was given to the Google Jigsaw campaign and website. Jigsaw is a unit within Google that researches threats to open societies, and builds technology, products and tangible methods that inspire scalable solutions. Info Interventions is a collection of four of these experiments specifically created to help people build information resilience at critical moments in their online journey.

Together, our campaign reached 3.5M users of our target audience, while helping to drive efficient awareness and traffic to this important initiative.

eBay

eBay: Coupling up with pre-loved
DEPT®
1 x Bronze
Our pre-loved fashion campaign for eBay was awarded bronze in the Sustainability, Environment & Climate category.

The campaign, which was launched to support eBay’s sponsorship of Love Island, generated 217 million impressions, 76,000 organic engagements, 1,400% increase in ‘pre-loved fashion’ searches on eBay, and a 24% rise in new circular businesses joining the online marketplace.


Thank you to everyone who voted for us and congratulations to our amazing clients and teams who are so dedicated to making a positive impact in the world.

Questions?

Global SVP of Marketing

Marjan Straathof

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DEPT®’s pioneering work recognised with 35 Lovie Award Finalists

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke
VP of Marketing, EMEA
Date
27 September 2023

After celebrating Network of the Year at the 2023 Webby Awards, DEPT® is honoured to now share our record 35 nominations for the 2023 Lovie Awards for our work with brands including eBay, Philips, Bang & Olufsen, Lapierre, and Virgin Galactic.

35 finalists

Competing against 1,200 entries from 30 countries, as a Finalist our work has been selected as among the best in its category and is in the top 20% of all work entered. Each of our nominated projects is eligible to win two awards: a Gold, Silver or Bronze Lovie Award, as chosen by the Academy in each category, and a People’s Lovie Award.

Our nominations this year span Marketing, Advertising & PR, Websites, Social, Film & Video, Apps, Platforms & Software, Web3 & XR, and Beyond. Shortlisted projects by DEPT®, Studio Dumbar/DEPT®, Dogstudio/DEPT®, and Hello Monday/DEPT® range from the stunning custom 3D avatars created for Bang & Olufsen’s ‘See Yourself in Sound’ experience, to empowering women in Philips’ “It’s time to get real about body hair” campaign, the immersive experience of the Star Atlas website, to the huge success of the eBay and Love Island pre-loved fashion campaign.  

Huge congratulations to all of our nominated clients: American Society for Deaf Children; Bang & Olufsen; eBay; Evrnu; Fritz Hansen; Just Eat Takeaway; Lapierre; Meebits; Philips; Star Atlas; The Embassies; Trainline; Van Gogh Museum, and Virgin Galactic.


Vote for us

Voting polls are now open to the public until Thursday 12th October, and winners will be announced later in the month.

Please cast your votes for your favourite finalists via the links below:

Bang & Olufsen

eBay x Love Island

Lapierre

Philips

Just Eat Takeaway x Katy Perry

Van Gogh Museum

Fritz Hansen

Evrnu

Trainline

Give A Hand – American Society of Deaf Children

Star Atlas

Virgin Galactic

The Embassies

Meebits

Demo Festival

Prepare to Pioneer

In addition to the 35 finalist award nominations, DEPT® was also acknowledged in the official shortlist for seven categories with our clients Just Eat Takeaway, Meetbits, Betty Nansen, D&AD, American Society for Deaf Children(Give a Hand), Bang & Olufsen, and the Van Gogh Museum.

Kudos to our talented teams and awesome clients for this incredible achievement, and thank you for voting!

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VP of Marketing, EMEA

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke

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DEPT®’s pioneering creative work honored with ten awards at The One Show

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke
VP of Marketing, EMEA
Date
22 May 2023

Pioneering projects by HELLO MONDAY/DEPT® and STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® have been honored by The One Show with three Gold Pencil, four Silver Pencil, and three Merit awards.

50 years of creative excellence

Now in its 50th year, The One Show is the world’s most prestigious award show for creative excellence. The Gold Pencil is regarded as one of the top prizes in the industry, and is awarded to the most groundbreaking ideas by the “most remarkable minds in creativity.”

Fingerspelling.xyz, HELLO MONDAY/DEPT®’s solution to teaching the American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet, was awarded two Gold Pencil, three Silver Pencil, and one Merit award:

  • Gold Pencil – Interactive & Mobile Craft – Innovation in Interactive & Mobile Craft
  • Gold Pencil – Interactive, Online & Mobile – Utility 
  • Silver Pencil – Design – Innovation in Design 
  • Silver Pencil –  Experiential & Immersive – Craft – Use of Technology 
  • Silver Pencil – Interactive & Mobile Craft – Use of Technology 
  • Merit Award –  Interactive, Online & Mobile – Gaming – Online

STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT®’s brand identity for the North Sea Jazz Festival was awarded a Gold Pencil and a Merit Award, Silver Pencil was awarded for its work with D&AD, and a Merit Award for Next Step 22:

  • Gold Pencil – Typography- Dynamic/In Motion, North Sea Jazz Festival
  • Silver Pencil  – Typography- Dynamic/In Motion,  D&AD: Be Part of More
  • Merit Award – Typography- Dynamic/In Motion, Next Step 22
  • Merit Award – Brand Identity – Rebranding,  North Sea Jazz Festival

About the winning projects

To address language deprivation and help bridge the communication barrier between deaf or hard-of-hearing children and their (hearing) parents and peers, HELLO MONDAY/DEPT® partnered with the American Society for Deaf Children to create Fingerspelling.xyz, a hand tracking experience that uses machine learning to help learn the sign language alphabet.

Fingerspelling.xyz is a browser-based app that uses a webcam and machine learning to analyze your hand shapes so you can learn to sign the ASL alphabet correctly. The concept of finger spelling is an essential part of ASL, the primary language of the American Deaf community. It is often used for proper nouns or to spell a word you don’t know the sign for.

Currently, more than 5.1 million correct hand signs have been registered, and the American Society for Deaf Children now uses Fingerspelling.xyz as part of their own training materials. 

Fingerspelling.xyz has certainly made a positive impact for the Deaf community, and its innovation has been recognised with prestigious international awards, including two Webby Award wins and six People’s Voice awards, a Gold and Silver awards at Cannes Lion, a Gold Anthem Award and many more.

HELLO MONDAY/DEPT® is now taking its collaboration with the American Society for Deaf Children one step further with its latest project. GiveAHand.ai aims to build the world’s largest open-source image library of hands, fully tagged with data to help build better hand models.

One hundred percent crowdsourced, the data collected in the platform will generate a diverse dataset of hands which researchers can then download and use to improve their machine learning models, truly allowing the detection and translation of the full spectrum of American Sign Language.

North Sea Jazz

North Sea Jazz Festival worked with STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® to refresh its visual identity, to better reflect the diversity of its program which encompasses everything from jazz and fusion to hip hop, world and R&B. 

The new visual identity is driven by a sense of rhythm and movement – celebrating the unique energy of live music performance. Debuted in promotional campaigns, the new style is a fine example of how motion design can play a key role in the creation of visual identities, as well as their dissemination across different media.

D&AD: Be Part of More

In 2022, celebrating the 60th year since its foundation, D&AD sought to highlight the inclusive spirit of its awards, inviting creatives around the world to be part of more by sharing their work, expertise and innovations with the broader creative community.

For the third year running, STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® was asked to create a visual identity encompassing a call for entries, virtual ceremonies, an online annual, and everything in between.

Next Step 22

Billed as the #1 low-code event, Next Step provides an opportunity to find out more through insights, top tips, hands-on sessions, and influential guest speakers. Seeking a fresh look to stand out in a crowded marketplace, OutSystems invited STUDIO DUMBAR/DEPT® to create the new visual identity for Next Step.

Questions?

VP of Marketing, EMEA

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke

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DEPT® wins 10 Anthem Awards for purpose-driven work

Marjan Straathof
Marjan Straathof
Global SVP of Marketing
Date
15 February 2023

The Anthem Awards, presented by The Webby Awards, recognise the purpose-driven work of individuals, businesses, and organisations across the world.

For 20 years, they’ve been recognising projects and campaigns that drive global change. And each year, they set a new standard for work that motivates others to make a difference.

There are seven categories within The Anthem Awards: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Education, Art & Culture; Health; Human & Civil Rights; Humanitarian Action & Services; Responsible Technology;  and Sustainability, Environment & Climate. 

DEPT®’s Global Head of Impact, Pooja Dingidal, shares, “The Anthem Awards serve as validation that we’re equipped to meet the demands of a rapidly-changing world and evolve to produce more sustainable work. Awards that we’ve won span across our core competencies, proving that there really is great work to be done whether you’re an engineer, a marketer, or a creative.” 

DEPT®’s Anthem Award winners

  • Philips addressed men’s insecurities by spreading some much-needed body hair positivity in a campaign for every body and everybody that scooped the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – Branded Content or Collaboration award. Philips also won two awards in the Health – Local Awareness Campaign, and Health – Strategy categories with its Movember campaign that helped raise awareness of men’s health issues.
  • Plastic Soup Foundation highlighted the extent of plastic pollution. This took home two categories: Health – Local Awareness Campaign and Health – Social Media Content, Campaign, or Channel.
  • Meta Festival 2022 highlighted responsible technology by organising the world’s first 24-hour Meta Festival. The Meta Festival won two categories: Responsible Technology – Strategy and Responsible Technology – Digital & Innovative Experiences.
  • JUSTDIGGIT uses the power of technology to train people in areas of drought. Category won: Sustainability, Environment & Climate – Strategy.
  • Cha-Ching Money Adventures builds positive behaviors in money management. Cha-Ching Money adventures won two categories this year: Education, Art & Culture – Digital & Innovative Experiences and Education, Art & Culture – Special Projects.

Learn more about how DEPT® is aspiring to be the best agency we can be for the world.

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Global SVP of Marketing

Marjan Straathof