Bells du jour at Icad awards

Tara Flynn is the MC for tonight's Icad awards in the Guinness Hopstore with this year's Icad president Gavin O'Sullivan of DDFH&B handing over the 83 gongs.

The categories in the long-running awards range from work for glossy, big budget television campaigns to stationery design. The famous Icad Bells are plentiful in the bronze section – 53 will be given out tonight – less so in the silver category with 24, and there are just four gold bells.

The homegrown organisation, The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (Icad) was founded in 1958, and only rates Irish advertising and design. To get an outside perspective, the various judging panels included a creative from abroad: this year they came from Britain, Belgium and France and, according to O’Sullivan, “were particularly impressed with the quality of work up for consideration”.

In the hotly-contest print category, Gilles Fichteberg from Rosapark International said: "Print is the king category, everything starts from print. There is, I don't know, more soul in it. Print is the next big thing, again."

This is the third year the awards will feature a client award, where a special Icad Bell is cast for the client considered to have most encouraged creative excellence. This award is nominated by the juries in the various categories and was won last year by insurer FBD.

There is also be a Greenhorn Award for the most talented newcomer to the business.

In previous years Icad hosted an exhibition but this year the shortlisted categories are shown online at irishtimes.com/ business/innovation/2.1758