Inaugural Winners Announced in ADC AI Visual Design Dreamina AI Category

May. 22, 2026

The global Art Directors Club and Dreamina AI announced the ADC Cube and cash prize winners in the inaugural ADC AI Visual Design-Dreamina AI category, dedicated to honoring the frontier of generative craft in this year’s prestigious ADC 105th Annual Awards. 

The new category, which was free to enter and made possible by ADC’s exclusive partnership with Dreamina AI, part of ByteDance, recognizes evolving creative craft and honors modern creators who are using AI as a creative partner to expand the boundaries of visual expression.  

The first ADC Cube and cash prize winners of the new competition are as follows.

First Place: ADC Gold Cube, $6,000

• Xinxin Li and Donglin Cheng, Beijng, “Ivory”

Second Place: ADC Silver Cube, $4,000 each

• Anne Horel, Paris “La Tisseuse d'Ombres" (“The Shadows Weaver”)
• Jason Peng, Chongqing “Perfect Place”
• Park Zhi, Guangzhou, “Red Pill”

Third Place: ADC Bronze Cube, $2,000 each

• Chén Kūn, Shenyang, “Ordinary Anthem”
• Serhii Kostenko, Berlin, “Trained on Perfection”
• Xingchen Ding, Hangzhou, “The Joyful Pasture”
• Dorothy Pang, Vancouver, “Love Hotel”
• Tāozé Cài, Beijing, “Bad Traveling”
• Yongning Zhang, Suzhou, “Big Eyes Town”

Hongye Liu (Yea野了), Shanghai, was awarded a Merit for “HONG KONG LOADING…”

Gold Cube winner Xinxin Li explained:

“Rather than limiting ourselves strictly to the original storyboard, we drew continuous inspiration from Dreamina AI during the creation process. The mutual inspiration between human creativity and AI capability allowed us to revise and optimize the script accordingly, and eventually we completed a finished piece with a distinctive aesthetic style and sophisticated editing rhythm. It truly lets us feel the unique charm of the integration of technology and artistic creation.”

 

Jury member Wesley ter Haar, co-founder, Monks, Amsterdam, said of the Gold Cube winning entry:

“It's a standout piece when it comes to storytelling and using the tools and technology to create something very visually compelling.  It confirmed for me how much the value of craft is still very much at the core of doing great AI work.”

 

Entry brief: “Imperfection”

Creativity can lose its spark when every element is perfectly polished and optimized. Therein lies the opportunity to celebrate the messiness, contradictions, and lived experience that provide fuel for better AI tools and more creative ideas.

For the new ADC AI Visual Design-Dreamina AI category, entrants were asked to create work that honors imperfection and uses AI to complement, not erase, those qualities. Entries could take a variety of forms, including video, motion graphics, animation, or poster. 

As the Presenting AI Partner of the ADC 105th Annual Awards, Dreamina AI served as the primary engine for this challenge, inviting users to prove that even in a digital age, the human spark remains the most essential component. 

About Dreamina AI

Dreamina AI is powered by its world-leading proprietary models, including the Seedream generative image model — which produces and refines high-quality 4K visuals from text prompts and up to 10 image references — as well as the Seedance video generation and OmniHuman AI avatar models. 

Acting as a “camera for an imagined world,” Dreamina AI enables creators to transform ideas into high-quality, production-ready visuals within seconds using simple text prompts.

A showcase of all ADC 105th Annual Awards winners can be viewed here.