This is for you out there who either are curious about design awards or have made a decision to enter but are looking for guidance on presenting your team's work to a jury.
If you are reading this unconvinced of the merit of entering a design awards program, please let us to take a moment to remind you of the incredible promotional benefit to your team and client if you win, the community connection built by putting your work in front of a jury of your peers, and how the very act of documenting your process and achievements engenders a sense of accomplishment and pride throughout your organization.
Powerful imagery prefaced with a brief explanation of why the project is significant is a winning combination. 2023 C77DA Gaming Accessories Winner, Meta Quest Pro
We've run the Core77 Design Awards for over a decade and have found that the most important part of our job is assembling the best design juries possible. We recruit from leading creative professionals across a broad range of experience and backgrounds. They review entries online and meet virtually to debate. We ensure that every qualified entry gets in front of them. Your job is to seize that opportunity and engage them in your project's story.
1. Jurors are unlikely to be reviewing entries while in an elevator but you should act like they are; you have limited time to hook them. Begin with a succinct project overview (500 words or less) to introduce the jury to your concept, its design features and how it fits both the market and end-user. Do that and you'll have framed the context for what follows. If you believe your entry would benefit from further explanation use the "project details" field to delve deeper, describing your process, perspective, and the project's comprehensive journey. This narrative should not exceed 1500 words, focusing on the innovative and impactful aspects of your work.
Renderings can nail vibe and offer insight, here to a system of physical and interactive product. 2023 C77DA Interaction Design Honoree Gatorade Gx Smart Bottle
For Branding, Identity and Visual Design entries it is important to show their application in context. 2023 C77DA Branding & Identity Award Honoree, Sun Day
The rare and elusive money shot: a single image that conveys the unique proposition of the entry. 2023 C77DA Apps & Platforms Winner Peekabook
Spaces benefit from imagery depicting the experience of being in them. 2023 C77DA Built Environment Honoree WildWoods: AGLOW
2. Seeing is Believing - We cannot overstate the importance of imagery in an entry. It is vital for conveying your project's aesthetic and functional qualities. Show details of the realized project. Show it in context. If a user interacts with it, show the chief modes of operation. Give a complete sense of the work but edit your final collection of images with an eye toward removing repetitive, or potentially confusing, imagery. At their best, images go beyond documentation and express the spirit of the project. Submit project images in JPEG, GIF, or PNG formats, bigger is better, but for ease of uploading, limit your images to the neighborhood of 3000 pixels wide (or tall) and 15MB per file.
This promotional piece gives a taste of how past winners of the Core77 Design Awards used video to tell their entry's story. See actual videos from winning entries in our 2023 C77DA Video Gallery
3. The end results of a design project might be too complex for images and words alone to communicate. If your entry's story would benefit from it, use supplemental materials like project PDFs, videos, and external links to present a fuller picture of your project, creating a more dynamic presentation of your achievement. In considering how much and what to share with the jury you should seek to balance depth and brevity. Consider how each piece illuminates, or possibly muddles, your key points. Keep PDFs under 15MB and 30 pages, videos short (under 2 minutes and 30 seconds) and in mp4 format, and use external links to provide more context or background information.
Projects that overlap categories should enter all that are pertinent. "Hemi - A theraputic toy" was honored in four student categories in the 2023 C77DA.
4. Carefully consider the Category or Categories for your entry — a well-chosen category significantly enhances the relevance and appeal of your submission. Review the category definitions thoroughly to ensure your project is positioned to capture the jury's interest in the most fitting context. Enter your project into as many categories as are relevant - good projects and presentations often bring home multiple accolades. The Core77 Design Aawards honors both professional and student work in all its categories. If you did your project at school be certain to make a student entry. On the professional side we honor only work that has been released, published or otherwise realized. However concept work whose purpose is "cultural commentary, intervention, or exploration" has a home in our Speculative Design category.
Stakeholders in a project can share ownership and recognition. 2023 C77DA Health & Wellness Honoree, Design for Social Prescribing
5. Entering an awards program is an expression of pride in work - the work put in, the work that came out. So it is important, and beneficial, to acknowledge the collaborative effort behind your project. Include the project team, as well as the client or surrounding portions of your operation in gathering materials and names for credit. In our case, use the Team Credits section to list and breakout individuals and groups as you see fit. This not only highlights the collective talent behind the project but also enriches the submission's narrative by showcasing the depth of collaboration and expertise involved.
Don't be intimidated, the work is done and the story has written itself, you just need to collect your materials and contributors and get it in front of the jury. That is enough to get you in the running. Take our advice and work your story into a tight, compelling narrative — you'll honor your team and make a case for the jury to as well.
Core77 Design Awards regular deadline is March 5, 2024.
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Comments
It would be nice if core77 could provide any feedback to those of us who submit but do not win. What could we improve?
Hi providing feedback to every entry is not possible given the volume of submissions and the limited time the juries have to work on this. I can tell you from personal experience that often times the difference between being an honoree and not making the cut can be very slim. Also many times it is the story telling, or lack thereof, that convinces a jury to award a project, so make sure your description is short, clear and compelling. Have other, unbiased people read it before you submit your entry. Good luck!
Thanks