Top Five Most Prestigious Creative Design Awards to Get Noticed

Design and creative development are embracing models of efficiency and productivity, and forms of beauty, imagination, and elegance. Transformative applications of artificial intelligence, mobile workflows, and industry-altering design applications reflect the effectiveness and efficiency that we crave in our daily personal, public, and business lives.

Utility and function are now merging with aesthetically attractive, high-art designs that elevate our everyday interactions with everything from household products and furniture, to consumables and personal care items, and electronics and industrial products.

Design Awards Building Credibility

Design awards, digital awards, and digital marketing awards are a way to tell the world that the quality of your work has been recognized by industry authorities while allowing you to market your products in a stronger and superior way. It sends a message that your service, products, or projects are prestigious and worthy of accolades from independent third parties.

Positioning a winner logo across your product packaging, or integrating it within service and project communications, can influence potential clients to procure your products and services and elevates your work.

Creating global awareness and appreciation of good digital design is the goal of these design awards and competitions. They provide incentives for international designers and graphic design companies to produce better projects, services, and products that benefit society through the advertisement, promotion, and recognition of design projects that set standards for science, technology, art, and design.

Why Design Awards are important for creative agencies and professional designers:

• Increases visibility and exposure.
• Gains peer respect and acknowledgment.
• Allows you to receive credit for your designs.
• Instills a sense of confidence in your clients about your work and skill capabilities.
• Enables you to secure new and lucrative leads. 

Showcasing Visualization Strengths

Design exhibitions, such as the 2017 AEC Excellence Awards Showcase, draw awareness to shared global issues that impact society, like climate change, cancer, and therapy devices.

The combination of design and innovation to present solutions that will create a more sustainable and flourishing world promotes shared feelings of hope while highlighting the designer’s technical and creative strengths.

Expanding Customer Base

Design agency awards help designers and companies to reach more customers who will be confident in the quality of the work being produced. The associated marketing, distribution, and publication of award-winning designs is a window to which millions of people can potentially view designs.

Top 5 Creative Design Awards that the Design World Recognizes

These Top 5 Creative Design Awards have a rich history for current and future designers, design companies, and art enthusiasts:

1. 

   D&AD Awards

2. 

   Communication Arts Annuals Awards

3. 

   ADDYs Awards

4. 

   A’Design Awards

5. 

   Cannes Lion Awards

The D&AD Awards

In the realm of advertising, the Design and Art Direction Award is amongst the largest and the most esteemed and is a British charity that targets design and advertising supremacy. Established in 1962 by the era’s top designers and art directors, it has a reputation for setting standards so uncompromising that an award was created simply for the honor of being nominated.

No compromises are given to ensure all categories award a winner; if work is perceived as unworthy of the award, the category remains unfulfilled.

Top Design Categories of the Past 5 Years

Gordon’s Gin: Gordon’s Brand World 2014
The brand paved the way for a renaissance with a reimagining of their classic boar head logo, replacing the traditional apple inside the boar’s mouth with a lime.

Design Winners 2015: Pencil Awards

G.F. Smith Curator Mark
Made Thought won a Black Pencil Award for a complete design overhaul of a paper company, G.F. Smith.

Film4
Another Black Pencil Award was given to 4Creative for its acknowledgments of classic cinema in a thought-provoking reference of film across 16 advents.

Leading creative minds in the industry offer insights about how to utilize graphic design in this 3-minute video that was filmed at the D&AD Awards judging.

Best Graphic Design in the World 2017
In this video, The D&AD Graphic Design Jury revealed what qualities they search for when selecting the best graphic design pieces for 2017

Best Digital Design and Marketing 2018
A highly varied assembly of projects is displayed in this film, along with judges opinions about what it takes to create an excellent digital design.

Nomination Categories

The top nomination categories for D&AD Awards are:

1. Art Direction
2. Book Design
3. Branding
4. Crafts for Advertising
5. Crafts for Design
6. Creativity for Good
7. Digital Design
8. Film Advertising
9. Film Advertising Crafts
10. Graphic Design
11. Magazine & Newspaper Design
12. Outdoor Advertising
13. Packaging Design
14. Press Advertising
15. Product Design

Jury and Selection Process

• Categories are judged by a curated selection of designers, marketers, business people, journalists, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and creatives.
• The jury conducts online judging rounds and discusses the designs before compiling a final group of submissions that are agreed as the best work per category.
• One jury member and the Jury President chooses a short list before final awards are chosen at IMPACT judging.

Prize Money and Recognition for D&AD Awards

D&AD Impact, a global digital awards program that recognizes creativity, is featuring a $23,000 cash prize that’s awarded at the discretion of the D&AD Impact Council. This cash prize is an addition to a coveted Pencil Award and is intended to promote the power of creativity and positive change in the world. 

Samsung Again Made it Big After Winning this Award

After winning the awards for Advertising & Marketing Communications Brand and Poster Advertising categories in 2015, Samsung tried a similar design brilliance during the launch of their flagship smartphone model. An immersive digital stage with three-sided LED screens was used for Samsung’s annual “Unpacked” event during the launch for the Galaxy Note 8 Smartphone.

Price Quoted for Designs or Revenue

The Samsung unpacked three-sided LED screens received 47 million live streaming views and 825,000 social media mentions, which boosted the revenue and sales figures for the Galaxy Note 8 smartphone.

Communication Art Annuals

Respected creative publication Communication Arts releases a series of printed annuals each year that celebrates top work that has been created during the year. It covers different design areas:

1. Illustration Annual
2. Advertising Annual
3. Typography Annual
4. Interactive Annual
5. Design Annual

There are about 5K entries, but only 150-200 are chosen for the book. However, the tough odds make the winning work more illustrious.

Top Category Designs of the Past 5 Years

Hatch 53: Datastronomy 2014
A connective creative community and the idea of careers being “Hatched” by industry leaders, combined with an exploration of our connection to space and constellations, composed the data visualization concept for this design.

Advertising and Design Club of Canada 2015
The Design Barcelona Event in Toronto featured Barcelona’s 7 top graphic design studios with highly publicized guest speakers. The studios provided quotes about design which were used to promote the event through a poster series.

ArtCenter College of Design 2016
For its 85th anniversary, the ArtCenter’s College of Design publication, “Dot,” was recreated to form a more visually arresting impact that incorporated scale and pacing with UV inks and uncoated paper.

Impulsion/Impulse 2017
Branding agency MamboMambo investigated reality and how media artists create impulses that transform perspective of the world at Pan-Canadian Media Arts Summit event.

Nomination Categories

2019 Interactive Competition

Eligibility includes all interactive projects for digital distribution on handheld devices, online service, desktop, interactive installation, or the internet.

Jury and Selection Process

For the 18th Communication Arts Annuals event, 1,194 entries were submitted, and these are narrowed before final winners are selected after lengthy deliberations by Jury panelists:

1. Keith Butters
2. David Wright
3. Michael Potts
4. Jeff Stafford
5. Kelly Goto

Prize Money and Recognition

Winners can use the CA annual award as a reference for creative excellence. Winning entries are distributed on a global scale in the CA Interactive Annual (both print and digitally) for maximum exposure, and award certificates are given to the award recipients.

MamboMambo Went onto Winning the CSS Design Award in 2018

After winning the CA 2017 Design and Advertising award, MamboMambo won yet another prestigious award – CSSDesginAwards 2018 which gave them a lot of recognition.

Price Quoted for Designs or Revenue Generated by the Award Winner

Winning entrants were awarded a customized Award of Excellence, and award certificates for firms, clients, and individuals. The Award of Excellence is considered one of the best awards in the industry and is a mark of distinction for designers.

The ADDYs Awards

The American Advertising Federation (AAF) awards the idea that great concepts can originate from anywhere and selects winners from local chapters of the AAF for the national ADDYs. It’s the one of the world’s most impressively sized advertising competition, receiving 40K yearly entries.

The impressive judging panels, in addition to the fame associated with winning this event, has placed the ADDYs as a haven for both digital agencies and creatives.

Top Category Designs of the Past 5 Years

Maggie Bags eCommerce Website: Digital Creative Technology Responsive Design 2014 Gold Addy Award
Originality, creativity, and strategy were awarded for this eCommerce site led by creative director and lead web developer Casey Owens and Paul Gibson.

The 2015 ADDY Award Winners
During the 48th annual Memphis American Advertising Awards, 95 Gold, 61 Silver, and 14 “Best of” Addy Awards were given out, and the event was judged by creative directors from Las Vegas, NY, and Boston.

Gorilla Design Studio for Red River Revel: 2016 Addy “Best in Show” Award
Advertising professionals and students were awarded for their design talent across diverse categories at the 2016 Addy Award Gala in Louisiana.

• Best in Show Award: Gorilla Design Studio for Red River Revel
• Student Best of Show Winner: Elizabeth Oneal for illustration “”
• Best of CMYK Award: Gremillion & Pou integrated marketing for “Fresh Beer Educational” signs

2017 ADDY Awards
Winners of the 2017 Addy Design Awards:

• Best in Show Award: Brunet-Garcia for 100 Plates
• Student Best of Show: Courtney Anne Babchyck for animation, “A Boy called ”
• Professional Judges Awards: On Ideas for the “Jacksonville Symphony Disney” poster

2018 Addy Awards
Judges awarded 22 Gold Addy awards and 44 Silver Addy awards for originality creativity and strategy with the top awards going to best of show categories.

Nomination Categories

Ad Persons of the Year awards for 2018 acknowledged excellence in design fields from categories that included everything from Communications Support and Broadcast Sales, to Print Sales and Project Management. See here for a full category list.

Nominations for Silver Medal Award Criteria:

Qualifications for nominees include a package of information that features how the nominee encapsulates five winning criteria:

• Contribution to his/her company
• Creative ability
• Contributions to the general advancement of advertising
• Community contributions
• At least 15 years of advertising experience.

Jury and Selection Process

The 2018 jury committee brought together notable national judges:

1. Simrit Brar Design Director Phenomenon Labs
2. Luciana Cani SVP, Executive Creative Director, Lapiz
3. Julio Desir Creative Director mcgarrybowen
4. Juan Pena Creative Director Origins Creative
5. Renee Miller CEO/CCO Miller Group
6. Sara Kuhz Associate Creative Director The Martin Agency 

Prize Money and Recognition

Though local chapters are easier to win, winning recipients have the opportunity to move on to the national awards competition and gain the esteem associated with winning a very rare national ADDY.

Designer Brian Wood Created Much More Afterwards

Brighter Days Ahead by Greg Bennett: Best in Show 2009

The design community worked to create change through design with the SoCal Wildfire Project. Designers donated projects to benefit fire victims, and all proceeds were given to the Salvation Army for the California Wildfire Fund.

Price Quoted for Design or Revenue

The charitable nature of the SoCal wildfire project led to generous funds raised for The Salvation Army and one of the designers, Brian Wood, went on to create lucrative projects for Netflix, and large brand name marketing campaigns, like Riser Cold Brew Coffee.

A’Design Awards

The largest international design competition, held in Italy, with 100 entry categories that include furniture, graphics, and 3D models. Themes include unique categories pertinent to human resources like the sustainable design and digital communication ideas.

Awards are given in a tiered order of Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron and a Designer of the Year Award is given to the highest achieving designer who has highly influenced design industry advancement.

Top Category Designs of the Past 5 Years

In-house Design Teams of the iF Design Awards 2014-2018

The above images feature the World Design Index (WDI) for the new iF top labels, which acknowledges designers that have persistently held leading positions in their specific field or region. Selection is according to the type and number of iF Awards that a designer and team has received over the past five years.

The iF WDI, as a new design benchmarking system, will be a standard for substance and achievement in design across the world and helps companies, architects, journalists, and designers create their own classifications. 

Nomination Categories

Jury and Selection Process

A knowledgeable and expert panel of design competition jury members offers valuable collective insights to assess entry submission and provide advantages for participants by transforming ideas and insights into votes, suggestions, and constructive criticism.

Prize Money and Recognition

This design prize is given to the winning designer without any additional fees or costs and contains a series of publicity and marketing services and PR to celebrate and share the success of the winners. 

The Career Graph of Vinicius Lopes and Gabriela Kuniyoshi Went Upward
The design was intended to create a functional and comforting environment that would stimulate often forgotten human relations. Combines materials like leather-covered painted steel and knitted fabric with an add-on desk accessory in the backrest also can serve as a sideboard.

The Cannes Lions

Established in 1954 after a global group of Cinema Screen Advertising Contractors, (SAWA) decided that advertising needed recognition like movies featured at the Cannes Film Festival. This award includes a substantial amount of categories in advertising, creative effectiveness, design, digital communication, and more. They serve to share knowledge and feature a highly competitive award standard even amongst the most stringent award events.

Top Category Designs of the Past 5 Years

Penguin Navi by Sunshine Aquarium 2014
Won for the Mobile Advertising category for the innovative app design that uses charming Penguin graphics to help visitors navigate their way to Japan’s sunshine aquarium.

Life Paint 2015 by Volvo
A reflective spray for cyclists who travel at night was designed and created by Grey London and received commendations by the design jury for its capacity to “transcend touchpoints and borders.”

Malak and the Boat 2016
A 7-year-old refugee’s escape from Syria by boat is captured in CGI with a unique and tangible appearing wax effect that draws emotional and sympathetic responses from viewers.

Snap Spectacles by Snapchat 2017
Snapchat won three gold awards, dazzling jurors with its relevance to today’s young culture, and it’s unique aesthetics and focuses on the user experience.

Nomination Categories

Nine buckets categorize all the design nominations for Cannes Lions Design Awards. The nomination categories are as below:

• Reach
• Communication
• Craft
• Experience
• Innovation
• Impact
• Good
• Entertainment
• Health

Jury and Selection Process

The selected judges and their respective categories include:

• 01
  Titanium Jury: Jason
  Xenopoulos: Global chief vision officer and CCO
• 02
  Direct Marketing Category:
  Neo Segola: Creative director FCB
• 03
  Design Category:
  Neo Segola: Creative director FCB
• 04
  Brand Experience and Activations Category
  Matt Ross executive creative director King James
• 05
  Radio and Audio Category:
  Matt Ross executive creative director King James
• 06
  Media Category:
  Wayne Bishop managing director PHD
• 07
  Film Category:
  George Low creative director TBWA hunt lascaris

Selection Process:

• First Round Judges score entries on a 1-9 scale
• Second Round The provisional shortlisted entries are determined by the judges if they should be a short list, a potential winner, or an absolute winner, and only 10% of entries make it to this stage.
• Final Round Overseen by the Jury president. Entries are voted on for Gold, Silver, or Bronze Lion winner. A ⅔ majority vote is needed to claim a lion, and 3% of entries get that far after voting.
• Gold Lion winners are chosen to be candidates for Grand Prix.

Prize Money and Recognition

Apart from the Canne Lions Awards that are given by a jury and the associated recognition of design, achievement, and excellence are the Special Awards. These are won through point calculation from the shortlisted and winning entries at Cannes Lions and include:

• Holding Company of the Year
• A network of the Year
• Agency of the Year
• Independent Agency of the Year
• Media Network of the Year
• The Palme d’Or
• Healthcare Network of the Year
• Healthcare Agency of the Year

Blink to Speak Campaign Raising 323380 Euros

This piece, created for Asha Ek Hope Foundation in the pharma category, received the Grand Prix for the Good award. The campaign was intended to help patients who have Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) to regain their communication with an eye sign language guidebook.

Price Quoted for Designs or Revenue

Cannes Lions announced the distribution of 323,280 Euros in funds for projects advised by the United Nations. The entries for the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity accumulated this generous fund that will help create a positive impact on sustainable projects.

Instantly Recognizable Symbols of Design Excellence

Creative graphic design and digital agency awards are an international standard for excellence and a symbol of prestige, innovation, quality, and credibility that is immediately recognizable in the graphic design industry. It can elevate a designer’s credentials and be a bolster for personal resumes while securing digital PR.

This lucrative business of digital marketing awards events is a way for established designers, design companies, and up-and-comers to gain stature and admiration. Entrance fees typically start in the low hundreds but can be much more depending on how many campaigns a participant enters. But with the celebration of graphic design and the plethora of categories that are receiving award recognition, creative design awards are a global benchmark of industry achievement.

Artwork Adobe (AWA) is a backend creative support team for design companies and international designers around the world. Years of experience and industry exposure that uses a platform built on sustainability, economical application of resources, imagination, and technology to transform client concepts into customizable, noteworthy graphic design.

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