Nagoya Design DO!

Nagoya Design DO! is an international design competition that is open to the whole world. The competition seeks to develop the potential of young designers and to enable exchange between designers.
Nagoya Design DO! was started in 1998 and has been held every two years. “Nagoya Design DO! 2010”, the 7th competition, has been reborn into a new form that is inspired by the vision of “Creative Design City Nagoya”.

By creating themes from various issues in Nagoya and by holding a competition, we hope to encourage young people throughout the world to consider what design can contribute to the ideal society.
In addition to prize money, award winners of the Nagoya Design DO! competition will be given the privilege of participating in a workshop held in Nagoya. At the workshop, themes will be discussed through joint cooperation with students and young designers from both Japan and overseas. Furthermore, participants will have the opportunity to give a public presentation regarding the results of the discussions.

We hope that Nagoya Design DO! will serve as a stage for new creativity and the transmission of that creativity to the world.

http://www.idcn.jp/

seoul international design competition

Objective
The "Design for All" objective is made to increase the efforts and the pursuit of design production that can be shared by all, removing emotional and physical barriers by becoming an universal communicative social solution.
Entries may be submitted to the following categories:

• Product for All
  
  
  • Product
  • System
  • Fashion
  • Craft
• Communication for All
  
  
  • Graphic
  • Advertisement
  • Moving Image
  • Animation
• Space for All
  
  
  • Interior
  • Environmental Design
  • Architecture

Please read the official Call for Entries for complete details.

Prizes
The total prize money of Seoul Design Competition 2010 amounts to US $26,000 certification and prize money awarded by the mayor of Seoul Metropolitan Government and special benefits for those who are awarded with golden and silver haechi prizes (within US $3,000 for individual/team including grants for overseas training for korean winners and invitation to the awards ceremony in Seoul for international winners).

• Golden Haechi prize: one winner, US $10,000
• Silver Haechi prize: three winners, US $2,000 each
• Bronze Haechi prize: five winners, US $1,000 each
• Iron Haechi prize: max. ten winners, US $500 each
• Honorable mention: within two hundred people, certification for each
• People's choice awards: twenty winners, certification for each

The winning submissions will be exhibited during the exhibition period of Seoul Design Fair 2010 from 17 September to 7 October 2010.
The award ceremony of Seoul Design Fair 2010 will take place on 7 October 2010 at Jamsil Sports Complex in Seoul Metropolitan City, Republic of South Korea.

http://sdf.seoul.go.kr/eng/ 

Observeur du Design Award

The APCI (Agency for the Promotion of Industrial Creation) launched Observeur du Design Award aimed at companies in all sectors of business, design consultancies or freelance designers, as well as local or private organisations.

Inaugurated in 1999 by the APCI (Agency for the Promotion of Industrial Creation), the Design Observeur is an annual exhibition that aims to highlight and reward a selection of the best creations resulting from the collaboration between companies and designers.

http://www.francedesigninnovation.fr

The Earth Awards

The Earth Awards invites design submissions from all corners of the globe in six categories: Built Environment, Fashion, Products, Systems, Future and Social Justice.

Ideas, great or small, realized or prototypes, will be considered but must distinguish themselves in six criteria: Achievable, Scalable, Measurable, Useful, Original and Ecological.

The grand prizewinner will receive $50,000 while category winners receive $10,000 each.

In 2010, The Earth Awards' Ceremony moves from New York City to London, where the Selection Committee will judge a shortlist of six finalists culminating with an exhibition in sustainable design.

This world-class exhibition will showcase the 2010 winning submissions, as well as past years winners.

Along with the exhibition and awards gala, the Financial Times will hold a Sustainable Business Summit inviting CEOs, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to match innovation with investment.

http://www.theearthawards.org

Metropolis Magazine Next Generation Design Competition

The Metropolis Next Generation® Design Competition was created in 2003 to promote activism, social involvement, and entrepreneurship in young designers. Metropolis saw the need for a new type of competition, one that went beyond the usual beauty pageants for finished projects, a competition that would generate and reward ideas.

Metropolis celebrates the next generation by rewarding imaginative young designers at large companies and recognizing the hard work of those striving with their own young firms or on their own as well as students—while some designers have a proposal ready and waiting, others are at the beginning of the process with an undefined desire to create and can use a kick start.

The Next Generation® winners and runners-up are a testament to the success of this mission. Each project recognized has embodied the core values of good design—incorporating systems thinking, sustainability, accessibility, materials exploration, historic relevance, and technology—while forwarding our thinking on what designers can accomplish. The breadth of proposals has been stunning: building projects, urban planning and community building schemes, responsive interior environments, population pressure issues, new materials, ergonomics, product design, social and housing solutions, environmental management, water purity, and waste disposal in crisis situations and so on. The prize of $10,000 in seed money for developing the projects, plus the publicity they receive, have helped winners’ and runners-ups’ projects leap from the drawing board to implementation and production.

http://www.metropolismag.com/nextgen/

Define a Creative Hub Competition

A Creative Hub can be defined as a space that induce Creative Thinking, which is a combination of creativity, curiosity and communication. A place, real or virtual, where designers meet ordinary people to bring creative influences and creative acts.

A Creative Hub has the ambition to create and enhance every local resource that can attract creative brains in a specific territory. In today’s scenario, every global city is competing with each other to build creative hubs, which are also architectural masterpieces, developed according to local needs of region. But real needs are difficult to be identified and they change from region to region. Urban Vision and Architectural Design Department would like to test tour talent and urban vision skills with an experimental contemporary subject.

http://www.domusacademy.it/creativehub.html

Design Exchange Awards

The Design Exchange Awards promote Canadian design excellence and recognizes the critical role of design in all types of organizations including commercial entities (large and small businesses), not-for-profit organizations, and the public sector. The Awards celebrate the success stories achieved through close partnerships between clients and designers. The DXAs are Canada’s only award program to judge design by results, balancing function, aesthetics, and economic success.

THESE AWARDS ARE DESIGNED TO

• Expand national understanding of design as an essential resource
• Demonstrate that investment in design impacts overall business success
• Celebrate effectiveness in all design disciplines
• Highlight the critical role of design in enhancing quality of life
• Reinforce the value of strong client/designer partnerships
• Promote the critical role of design in sustainability

A jury of leading business executives, designers and community leaders will select a Gold, Silver, Bronze and two Honourable Mentions in each of the twelve categories.

http://www.dx.org/

Australasian Student Design Awards

Who can enter the ASDA?
Entry is open to design projects created in 2nd Semester 2009 or 1st Semester 2010 from entrants aged 18 years or older who are:

• Permanent residents of Australia and New Zealand or international students under a Student Visa in Australia andNew Zealand.
• Currently studying full time equivalent or apprentice tertiary courses at a Certificate III, Certificate IV, Diploma or Advanced Diploma or Degree level, or graduated from any of these courses in Semester 2 2009.

Why enter the ASDA?
The ASDA program offers great opportunities for young designers:

• Expose your work to a national and international design audience
• Gain positive public recognition of your skills as an innovative emerging designer
• Gain peer recognition of your work
• Launch your new design and ideas into the market place
• Media attention through media releases circulated to major media outlets and features on the DIA Website, tri-annual Newsletter “Spark”, Facebook page and weekly E-Newsletter
• Winning work will also be recognized by prizes and Australasian Student Design Awards 2010 Certificate

http://www.design.org.au

Design Week Awards

Who can enter?
Individual designers, design groups or clients can submit as many entries as they like for each category, and can enter one or more categories. The Design Week Awards is open to countries worldwide.
Ensure you check the launched or published period for each category to make certain your entry is eligible.

How to make your submissions:
You must enter online. You can upload up to 5 digital images and small .mov /.dv files along with your explanatory brief.
Payment can be made online by credit card, after you have done this you will receive a confirmation email containing a catalogue number(s) for your entry(ies) which you should reference on anything you post/courier to us. This email will act as a VAT receipt for your entries, it will also contain full address details for you to post or courier any supporting material.
You can also opt to post a cheque or pay by BACS. If you wish to pay by either of these payment options then please click 'cheque' and follow payment instructions which will be sent to you on the confirmation email.

http://awards.designweek.co.uk/

Dutch Design Awards

The Dutch Design Awards (DDA) are a series of awards to honor Dutch designers. The awards are handed out during the annual Dutch Design Week in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. A year book and exhibition of the nominated designs are also presented as part of the event. The Dutch Design Awards are organised by the Dutch Design Award Foundation and the city of Eindhoven.
De Dutch Design Awards are handed out since 2003. In 2008, the name was changed from the Dutch-language Nederlandse Design Prijzen to the current name.
Twenty prizes are handed out during an annual awards show. In addition to the main prize, the Golden Eye, which honours the most successful Dutch designer or design studio, awards are handed out in a number of categories. Each category has its own selection committee, and the winners are selected by an international jury. One exception is the public award, the Audi Design Award; the winner of this prize is chosen from a shortlist by means of a public election held on the Web site of the Dutch Design Awards and in the Bijenkorf department store in Eindhoven.

Dutch Design Awards

Loo of the Year Award

The Loo of the Year Award is an award given by an independent association to public facilities in the United Kingdom that meet a number of requirements.
The Award's objective is to promote the highest possible standards in public toilets.
The Award is run independently and is promoted by the British Toilet Association. It also receives corporate sponsorship from a number of companies working in the field—Armitage Shanks, Albany Washroom Services, SCA Hygiene Products, Technical Concepts and the British Cleaning Council—along with the national tourism boards of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

History

First introduced in 1987, the Loo of the Year Awards competition has run annually, except for 1993.

Eligibility criteria

Any type of public facility (what the British Toilet Association calls an 'away from home' toilet) can be nominated for consideration. There are thirty-six different award categories in all. Eligible facilities can be located in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Anyone can submit a nomination—staff, customers, visitors, managers, owners or contractors—but owners or managers must authorize entries.

Judging criteria

After an unannounced inspection from an authorized Loo of the Year Awards Inspector, nominees are graded on a scale from one to five stars. Grades are awarded based on a number of criteria, and are judged on both male and female facilities, as well as any baby changing and accessible facilities provided.

Loo of the Year Award

Mainichi Design Prize

The Mainichi Design Prize (毎日デザイン賞, Mainichi Dezain Shō^?), originally the New Japan Mainichi Design Prize, is an annual award given to outstanding Japanese designers. The award is sponsored by Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun. It is considered Japan's most prestigious award for design.

Originally under the title of the New Japan Design Competition, the Mainichi Design Prize was founded in 1952 with sponsorship from the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. It proved a key catalyst for the promotion of Japanese industrial design and was awarded to many of the post-Second World War Japanese designers of significance. These have included industrial designer Hozumi Akita (1962), graphic designers Mitsuo Katsui (1964 and 1994) and Ikko Tanaka (1854, 1966, and 1973), furniture designer Shiro Kuramata (1972), and Issey Miyake, who received the Mainichi Design Prize in 1977, the first time it was awarded to a fashion designer (he also received the Mainichi Fashion Prize in 1993). Others wining the award included furniture designer Tishiyuki Kita (1985), interior designer Masayuki Kurokawa (1986), interior, furniture, and lighting designer Shigeru Uchida (1987), furniture designer Motomi Kawakami (1991), and digital graphic designer John Maeda (2002).

Mainichi Design Prize

Excellent Swedish Design

Excellent Swedish Design (Utmärkt Svensk Form) was a design award handed out by the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design (Svensk Form) 1983-2002

In the early 1980s, the opportunities for designers in Sweden were scarce. Few companies had realized the importance of consulting a designer. The chairman of the designers section of Svensk Form, Hans-Christer Ericson, then presented the idea of a design prize, to be awarded to various professional design organizations and their producers. In 1983 the first jury presented their choice, and after that the prize was handed out every year until 2002. The graphic designers (ABCD, now Sveriges Reklamförbund), the industrial designers (SID), the interior architects (SIR), the craftsmen (KIF), the illustrators (FST) and the textile and fashion designers (STOK) every time chose their representative for the jury. In later years, web design and corporate identity were also awarded. Excellent Swedish Design, with its logo designed by Hans-Christer Ericson, became a huge media success, both in Sweden and abroad.

Excellent Swedish Design

London International Creative Competition

Deadline: March 20th, 2010  -  prize: 3,300 USD

London International Creative Competition (LICC) is a vehicle for facilitating contact between uniquely talented artists and an international audience. LICC invites passionate visual artists, regardless of experience or nationality, to submit their innovative artwork for inclusion in the LICC competition. The artwork is juried by a board of internationally esteemed artists, writers, curators, gallery owners and other luminaries of the visual arts. The 15 finalists work will be presented at the LICC awards ceremony in London, one prize-winner will be chosen by the jury to receive the £2,000 cash prize. This year’s categories: Architectural, Audio/Music. Design (Environmental/Fashion/Graphic/Interior), Drawing/Illustration, Installation, Mixed Media, NetArt/Web Design, Painting, Performance, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Textile, Video and Film, Writing. Other. Entry fee is £20 (Students £15). To make the competition more accessible to an international community, some countries have a 50% discount.

London International Creative Competition

Design Exchange Awards

Organization: The Design Exchange
The Design Exchange Awards promote Canadian design excellence and recognizes the critical role of design in all types of organizations including commercial entities (large and small businesses), not-for-profit organizations, and the public sector. The Awards celebrate the success stories achieved through close partnerships between clients and designers. The DXAs are Canada’s only award program to judge design by results, balancing function, aesthetics, and economic success.

THESE AWARDS ARE DESIGNED TO

• Expand national understanding of design as an essential resource
• Demonstrate that investment in design impacts overall business success
• Celebrate effectiveness in all design disciplines
• Highlight the critical role of design in enhancing quality of life
• Reinforce the value of strong client/designer partnerships
• Promote the critical role of design in sustainability

A jury of leading business executives, designers and community leaders will select a Gold, Silver, Bronze and two Honourable Mentions in each of the twelve categories.

Design Exchange Awards

National Design Awards

Organiization: Cooper-Hewitt Museum

The National Design Awards were conceived in 1997 by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum to honor the best in American design. First launched at the White House in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the annual Awards program celebrates design in various disciplines as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seeks to increase national awareness of design by educating the public and promoting excellence, innovation, and lasting achievement. The Awards are truly national in scope—nominations for the Awards are solicited from a committee of more than 800 leading designers, educators, journalists, cultural figures, and corporate leaders from every state in the nation.

The National Design Awards is one of the few programs of its kind structured to continue to benefit the nation long after the Awards ceremony and gala. A suite of educational programs is offered every year in conjunction with the Awards by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s award-winning Education Department, including a series of public programs, lectures, roundtables, and workshops based on the vision and work of the National Design Award winners.


National Design Awards

Spark Design Awards

Spark is a bold new competition—a unique crossroads of design, where the interests of all participants in the community are represented and their strengths brought to bear. Spark leaps beyond the mid-century view of design. In this new world, how do the best ideas and best designs gain recognition? SparkAwards will validate superlative designs from professionals. But we also need a filter for the best novice designers and innovators, too. The world is now participating in design—let's enable the best formgivers to rise to the top.

Spark is about Change—designed change. Change for the better: studied, researched, cognizant of criteria like sustainability, suitability, context, inventiveness, process, universality—and yes, beauty.

Ultimately, one must ask why this is important. Commerce is important, but it is a means to an end. We might call the real goal "betterment." Better lives, better health, better water, better air. Great design can help us get there. 

Spark Design Awards