POV: Are design awards an old-school industry system?

In the current social-media-driven creative landscape there are plenty of ways to put yourself out there. Designers now have the possibility of getting more visibility from one post going semi-viral than appearing on a public list of new design awardees. However the old-school narrative still remains: if you dream of growing your client list and bringing your small studio into the spotlight then not only does submitting your portfolio to design publications and posting to Instagram work, but applying to some of the industry’s biggest awards does too.

But while independent designers or small studio teams are trying to stay afloat, a lengthy and sometimes costly award process might be the last thing they have the extra hours for. Firstly, you have to pay if you want to play the game. Awards like The One Club’s Young Guns applications can cost from $150-$200 dollars per application, and whilst entry fees for the D&AD awards can be free for some New Blood entries, they can rise to £300 or more for certain awards. Inaccessible to a number of up-and-coming designers, competition fees are generally seen as the first thing that cuts much of the crowd out of the line and keeps the kind of entries received leaning towards well-resourced individuals and agencies. With fees still high upon entry, giving out design awards can often look more like awarding the designers that can afford to be there.

If you are in a position to make an application or even a few of them every year, then a fair bit of your time might be taken up by researching awarding bodies, keeping on top of entry deadlines, preparing bespoke portfolios or application assets, writing up project case studies to fit the criteria – the list goes on. Founder and creative director of London-based design studio Fieldwork Facility Robin Howie wrote a piece on the very labour of this process alongside other issues he felt surrounded the culture of design awards back in 2022, titled: Why I decided to stop entering Design Awards.

Catching up with the designer today, he shares that after a reread of the piece, “It’s sobering how much of it all still rings true.” Written off the back of a complete hiatus from the awards scene that started somewhere in the middle of 2018, Robin’s original blog post spoke about taking pride in being independently minded, and how making your own path can often feel at odds with the whole idea of awards. “It’s deeply rooted in me to tick a box that says ‘other’ and find my own way of doing things. It started to weigh heavily on me that I had spent a good chunk of time and money over several years essentially asking a selection of other designers if my work bends to what they think is ‘good’,” he wrote.

For Robin and many other designers, the prospect of awards can bring up a sense of internal conflict as they are, like most things, entrenched in a certain amount of bias. The founder and creative director has dabbled since his hiatus, entering into the Creative Review Annual, Design Week Awards and D&AD in 2023 (with successes in the first two) having softened his stance in response to a number of awarding bodies “clearly grappling with diversity and representation across their juries” over the last few years. But, he is by no means completely all in again. Robin is still pondering a lot of the issues that are at the centre of these industry pursuits today, and feels pretty cynical about whether awards are now truly more impartial: “That’s a lot of trust about what happens behind closed doors to give it a thumbs up,” he says.

Something that Robin stands by from his original 2022 commentary is that paying up for awards may be first and foremost “a business decision” for designers. They have been, and still can be, a distinct way for people to come to you in the constant slew of finding new work. Pum Lefebure, co-founder and CCO of Design Army and chairperson of The One Club (the organisation home to awards such as ADC Annual Awards, TDC competition, Young Guns, Next Creative Leaders and more), is also of the opinion that entry into awards is ultimately a kind of long-term investment – one that “gives you leverage to scale from local to global” when you get a win. According to Pum, this recognition “can be the differentiator from your competitor,” and in the case of the larger competitions, puts you on a global stage for potential clients to see your work from all over.

“For my team at Design Army,” Pum says, “we built our small agency by doing good work, getting awarded, and sharing that recognition to keep and grow our clients.” For the founder, awards have been the “key to keeping clients coming back” since the studio’s very beginning.

Now leading the jury on some of the industry’s most prestigious awards, Pum has seen firsthand the impact of awards outside of the exposure they bring. “It’s the ultimate morale booster for your hard work, helping grow your confidence as a designer which can tangibly show in future projects,” she says.

Although a business decision or morale boost for some, entry to competitions like Young Guns can also be an act of survival for creatives that want to stay living and working in the country that they have established their practice in. The stakes are much higher within design awards if you are a creative trying to obtain a talent visa.

Alongside press exposure, the recognition of winning a prestigious industry prize can heavily support an application. Much like in the US where an 01 visa requires “a degree of skill and recognition substantially above that ordinarily encountered”, it is easier to obtain a Global Talent Visa in the UK when you have been awarded an “eligible prestigious prize”. If not, creatives might need to get an endorsement to prove that they are “a leader, or potential leader” in their field before starting an application. So for some creatives the question is sadly not ‘should I enter a design award?’ but ‘how many can I afford to enter to increase my chances of being recognised?’.

Whether your win supports something larger or not, there are “more awards now than ever before”, says Pum, “so designers have to be that much more selective where they invest time and money.” Whilst some awarding bodies like Dezeen have introduced new categories for early-career projects and bespoke commissions to cater to small studios, and The One Club continues to operate as a non-profit with fees going back into the creative community for education and professional development, more still needs to be done to facilitate hard-earned wins for emerging designers.

Rethinking the barriers for small studios will be a must, and if it’s not in larger awarding bodies’ interests to do so, “it would be great to see an organisation with clout think about how to do things differently”, shares Robin. If you’re in disagreement with the structure of some of the big awards, it’s safe to say that there are other ways of doing things and social media might provide us with a new wireframe, or at the very least, some of the tools to get similar results visibility-wise.

In 2025, entering awards might be much less of a clear industry ladder and more “a personal decision for every designer and company to consider if it fits their growth strategy”, says Pum. It is clear, however, that the validity that awards can offer might be harder to come by in an age where anyone can start a studio or hire AI as their lead employee. Competition is fiercer than ever and although social media has created a new and democratic kind of exposure, there are less ways to separate the really good work from the constant, overwhelming stream of content. An award might still be a unique stamp of approval whose shine hasn’t dulled just yet.