Account Type Conversion

Account Types
A’ Design Award features an account type system that helps subsidize young and upcoming designers, start-ups and professional participants by imposing higher participation fees on large companies, agencies and businesses. The account type system was created to make the competition more accessible for designers.

Each participant is expected to choose the correct account-type as explained in the account types page. Before making any payments or nominations, account types can be changed free of charge and by participants themselves from the account type section in their control panels. However, upon award participation, nomination or payment, it is not possible to change account type free of charge or in an automated way.

Shortly after award results are communicated to winners, the A’ Design Competition checks and confirms if participant account types are correct or not before finalizing the entry status. Selecting the wrong account type can result in a fine, and not paying the fine could potentially result in a disqualification especially if a participant is identified and detected as choosing a wrong account type on purpose to reduce the entry fees.

Account types are inspected after award results are announced within several days. During, before or after our inspection, you may refer to our terms and conditions point 80.1 which explains the relevant fees and fines.

If you choose the wrong account type, for example if you are representing an Enterprise (Large Company with turnover > 50m) or Agency that did not choose Enterprise or Agency as account type, or if you are a Professional Designer with Young account type, or if you are a regular company with Start-Up account type, you are at risk. However, if you let us know of any errors or issues for your account type, you will avoid or potentially reduce the fines related to incorrect account type selection. You have about 36 hours to check your account types after results announcement.

Most errors happen for Enterprise account options. To understand if you should have an Enterprise account or not, you need to check your profile account name; if your profile account name is not a real persons' name (like John Doe) but for example it is a company or department name (Advance Corp. Inc), your account type shall be either agency, enterprise, non-profit, media, start-up or government.

If you are representing the R&D or Design Department of a large Enterprise you could potentially use Agency account type, only and only if, in your entry, your enterprise list all the designers' names as team members for your awarded works. If you do not wish to list designers' names involved in your project as team members as a “Company Policy” than you shall use the Enterprise account type instead.

If your profile name and surname is a real persons' name "Name Surname" like "Jane Doe" (not a company name), then you probably do not need to worry about Account Type choices, unless you are a Professional Designer who has selected “Young” or “Academic” account types on purpose or without purpose to reduce your participation fees.

The formula for the fee and fine for Account Type issues is explained in the competition terms and agreements section 80. If your account type is not correct please calculate the fine from this page and let us know, we reserve right to apply a discount in case of multiple entries that result in a large fine. Alternatively, you can also visit the following page to calculate the fees yourself and pay the difference in fees without any fines or fees, before we inspect your account type. Update your account type at this page.

Click the button above to initiate the procedure for account type conversion. For very big errors or profiles with more than 10 entries, you might contact support.