A' Design Award and Competition - Automated Corrections and Enhancements

Automated Corrections and Enhancements
In the distinguished landscape of international design competitions, the A' Design Award's Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings represent an exemplary commitment to honoring creative excellence without the customary technical impediments. Rather than adhering to the conventional practice of disqualifying entries for minor presentational oversights, a regrettable outcome observed in numerous prestigious competitions, the ACE Settings extend a gracious accommodation to participants by offering thoughtful assistance with technical presentation matters, customs facilitation, and category optimization. A' Design Award's refined approach via A.C.E. Settings ensures that the evaluation process remains centered on the intrinsic merit of the design itself, rather than one's proficiency in navigating submission protocols or presentation technicalities. For distinguished designers and esteemed brands, A' Design Award's thoughtful Automated Corrections and Enhancements system elegantly acknowledges that creative brilliance and technical precision in competition submissions are distinct competencies, thereby preserving the integrity of design recognition in its most authentic form. A' Design Award's A.C.E. Settings provide A' Design Award entrants complete control to either permit or prohibit the A' Design Award organizers from making technical corrections and category reassignments to salvage entries that would otherwise be disqualified. By default, A.C.E. Settings permit us to make corrections to presentation issues, designer naming, certificates, exhibition shipments, yearbook page previews, and category reassignments to preserve entries that would otherwise be disqualified, while allowing entrants to opt out of any specific interventions.

A' Hidden Competitive Edge : Design Merit Over Technical Perfection
By default, A.C.E. Settings permit us to make corrections to presentation issues, designer naming, certificates, exhibition shipments, yearbook page previews, and category reassignments to preserve entries that would otherwise be disqualified, while allowing entrants to opt out of any specific interventions. When you sign-up to A' Design Award, until you opt-out, A.C.E. Settings are in effect. A' Design Award's A.C.E. Settings system addresses a critical challenge in the design awards landscape; the unnecessary elimination of brilliant designs due to minor technical oversights. A' Design Award's A.C.E. settings is essential because it democratizes the competition process, ensuring that extraordinary creative work isn't disqualified over fixable presentation issues like image formatting, text errors, identification or certificate details.

Preserving Excellence Through Mindful Interventions
A' Design Award's Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings provide a comprehensive framework for addressing technical issues with design submissions while respecting designer and brand autonomy. A' Design Award may implement adjustments to image presentation, naming conventions, yearbook descriptions, certificate formatting, and category placements as needed to maintain entry eligibility, and in some cases to enhance presentations. While A' Design Award endeavors to make these corrections with utmost care and professional judgment, A' Design Award disclaims any legal obligation to perform such interventions. All corrections are provided on an as-is, where-is, as-available basis, with no warranty of subjective improvement. The fundamental mission of A' Design Award's Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings remains the preservation of entry eligibility and competition integrity rather than aesthetic enhancement, yet in some cases, if we notice there are issues we could help, we would, and if we help you, even in cases where you think our help was too much, you explicitly accept that we do not owe you anything; and you agree that we can make any changes at our sole discretion, without having an obligation to inform you. That being said, indeed when and if we make changes, we would issue "microfines", the reason why we would issue these fines is first and foremost to ensure we can employ specialists that are ready to help your work when needed; to cover for expenses, however the second reason is to indeed inform you that the changes have been made and fees are noted; so even though we do not legally promise to make changes, even though we do not legally promise to inform you, we do indeed try to make changes if we believe, at our sole discretion, that these changes are required and helpful; and indeed to show our good faith, we also extend you a framework for requesting "Account Balance Cancellation" where you can simply ask us to write-off the cost of these "microfines" up to three times; this way you know that these changes and "microfines" are not about money, but all about helping you succeed; here we use a bit of legal language as many participants are naturally worried; just know that if we make a change and charge you "microfines" that is fraction of nomination fees; it is in almost all cases to avoid the disqualification of your work and to salvage your entry; we love and respect the designers, so we try to do good by them, and we did this as an institutional mechanism, that looks out for your work. In the end A' Design Award's A.C.E. Settings is designed to help you avoid unnecessary elimination of your brilliant designs due to technical oversights and presentation issues, and to help you save time, energy as well as money you may have invested for nomination.

Default Participation with Full Control
A' Design Award's A.C.E. Settings are configured as opt-in by default, meaning A' Design Award will automatically apply necessary corrections unless entrants specifically request otherwise through the A.C.E. Settings panel. Changes to these settings must be completed at least three days prior to results announcement to ensure proper implementation. A' Design Award may adjust image properties (contrast, background removal, scaling), correct naming inconsistencies, refine yearbook texts, standardize certificates, and handle customs challenges to preserve entry compliance. A' Design Award acknowledges that certain interventions, such as removing identifiable content during blind-peer review phases, may appear to diminish presentation quality while actually protecting entries from disqualification. Even when visual elements seem compromised, the net outcome generally remains positive by maintaining eligibility for award consideration, which we think is a superior result compared to automatic disqualification; in plain words; we only make changes when we think this would really help you.

Microfines and Financial Considerations
A' Design Award sincerely recommends maintaining default A.C.E. Settings to permit necessary corrections and associated microfines. To repeat once more, the "Microfines" are nominal charges, very small amounts, and represent a fraction of nomination fees and serve to offset the professional resources required for manual interventions. A' Design Award extends the unique Account Balance Cancellation privilege to participants up to three times total, allowing for the waiver of accumulated microfines upon request. This generous provision demonstrates A' Design Award's commitment to fairness and accessibility, ensuring financial concerns never impede recognition of exceptional design work.

Second Chance Policy for Additional Protection
In addition to A.C.E. Settings, we think you will want to know about A' Design Award's Second Chance Policy that provides complimentary digital edition nomination tickets to participants whose entries received preliminary scores significantly higher than their final outcomes. Unlike the Entry Insurance Service which is fee-based, A' Design Award's Second Chance Policy is offered free of charge to eligible participants who received a preliminary score of at least 7, with at least 3 levels of difference between preliminary assessment and final outcome. A' Design Award's Second Chance Policy complimentary tickets must be claimed within 45 days of results announcement and cannot be used to re-nominate the same design in subsequent competitions. A' Design Award's Second Chance policy underscores our dedication to creating exceptional value for the design community and ensuring talented creators have continued opportunities for recognition despite variations in jury assessment. For young designers, academics, and academic collaborations, A' Design Award provides enhanced Second Chance Policy benefits, reflecting A' Design Award's commitment to nurturing emerging talent and educational advancement in the design field.

A' Design Award's Comprehensive Entry Protection Framework
A' Design Award's Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings allow you to decide what we should do if we encounter an issue with your design presentation, designer naming, certificates, exhibition shipments and yearbook page previews. In essence, unlike other design awards and competitions that outright eliminate your entries for mistakes or issues due to presentation errors and participation terms, A' Design Award takes proactive action via Automated Corrections and Enhancements; A' Design Award would do small manual interventions to fix issues to make your entry compliant with submission guidelines as well as terms and agreements. These issues could be as simple as fixing your designer name to removing background in some images in your presentation; rescaling images, fitting images to canvas and similar; as long as the changes A' Design Award makes do not change the nominated designs themselves; for example A' Design Award could increase the contrast of your photos, reduce reflections or shadows, clear background, remove borders etc. but A' Design Award would not change your designs; A' Design Award cannot change the design of your product, A' Design Award could just retouch its presentation. By default, unless you otherwise noted and opted-out via your A.C.E. Settings, the A' Design Award will take manual action, and A' Design Award would try our best to fix any issues with images, names, certificates or yearbook pages, A' Design Award would also further pay for custom fees on your behalf up to a set threshold as noted in exhibition participation fees and in return charge you micro fines or cost of duty fees etc. This happens only if we have time to take such actions. Micro fines, as their names suggest are usually very small fees that cover cost of taking manual action, their amounts are noted in Account Services page. However, upon your request, you can disable A' Design Award's behaviour of helping you by default. A' Design Award will respect your choices to the extend your choices do not decrease value of the whole competition. For example you can tell A' Design Award not to fix any images, and force A' Design Award to comply with this request, but then if your images would decrease the yearbook value because they are incompliant with guidelines (lets imagine for example including but not limited to cases when your image is not suitable for print, does not have correct resolution or color profile etc or is not fit to canvas, not scaled correctly, distorted etc), A' Design Award reserves the right to disqualify your work or move your work to a concealed category. In any case, it is further important to note that A' Design Award does not guarantee that A' Design Award will leave the issues as they are, sometimes A' Design Award could fix them by mistake (such as while fixing everyone else's issues A' Design Award might also fix yours in a batch), however A' Design Award guarantees that A' Design Award would not charge you if A' Design Award makes any changes by mistake and if A' Design Award mistakenly charges you, A' Design Award would cancel any micro fines if your initial preference is for A' Design Award not to help you or fix any issues. When Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings are activated (unless you've opted out), (a) if your entry is eliminated from its original nomination category during voting or (b) if your work was nominated to wrong category, or (c) if your work was eliminated from public categories for any reason whatsoever or (d) if your work has been highlighted by jurors as being in the wrong category, then in case of any a, b, c or d and their combinations, unless you opt-out your work can be reassigned to one or more alternative categories, and have voted again. This reassignment and reevaluation can happen once or multiple times, if time permits. This flexibility enhances your chances of success. If you opt-out from A.C.E. settings then your work is marked as eliminated (such as runner-up, participant or disqualified depending on outcome). On the other hand if you do not opt-out from A.C.E. settings, then your work can then be considered again in better matching categories, including concealed categories, in which your work could potentially have a better outcome, please note that changing Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings is not a guarantee that your work would be reconsidered; however if time permits, A' Design Award would do our best but not legally promise you to have your work reconsidered by the grand jury panel in another, better matching category.

Entry Rescue & Enhancement: A' Design Award's Commitment to Excellence
A' Design Award's Entry Rescue & Enhancement Program accurately reflects what A' Design Award is doing; rescuing entries from disqualification and enhancing their presentation. A' Design Award's friendly, proactive service helps identify and correct critical presentation errors, such as accidentally identifiable images, embedded logos, or non-printable visuals, that could unintentionally disqualify your entry or prevent it from being awarded; A' Design Award fixes these small mistakes to ensure that your design remains eligible, anonymous, and professionally presented, this way you are safe from "burning your nomination fee" because of some small mistake. A' Design Award believes every design deserves its best possible presentation. That is exactly why A' Design Award has created the Preliminary Checks and the Entry Rescue & Enhancement Program; a thoughtful, proactive solution designed to gently correct small yet significant issues in your submissions. Rather than risking elimination or reduced recognition due to easily fixable errors, A' Design Award's dedicated team intervenes carefully, ensuring your entry meets all presentation and compliance standards required by the A' Design Award & Competition. Through A' Design Award's positive and supportive Entry Rescue & Enhancement Program initiative, A' Design Award assists in refining visuals, clarifying design names and descriptions, improving yearbook texts, removing logos or watermarks, resolving certificate display issues, and handling designer name inconsistencies. These improvements, although minor, have a substantial impact, helping to ensure your design is evaluated fairly, receives the attention it deserves, and is celebrated without distraction or unintended bias. Importantly, Entry Rescue & Enhancement Program benefits and the extend of Microfines you would have due to it is entirely within your control. By adjusting your Automated Corrections and Enhancements (A.C.E.) settings from your Control Panel at A.C.E. Settings section, you decide exactly when and how A' Design Award steps in to help - you can completely disable any potential interventions and the relevant service fees or fines. And to further express A' Design Award's sincere commitment to fairness, A' Design Award proudly offers A' Design Award's unique Right to Be Forgiven policy, enabling you to request the removal or reduction of any such service fees or small charges associated with these enhancements, up to three times per account. All A' Design Award wants you to know that A' Design Award really cares and your success and satisfaction, as a designer who help make the world a better place with good design, are always A' Design Award's priority.

Managing Your A' Design Award A.C.E. Settings: Customizing Your Entry Protection Preferences
A' Design Award's A.C.E. Settings offer your organization invaluable risk management and resource optimization throughout the competition process. As creative decision-makers, you gain precise control over how your submissions are handled, from image refinements and naming standardization to yearbook presentation and category optimization, while maintaining focus on your core creative activities. A' Design Award's A.C.E. Setting's thoughtfully designed options protect your investment by preventing disqualification due to minor technical oversights, ensure your work maintains professional presentation standards across all award materials, and provide strategic second chances through category reassignment. The comprehensive support brought forward by the A.C.E. Settings system simultaneously preserves your creative autonomy while deploying A' Design Award's expertise where needed, ultimately enhancing your potential for recognition while minimizing both administrative burden and financial uncertainty. The following options are available for each aspect of A' Design Award's Automated Corrections and Enhancements Settings:

Please kindly note that the options above may be subject to change and/or may not reflect the actual available options if changes to such options have been made. Make sure to visit A.C.E. Settings Management Page to view currently available options and to update your settings.

Advancing Design Excellence Through Institutional Support
A' Design Award's A.C.E. Settings, Second Chance Policy, Micro Fines Policy, and Entry Rescue & Enhancement Program together form a holistic framework designed to support A' Design Award laureates in achieving recognition for their exceptional work. These interconnected systems represent fundamental elements of A' Design Award's institutional structure and reflect A' Design Award's mission to advance society through good design. By creating mechanisms that prioritize design merit over technical compliance, A' Design Award demonstrates a profound understanding that true innovation deserves recognition unimpeded by procedural obstacles. This comprehensive approach ensures that worthy designs receive fair consideration regardless of the creator's technical resources, geographical location, or familiarity with competition protocols.

Did you nominate your work and wish to update your A.C.E. Settings? If so, please log in to your A' Design Award Control Panel at least three days before results announcement to access your personalized A.C.E. Settings via A.C.E. Settings Management Page. Carefully review each option and select preferences that align with your specific requirements and comfort level with interventions. Remember that maintaining default settings provides maximum protection for your entries, while A' Design Award's Right to Be Forgiven policy offers additional financial reassurance should any microfines be applied. For any questions regarding your A.C.E. Settings or to request assistance with configuration, please contact A' Design Award's support team who will gladly provide personalized guidance.

Automated Corrections and Enhancements

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