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Concealed Categories |
Home > Categories > Concealed |
Concealed Nominations
A Concealed Category Entry in the A' Design Award & Competition is a specialized submission option that allows participants to receive prestigious design recognition while maintaining confidentiality of their work, particularly beneficial for pre-launch products, trade secrets, or sensitive innovations, where winners receive core award benefits (trophy, logo usage rights depending on entry types) but their entries remain unpublished and excluded from public promotional activities.
Concealed award categories are different from the regular design competition categories by having their results hidden from public access: Results are not be published online, and the concealed award winners do not receive the PR Campaign that is intended for other categories due to the secret, private or hidden nature of the products and designs submitted. Concealed award winners will also not be published in the yearbooks. However, eligible concealed design award winners, depending on their nomination method, will still be able to use a special award winner logo in their communications and marketing and depending on conditions it may be possible, at your discretion, to request optional on-demand service for conversion to regular categories or request controlled disclosure.
Like other categories, concealed design award winners will be marked platinum, gold, silver, bronze or A' based on the merits and achievements. The concealed design award category badge is designed slightly different to indicate the secret nature of the submissions, however regular logos could be obtained after category changes. There are two types of concealed award categories; categories that are concealed due to product nature, or categories that are concealed due to secrecy.
Please kindly note that concealed design award categories could have further terms and conditions that participants should agree before joining as explained in the concealed category participation notes below this page. Addendum to the participation terms and conditions for such categories are explained in their pages.
Concealed Categories are mostly participated by large enterprises who wish to get a design award for their new products but also wish to hide their award status from the public until they release the products to market to have an advantage of surprise, furthermore Concealed Categories are also ordered by designers and design agencies who have made agreements with their clients not to publicise the works, or in some cases if the works must be kept confidential.
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories offer a specialized confidential evaluation pathway for designers, brands, and enterprises whose work calls for careful handling around timing, intellectual property protection, client confidentiality, or contractual obligation. Your design enters the same rigorous international jury evaluation as open-category submissions. Scoring, merit-based ranking, and recognition status remain identical, with the entry held within a careful confidentiality framework throughout evaluation. Concealed laureates receive trophy eligibility, winner logo usage rights, certificates, and full credit across the World Design Rankings, Designer Rankings, and Design Classification Rankings, while the work itself stays within the confidentiality framework, with public yearbooks, exhibitions, press releases, and PR campaigns reserved for open-category laureates.
For A' Design Award winners, Concealed Categories function as a strategic call option on publicity, with recognition ready to activate at the precise moment that serves business objectives. Brands coordinating major launches can synchronize award announcements with retail rollouts, earnings calls, runway debuts, and flagship product reveals, while packaging, sales decks, and PR materials wait prepared in advance featuring the credential ready to deploy. Designers and agencies operating under non-disclosure agreements, white-label arrangements, or government commissions can present verified third-party validation to investors, licensing partners, board members, and procurement teams within NDA-protected meetings, building business momentum while honoring every contractual obligation. Patent-pending innovations gain dated, internationally administered evidence of design existence, supporting prior-art arguments, R&D tax credit substantiation, and intellectual property defense documentation. Trade secrets, proprietary formulations, and sensitive manufacturing processes receive evaluation within a structured confidentiality framework, and on-location review at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility remains available on demand for projects requiring zero digital footprint.
Excellent for Strategic Product Launches
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories offer a strategic advantage for brands coordinating major product launches by allowing you to secure prestigious award recognition for your upcoming products while maintaining complete control over launch timing and market revelation. Perfect for coordinated global releases, embargo-sensitive innovations, and strategic product launches, Concealed Categories ensure your design can be evaluated and awarded without compromising your launch schedule or marketing strategy. You can prepare award-based marketing materials in advance, synchronize your product reveal with retail partners, and maximize the impact of your launch by incorporating A' Design Award recognition at the perfect moment – all while maintaining complete confidentiality until your chosen release date.
Good to Know: If you joined concealed category by mistake, you can apply to have it converted to a non-concealed category, but in most cases award level could be effected since the design shall be voted again and the non-concealed categories are slightly more competitive. Concealed to Regular Conversion service can be ordered at Account Services section and is subject to a fee since the entry shall be voted again.
In certain cases we could move your design to a Concealed Category, such as if you fail to provide us with licenses to publish your work, when and if your design is moved to a Concealed Category, you do not lose your award status; you can still use the award status and logo, and if you are pro-edition entrant you would be still eligible to obtain your award trophy, still eligible to join gala (but we would not publish your design). Indeed many enterprises move their design to Concealed Category on a regular basis, as this has many benefits including but not limited to cases when companies are applying for patents and publishing their designs would void such patent applications, as well as cases where companies present trade secrets in their submissions to better explain their designs but not wish these secrets to be known. Concealed Categories are as prestigious as main categories and apart from non-publishing results, the laurates retain access to almost all other award benefits such as the eligibility to obtain trophy, to obtain and use award winner logo, to use award winner certificate, to obtain yearbook (but of course without your design included as it is concealed), to join gala (for pro-edition entrants), and other events including but not limited to exhibitions, and works in Concealed Categories count equally towards World Design Rankings, Designer Rankings and Design Classification Rankings systems.
If you wish to check open - published design award categories, please refer to the full list of design competition categories, unlike the concealed categories, the open - published categories have their results made available online and are indeed the preferred way to participate in order to create the maximum dissemination and reach for awarded entries. Concealed Design Award categories are as noted below, please click on a category to learn more about these categories, including requirements and voting criteria. Furthermore, we wish to remind that Classic Edition and Vision Edition are not Concealed Categories but are participation methods. If you require your design to be concealed please join the Concealed Categories via any method.
Important information on Concealed Category Participation
Even though the design category is concealed entry due to trade secrets, the entries could potentially be visible online. Especially the following could potentially be visible to public: “Project name, category name, primary function, designer name, and small thumbnail image”. Since the category is “Concealed” Award winners in this category will not receive some of the services that would make the designs publicly visible. The following are the services that are excluded for this category: Yearbook participation, exhibition participation, pr-campaign, premium pr distribution, press releases etc. Some of the services and limited distribution could be provided. Winners keep right to receive trophy and logo usage permissions. Even though your entry is labeled secret and hidden, in cases where publishing your design details is required, such as by law they might get published.
Requesting Change from Concealed Category to Regular Categories
If you submitted your design to a Concealed Category, you might request a change from Concealed Category to Regular Category. There is a fine for this change which is explained in Account Services section and furthermore, there are additional rules and conditions that apply; for example even if you request your entry category to be changed from Concealed Category to Regular Categories, your work cannot be included in the yearbook or in the exhibition or any other mediums that require us to prepare materials in advance, unless the concealed to regular change is completed (not requested but completed) before results announcement. Furthermore not all concealed to regular requests will be considered, we reserve right to refuse change from concealed category to regular category for any reason.
How to Request a Concealed to Regular Change Before Voting Begins
This is Free but Requires Clear Request: If you nominated your entry for the one of the concealed categories which is a special category to hide your results; i.e. submitting to concealed category means your results will not be announced. We cannot change this category for you unless you ask us in a very clean manner to change the category of your work from concealed category to regular category by indicating us clearly the design ID Number and the number of the new (regular) category or to “appropriate category” that we could choose. We cannot change the category of your entry from concealed to regular without a very clear request, as you might understand that there are many people who submit to concealed categories for actually concealing their work, and any ambiguous request will therefore be discarded. We cannot change from concealed category to regular category without participants making a very clear request that the category shall be changed. You need to send an email to our support and clearly state your intention to change your entry from concealed category to another category if you wish to change your entry participation category. Any request must be done 3 days prior to voting, we reserve right to refuse requests that are made after this time.
How to Request a Concealed to Regular Change After Results Announcement
This Change is Not Free, Furthermore it is not always possible. Before requesting this change, you must get a confirmation that we would do the change by contacting us first and indicating design ID, new category request and reason for change. Upon careful consideration we will reply, our reply will be final. If approved you can pay the Concealed to Regular Change Fee from the Account Services page and your category will be updated. However to remind you even if your category is updated from concealed to regular, we reserve right to exclude you from some services that might require advance planning or design, for example we will most definitely exclude your work from yearbook, and it is also possible we will exclude it from exhibition as well.
License and Declaration Framework for Concealed Entries
A' Design Award's License and Declaration system ensures that when winners transition from Concealed Categories to public recognition, their innovations are exclusively showcased alongside other verified, legitimate designs. This careful curation through licensing requirements means your award-winning work is only associated with authentic, original innovations from creators who have proven rights to their designs. For brands managing strategic product launches or sensitive releases, this creates a pristine promotional environment where your success is celebrated among peers who maintain equally high standards of originality and legal compliance, protecting your brand's reputation while maximizing the impact of your award recognition.
Further Security Features
A' Design Award demonstrates its commitment to security through proactive engagement with global security experts and researchers, continuously strengthening its digital infrastructure. Our collaborative approach to identifying and addressing potential vulnerabilities is designed to provide a high level of protection for participants' sensitive information and intellectual property. By leveraging the expertise of international security professionals and implementing their insights, we aim to maintain a robust, continuously evolving security framework that safeguards your valuable design assets and confidential information throughout your award journey. However, no system is completely safe, and absolutely all digital systems can be hacked. For this reason, we remind big brands and corporations that we also offer On-Location Review at Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility for products and projects that are truly top-secret or under strict embargo for media. We also invite you to learn more about our Intellectual Property Guidelines.
Variable-Salted Multi-Layer Hashing
A' Design Awards protects account passwords using an advanced multi-later security method. When you create a password, A' Design Award's system adds a unique random code (called a 'salt') to your password, mutating it, the salt, which is used for mutating your password is different for every user, then we encrypt the salted password multiple times. This salted and encrypted version then gets encrypted again, creating multiple layers of protection. It is like having your password written in invisible ink, then putting that paper in a sealed envelope; even if someone somehow opened the envelope, they still couldn't read the invisible writing. This makes it significantly harder for third parties to bruteforce and crack passwords even if they somehow accessed the database, because each user's password is protected with its own unique encryption pattern that is non-repeating, reverse hash tables cannot be used for reading user password, adding a further level of protection.
Secure Protocol
A' Design Award's submission platform uses HTTPS. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) creates an encrypted connection between your web browser and A' Design Awards' servers - imagine it as a secure tunnel through which all data travels. When you submit designs, login details, or browse the platform, HTTPS ensures all information is scrambled during transmission, making it unreadable to anyone trying to intercept it. It is like sending your design materials through an armored vehicle instead of regular mail - even if someone intercepts the vehicle, they can't unlock the doors to see what's inside. This is particularly important when uploading valuable design assets or accessing account information, as it deters cybercriminals from capturing sensitive data while it's moving between your computer and the award platform's servers. It does not stop hacking gods working for governments, but for that we have SCIF evaluation as an alternative add-on entry method, which creates the highest level security possible.
Iron Maiden
A' Design Awards employs Iron Maiden protection functions - think of them as smart security guards that monitor and control traffic to the platform. Using a 'leaky bucket' algorithm, the Iron Maiden functions detect and block suspicious behavior, like someone trying to guess passwords too quickly or making too many rapid requests. Iron Maiden works like a nightclub bouncer with a strict entry policy: if someone tries to rush the door too many times in a certain amount of time, they are automatically blocked, first temporarily and then permanently. The Iron Maiden system allows normal user activity to flow naturally (like water slowly dripping from a bucket), but when it detects aggressive or automated attack patterns (like water rushing in too fast), it immediately restricts access. Iron Maiden system was designed to help prevent brute force attacks, where hackers try to break in by overwhelming the system with repeated attempts, while ensuring legitimate users can access the platform smoothly. Iron Maiden functions also enforce strict access controls, with the aim to ensure users can only reach the parts of the system they're authorized to use. Iron Maiden cannot stop the gods of hacking, but our remote on-location evaluation in secure facility can, with a SCIF, there is no digital footprint and we recommend this option for highly classified projects, including government works as well as top-secret products not yet released to market.
On-Location Review at Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility
For innovations requiring the highest level of security, A' Design Award further offers an exceptional add-on service: evaluation in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). This ultra-secure environment provides maximum protection for groundbreaking designs, revolutionary products, and highly sensitive innovations. Perfect for military/defense contractors that aim to present protective technologies (reminding you that we do not allow weapons for nomination), as well as for companies with breakthrough technologies, or brands preparing game-changing product launches, A' Design Award's On-Location Design Review at Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility Service ensures your design is evaluated in a controlled-access facility with zero information leakage. This premium security option demonstrates our commitment to protecting your most valuable intellectual property while still allowing you to gain prestigious recognition for your innovations. Please note that On-Location Review at Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility Service is not automatically provided as part of Concealed Category entry, however it is available on demand. To learn more read about On-Site Voting in a Remote Secure Facility Service at our Account Services page.
Concealed Category Use Case Scenarios
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories serve a confidential recognition pathway for designs that cannot yet be publicly disclosed due to intellectual property protection, strategic launch timing, contractual obligations, regulatory review, privacy requirements, and/or proprietary business considerations. Each grouping below represents situations where Concealed Categories provide a thoughtfully designed framework. We provide some examples below for your kind considerations:
Intellectual Property Protection Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories are designed for designs progressing through intellectual property protection stages, where formal recognition coexists with the careful timing required by patent, trademark, and design registration processes. Within this context, patent pending entrants join the award, and may later request their entries to be published regularly or partially disclosed; A' Design Award provides options for Limited Disclosure, Full Disclosure without Images, as well as opportunity to move to regular categories. All these are additional add-on services; limited disclosure, full disclosure and category change, are subject to your explicit confirmation, and at our sole discretion we may keep your entry disclosed, depending on the situation.
- Industrial designs in patent-pending status awaiting filing completion
- Designs progressing through active patent prosecution phases
- Submissions approaching international patent treaty filing deadlines
- Works with pending design registrations across multiple jurisdictions
- Designs awaiting trademark and trade dress protections
- Submissions tied to provisional patent applications
- Innovations awaiting industrial design registration through international systems
- Designs incorporating proprietary methodologies seeking patent protection
- Works subject to invention disclosure agreements within research institutions
- Inventions positioned for utility model registration in applicable jurisdictions
- Designs entering grace periods for novelty preservation
Trade Secret and Proprietary Knowledge Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories accommodate submissions where the explanation of design merit involves proprietary formulations, processes, and methodologies that benefit from preservation within confidentiality. In general, we ask entrants not to disclose trade secrets, however sometimes entrants may themselves mistakenly do so; given such cases, A' Design Award, at its sole discretion may potentially conceal the entry to benefit you (however as you could understand, we do not legally promise to do so; in general we would publish your text, so this refers to edge cases where we could think that disclosing your information may not be beneficial, we may miss some cases and we may have false positives; if we catch such a case, and we think the information contains trade secrets, we may at our sole discretion, decide to conceal the works for your interest). If we conceal your details, then you may have option to request limited disclosure, subject to further conditions or you may remove the trade secret data and update your presentation and request movement to regular categories. Trade Secret and Proprietary Knowledge Contexts include;
- Proprietary formulations within cosmetics, fragrances, and personal care
- Pharmaceutical compositions and drug delivery mechanisms
- Food science innovations and culinary formulations
- Beverage formulations and fermentation processes
- Manufacturing techniques representing competitive advantages
- Material composition innovations and specialized alloys
- Production methodologies developed through extensive research investment
- Algorithms embedded within physical products and devices
- Software architecture supporting hardware functionality
- Proprietary user experience research methodologies
- Specialized tooling and machinery configurations
- Acoustic and audio engineering signatures
- Sensor calibration profiles within consumer electronics
- Coating technologies and surface treatment processes
Press Embargo and Strategic Launch Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories support products positioned for coordinated market entry, where award recognition aligns with carefully orchestrated launch schedules and territorial release strategies. Within this context, large enterprises and brands join A' Design Award via Concealed Categories and request Concealed Category to Regular Category Conversion Service once they are ready to disclose their award recognition. This is very useful for PR agencies, large brands, and enterprises; you want to win the award but want to announce on specific days; for example before markets close or open, as part of a global PR campaign. For this case, make sure your entry is perfect, ready for print and large scale reproduction (high resolution and clean images), and be compliant with entry guidelines. Request voting in concealed categories, and after results announcement, a few days before your global campaign initiate Concealed Category to Regular Category conversion request.
- Consumer electronics positioned for flagship product reveals
- Automotive concepts and production vehicles prior to public unveiling
- Fashion collections positioned for runway debuts
- Furniture and lighting collections planned for trade fair launches
- Technology products synchronized with developer conference reveals
- Hospitality and resort designs prior to public opening
- Restaurant and retail concepts before grand opening events
- Seasonal collection releases requiring coordinated timing
- Holiday and gift season product preparations
- Cross-territory launch coordination programs
- Limited edition releases with timed availability windows
- Subscription service designs prior to public rollout
- Streaming platform interface designs prior to launch
- Mobile application designs prior to app store release
Privacy and Personal Discretion Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories welcome projects where client identity itself benefits from discretion, allowing prestigious commissions to receive recognition while honoring the privacy expectations of those who commissioned them. This is most common for architecture and interior design projects, for example when you design the interiors or structure of a famous person's house or a politicians house or a building for government; some projects require privacy for security reasons so it is perfectly possible that you join the A' Design Award but prefer the project images not to be published. You can use our limited disclosure service for such projects, where we can publish, at your selection, for example simply the fact that you had won; you can also note the project name, project function, yearbook details at your discretion (we may deny some requests or ask you to double confirm them based on further privacy concerns).
- Architecture commissioned by public figures preferring residential privacy
- Interior designs for celebrity residences and private estates
- Private aviation interiors and bespoke jet configurations
- Yacht and superyacht interior commissions
- Royal commissions and aristocratic projects
- Diplomatic residences and embassy commissions
- High-net-worth individual commissions requiring discretion
- Family compounds and multi-generational private estates
- Wellness retreats designed for confidential clientele
- Private spiritual and meditation spaces
- Personal museums housing private art collections
- Bespoke timepieces and jewelry for individual clients
- Custom apparel and atelier commissions
Contractual and Non-Disclosure Agreement Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories serve creative work bound by confidentiality agreements, where contractual obligations shape the handling of attribution and disclosure across the design lifecycle. For example you did creative work for a large enterprise, you have a contract with them so you have proof that you did work, but they ask you to not publish for any reason the brand has including their strategical perspective. You can join A' Design Award's concealed categories, and we can simply keep it hush. You gain access to Certificates, Rankings and several other benefits but your winning work is kept closed.
- Undersigned design work where commissioning entities hold publication rights
- Ghost-designed projects performed under work-for-hire arrangements
- White-label design services where attribution belongs to brand owners
- Subcontracted creative work bound by primary contractor agreements
- Joint development agreements with publication restrictions
- Designs commissioned through PR Agency client relationships where licenses remain pending
- Works produced under exclusive licensing arrangements
- Consultancy outputs bound by client confidentiality terms
- Open innovation contributions with confidentiality clauses
- Designs from creative talent operating within retained agency models
Regulatory and Approval-Pending Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories provide a pathway for designs progressing through formal approval and certification processes, where the timing of public disclosure aligns with regulatory milestones. Our concealed category entries are good for products that are not yet cleared for market where their advertising is not legally permitted. Once you obtain regulatory confirmations, we can take action for limited disclosure or potential category change.
- Medical devices awaiting regulatory clearance
- Pharmaceutical packaging in clinical evaluation phases
- Aerospace components under certification review
- Automotive components pending safety validation
- Children's products awaiting compliance verification
- Building components awaiting code certification
- Electronic devices awaiting wireless and emissions certification
- Personal protective equipment awaiting standards verification
- Food contact materials awaiting safety certification
- Sustainable materials awaiting environmental certification
- Toy designs awaiting age-grading certification
- Cosmetic products awaiting market approval in regulated territories
Corporate Strategic Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories tailor recognition to sensitive business scenarios, where the timing of disclosure intersects with corporate strategy, investor relations, and organizational transitions. Depending on the quality of your presentation (public categories require very good high resolution images suitable for print and large displays) we may later consider your products for public categories, at your request (not all requests are approved), alternatively limited textual disclosure may also be possible for proof and validation.
- Pre-IPO product portfolios with disclosure timing considerations
- Merger and acquisition sensitive design portfolios
- Internal benchmarking submissions evaluating creative output
- Competitive intelligence and market positioning research
- Research and development outputs under internal evaluation
- Designs for products awaiting board approval
- Portfolio submissions during corporate restructuring
- Designs from divisions undergoing strategic review
- Innovation pipelines for venture-backed enterprises
- Designs supporting upcoming territorial expansion
- Designs aligned with confidential business model evolution
- Acquisition target portfolio submissions during due diligence
Collaborative and Multi-Party Authorship Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories embrace projects with complex ownership structures, where multiple stakeholders share authorship or licensing rights along with associated disclosure preferences. Imagine you did interior of a house but the architect does not approve your participation; or you did wheels of a car, and the car brand wishes to keep the product hidden, or you designed icons for an app interface, but app is not yet released to market, in such co-work or partial work situations A' Design Award's concealed categories help you make your entry for your part, without publishing the work, respecting your team (however in such cases, we would require you to disclose exactly which part of the work you did). If you later obtain permission from team members, it may be possible to request change to regular category or for limited disclosure (subject to also our approval).
- Multi-party design collaborations where one stakeholder requests confidentiality
- Cross-cultural design partnerships with regional confidentiality requirements
- Academic and institutional collaborations with publication restrictions
- Industry-university research projects with controlled disclosure
- Designs incorporating licensed third-party intellectual property
- Joint ventures with mutual non-disclosure provisions
- Open innovation programs with member confidentiality requirements
- Co-creation initiatives with brand secrecy provisions
- Designs from creative collectives with internal disclosure agreements
- Cross-disciplinary collaborations spanning regulated industries
Industry-Specific Sensitivity Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories cater to sectors with inherent confidentiality requirements, where the nature of the work itself calls for thoughtful restraint in public visibility. (Given these contexts, please note that we only allow defensive and protective technologies, weapons are not allowed for A' Design Award in general - dual use tech is generally allowed if the specific presentation is focused on the positive use; such as a kitchen knife is allowed, a humanoid robot is allowed, rambo knife is not allowed, killer robot drones are not allowed, to give you some examples). For these categories, we recommend complete concealment, and/or textual limited disclosure.
- Defense and military equipment designs
- Diplomatic and embassy architectural projects
- Banking and financial service product designs
- Cryptographic hardware and security products
- Cybersecurity device interfaces and configurations
- Religious and ceremonial artifacts with cultural sensitivity
- Healthcare facility designs with patient privacy considerations
- Correctional facility and judicial space designs
- Critical infrastructure components
- Government identification and document designs
- Aviation security equipment
- Border control and customs technology
- Voting equipment and democratic process tools
- Forensic laboratory equipment
- Emergency response and disaster relief equipment with operational sensitivity
Public Relations and Brand Management Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories address scenarios where the dynamics of agency-client relationships and brand positioning carry commercial timing considerations. Sometimes you make projects for large brands but they may have licensing agreements and NDAs, and sometimes you may have for example improved prior work (i.e. redesign; here you want to show redesign by showing what was before and what is now; however what was before is someone else's 3rd party IP, so it is technically not publishable by you, as such A' Design Award's concealed categories is a good choice for these kind of situations).
- Projects where client relationships themselves remain confidential
- Designs that intersect with ongoing commercial negotiations
- Portfolio submissions from agencies during transition periods
- Designs for clients undergoing rebranding initiatives
- Works involving partnerships with careful disclosure protocols
- Submissions from agencies managing diverse client portfolios
- Projects for clients in industries with confidentiality preferences
- Designs supporting confidential market entry strategies
- Works from agencies during talent transitions
- Designs from creative teams during reorganization periods
Personal and Creative Discretion Contexts
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories accept submissions reflecting individual creative considerations, where designers exercise thoughtful curation over their public portfolios. Sometimes, designers want to keep their works hidden, for many reasons, including but not limited to have potential for future commercialization. A' Design Award's concealed categories are useful for such cases.
- Designs by individuals preferring private recognition
- Submissions from designers exercising portfolio curation
- Works exploring experimental directions before public positioning
- Designs created during career transitions
- Personal projects awaiting strategic introduction
- Educational and academic submissions with institutional restrictions
- Student work submitted with institutional confidentiality
- Designs created during sabbatical research periods
- Side projects from designers employed under exclusivity agreements
Specialized and Edge-Case Contexts and Politics
A' Design Award's Concealed Categories extend to works that defy simple categorization, where cultural, ceremonial, or humanitarian considerations shape the handling of public visibility. In addition to cultural contexts, sometimes works are professionally made but highly political; we don't allow politics in general, but our aim is to recognize the professional contributions, sometimes, if a work is highly professional and political, we may at our discretion choose to conceal the work, yet honor it in concealed categories. Sometimes, works may be concealed because they may not be legal or "good fit" internationally, in such cases, concealed categories allow recognition, without publicity risks. In general, if we deem a work to be political in nature, we may move it to concealed categories, this movement would generally be one way. For works that are not political, but are subject to government review, once government reviews are made and approvals are granted, we may at your request and our discretion, help you move your work to public categories and/or help with limited disclosure.
- Designs awaiting cultural property review
- Heritage restoration projects with cultural sensitivity
- Indigenous design collaborations with traditional knowledge protocols
- Designs involving environmental compliance verification
- Conservation and archaeological reproduction works
- Designs supporting humanitarian and crisis response operations
- Memorial and commemorative designs awaiting community consultation
- Designs incorporating recently deceased contributors with estate considerations
- Limited release commemorative editions with controlled disclosure timing
- Designs created for confidential exhibitions and curated retrospectives
- Works produced under embargo for academic publication
- Designs awaiting cultural property repatriation review
Benchmarking
In addition to all these examples above, sometimes brands join A' Design Award simply to benchmark the quality of projects; for example a Government can join with a work done for them to benchmark the project's quality, in this case, the intention to join is not publicity but truly independent 3rd party benchmarking; indeed many large brands join A' Design Award via Concealed Categories simply to test how well the designs are before they are released to the market.
A' Design Award Concealed Categories offer internationally prestigious, third-party validation of your design excellence without public disclosure or with controlled disclosure at your discretion.
The A' Design Award's Concealed Categories offer real, internationally prestigious, third-party validation of your design excellence without public disclosure, letting you control precisely when, how, to whom, and even whether the recognition is ever revealed. Your silent credential transforms your design award victory into a multi-purpose strategic asset by shielding your innovation pipeline from competitor surveillance, counterfeiters, and design frontrunners, and the A' Design Award's Concealed Categories functions as a call option on publicity that can be timed to product launches, earnings calls, IPOs, or crisis-recovery moments. A' Design Award Concealed Categories supports M&A premiums, IP-backed lending, R&D tax credits, patent novelty defense, and litigation evidence through dated, third-party records; it enables agencies, white-label manufacturers and stealth startups to demonstrate credentialed excellence under NDA without breaching client confidentiality. A' Design Award Concealed Categories serves as a neutral internal KPI for benchmarking, designer retention, and budget defense free of office politics and provides legally compliant participation pathways for regulated, sovereign, ITAR/EAR-restricted, or geopolitically sensitive work that public awards cannot accommodate, in essence converting your design recognition into an opt-in, time-released, strategically deployable instrument of corporate, financial, legal, and creative leverage. You may order Controlled Disclosure Service or Concealed Category to Regular Category Service when and if you want to announce your results.
Competitive Intelligence Counter-Surveillance
Every major brand has a competitive-intelligence team scraping public award entries to forecast competitor roadmaps. Concealed entry denies them this radar. Think of it as the design-strategy equivalent of going dark on signal traffic before a major operation. Competitors monitor public award databases as intelligence sources to map rivals' innovation pipelines. Public award entry is a form of involuntary disclosure to competitive intelligence teams. A' Design Award's Concealed entries break this signal. You receive validation without leaking pipeline data to surveillance. Moreover, with multiple concealed entries, your company can deliberately maintain pipeline opacity. Even partial disclosure (Results Disclosure Service) can be used to release deliberate signals, choosing which products to validate publicly and which to keep concealed shapes competitor perception of your strategy. Companies whose innovation pipeline is publicly tracked become predictable to competitors and dependent on PR cycles. Concealed A' Design Award entries inject deliberate opacity into the public innovation signal, making the brand harder to anticipate, harder to copy preemptively, and stronger over time. When you win a public award competitors begin reverse-engineering immediately but when you join and win A' Design Award's Concealed Awards, competitors generally learn your product at market launch, when knockoff lead time is shortest, as such you may have direct revenue protection through opacity.
Conditional / Contingent Marketing
The Concealed A' Design Award has both intrinsic value (trophy, logo, ranking points) and option value (the right to reveal in optimal future conditions). Think this; from your perspective; if product launches successfully, we announce its results. If it pivots, we don't publicize it. This conditional logic is impossible with regular awards and yields a fundamentally different risk profile for marketing investment but with A' Design Awards, you have two pathways; the Platinum Edition entry method where your award is announced only if it wins Platinum or Gold Status (moved to concealed categories if not Platinum or Gold A' Design Award Winner) or the Concealed A' Design Award Categories that directly keep you concealed and give higher control. Moreover, with A' Design Award's Concealed Categories your marketing teams can legally claim "award-winning innovation coming soon" or run a coming-soon teaser campaign without specifying which award or which product, building anticipation and capturing email list signups before any disclosure. The A' Design Award proof is real; the public detail is delayed.
Launch-Day Headline Upgrade
Awards typically arrive when the awarding body chooses. Concealed-then-converted awards arrive when you choose; A' Design Award's Concealed Categories allows you to have award reveal to be timed against earnings calls, product launches, executive announcements, or competitor events, multiplying PR impact by stacking news beats. A normal product launch press release earns one media cycle. A launch coordinated with simultaneous unveiling of a previously-banked award earns two cycles plus syndicated trade press. The concealed-then-converted flow effectively doubles the launch PR yield from the same product. Knowing your A' Design Award is locked in (even if concealed) allows trade-show booths, retail planograms, packaging artwork, and marketing collateral to be printed in advance with the credential included. The reveal day requires no scramble, everything ships pre-validated. In finance, when information leaks, frontrunners profit ahead of the actual trade. In design, public award entries trigger "design frontrunning", competitors who see the validation rush competing products to market. Concealed A' Design Award entries deny this frontrunning channel. Your launch arrives unanticipated.
Designer Golden-Handcuff Architecture
Companies struggle to retain elite designers under exclusivity clauses because such clauses prevent designers from publishing portfolios which results in career suicide. By submitting designer work to A' Design Award's Concealed Categories, the employer offers career-defining credentials without breaking exclusivity, dramatically reducing the "talent leakage premium" employers pay to retain top creative talent. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories thus acts as a measurable HR cost reduction, moreover you may reward your designers internally with verified external prestige without putting their names on a public award page that becomes a recruiter target list, creating HR retention arbitrage.
IP-Collateralized Lending & Insurance Uplift
Sophisticated lenders are increasingly accepting intellectual property as collateral. Your independent third-party concealed A' Design Award may materially elevate the appraised value of your IP portfolio in IP-backed loans, royalty securitizations, and IP insurance underwriting. Concealed status means you can pledge this asset without losing market timing advantage. Please kindly note this is not financial advice, consult to your consulting company first before you take a decision on this point.
M&A Due Diligence
When selling your company, division, or product portfolio, buyer's counsel scrutinizes every claim. A concealed A' Design Award appears in the data room as third-party validated metric for products and projects that cannot otherwise be publicly cited, thus concealed category recognitions gained through the A' Design Award can directly support a higher acquisition multiple. The A' Design Award literally pays for itself in deal premium. Especially during Series B/C/D rounds, IPO roadshows or M&A discussions, founders can present a roster of A' Design Award–verified Concealed wins under standard mutual NDAs. This converts confidential design quality into quantifiable factors for term-sheet negotiations all without exposing trade secrets to leak risk. On the other hand, sometimes in ongoing M&A reviews, FTC/EC merger investigations, or competitive complaints, publicly trumpeting design dominance can backfire by appearing to claim market power. Concealed A' Design Awards let you collect proof of excellence without arming opposing counsel with quotable claims of dominance.
IPO Quite Period Compatibility
SEC Rule 135 and the "quiet period" prohibit material public announcements during pre-IPO windows. Concealed A' Design Awards let companies bank our independent third-party validation without triggering offering-period disclosure obligations. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories is a highly valuable strategy that's compliant with securities law during the most valuable corporate moment of a company's lifecycle; your initial public offering.
Earnings-Call & Stock-Price Synchronization
For publicly traded companies, the timing of the prestigious "A' Design Award won" disclosure can be calibrated to coincide with earnings releases, analyst days, or strategic announcements, generating documented stock-price uplift cycles. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories are thus a treasury-friendly use of communications timing. With A' Design Award and A' Design Award's Concealed Categories your public company can stage Concealed-to-Regular disclosure to coincide with earnings narratives, investor days or strategic announcements thus converting design recognition into share-price catalysts at the exact moment of your choice. Moreover, for publicly listed companies, scraped award databases function as forward-looking-statement proxies for activist investors, short sellers, and sell-side analysts. Generally public design award entry for an unannounced product is a de facto product pipeline disclosure while A' Design Award's Concealed Categories provide a quiet, structural MNPI compliance benefit that no IR officer is currently itemizing on the benefits ledger.
R&D Tax Credit & Innovation Grant Substantiation
A' Design Award's Concealed award certificates are audit-grade third-party innovation evidence that supports R&D tax credit defenses (US §174, UK SME R&D scheme, UK R&D relief, US §41, French CIR, Australian R&DTI, etc.), patent box regime qualifications, and government innovation grants, without requiring the underlying design to be public. Corporate tax departments rarely know this leverage exists and you can use A' Design Award to obtain these benefits. Please kindly note that this is not financial advice and you should always consult your consulting agency to verify whether you may be eligible for such benefits and credits. Moreover, for high-value design IP, insurance underwriting (IP infringement coverage, design-cost coverage) can be supported by third-party validation. Concealed awards provide underwriters with objective evidence without compromising the secrecy of the insured asset. In jurisdictions offering R&D tax credits, substantiation of "innovation" is required. Your third-party-verified international and prestigious A' Design Award is high-quality evidence of qualifying innovation, useful to tax controversy and audit defense, regardless of whether the work is public. Finally, government grants, EU Horizon programs, foundation grants frequently weight design excellence. Concealed A' Design Awards helps you substantiate your excellence in grant applications without prematurely publishing your work, projects or products.
Crisis-Communications Reserve
A' Design Award's concealed award functions financially like a call option on your own publicity. You pay a premium now (entry fee) for the right, but not obligation, to exercise public recognition later, at the moment of maximum value. For example, if your brand or company suffers reputational damage (recall, scandal, market downturn), concealed A' Design Award wins can be selectively converted to public ones to inject positive third-party validation at the moment it's most needed. This is the comms equivalent of a strategic petroleum reserve. PR teams should treat concealed A' Design Award conversions as a reserve of positive news that can be deployed during reputational downturns such as product recalls, leadership scandals, earnings misses. Releasing a previously-concealed award reveal mid-crisis shifts narrative tone without forcing fabricated content.
Agency New-Business and Pitch Differentiation
For creative agencies, concealed A' Design Award wins materially raise "awards-per-FTE" and "awards-per-year" KPIs that show up in agency rankings and pitch decks, without ever forcing the agency to name the client. This is a structural advantage in winning new business. This is especially relevant because due to licensing reasons, trade secrets or business decisions many large clients may prohibit agencies from entering publicly disclosed awards, here A' Design Award provides a valuable, internationally recognized and highly prestigious solution. Moreover, creative agencies compete for business primarily on portfolio strength, yet most of their best work is bound by client NDAs. Concealed A' Design Award wins let agencies present a credential count ("23 international design awards, 11 confidential") that signals depth without breaching any single client's confidentiality. Moreover World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings include concealed wins. Your design company can climb the rankings silently, building aggregate ranking credibility (which is public) while specific designs remain hidden. You go up the ladder without disclosing important client IP.
B2B Sales Enablement Under NDA
In enterprise B2B sales (especially design/engineering services, manufacturing partners, suppliers), A' Design Award's Controlled Results Disclosure Service lets you produce a verification page linkable in NDA-protected sales decks. You can prove your work won an A' Design Award without ever showing the work itself. This is a closing weapon for procurement-led sales cycles. Moreover, your concealed A' Design Award shown under NDA in buyer meetings gives pre-launch evidence of consumer-grade design merit, often the difference between front-of-store endcap and back-aisle obscurity.
Litigation & IP Defense Posture
Dated, third-party-validated documentation of your design at a specific moment in time supports prior-art arguments, independent-creation defenses, and trade dress claims. Even concealed, the record exists with timestamp. The dated submission to A' Design Award via Concealed Categories constitutes documented evidence of design existence at a specific time. This is litigation gold for IP disputes, particularly trade-dress, unregistered design rights, and counterfeit cases. The A' Design Award's Concealed entries preserve this evidentiary value without the disclosure that would void patent novelty. Moreover, via Proof of Creation Service, provided free of charge to laureates, A' Design Award helps you support your proof of design paternity claims better. Furthermore remember that industries where patent rights determine (pharma, fintech, medtech, semiconductors, biotech-adjacent design) market success, face a hidden danger; public award entries can, in some jurisdictions, count as novelty-destroying disclosure but A' Design Award's Concealed Category entries reduce such risk while still capturing external validation and this could be the difference between an enforceable patent and an invalidated one. Also, in IP disputes, your A' Design Award Concealed Award entry produces a timestamped, internationally administered, third-party-witnessed record of your design's existence, form, and attribution at a precise date and few internal documentation regimes can match the credibility of an independent international award organization's records such as that of the A' Design Awards, it is independent reports vs your own documentation. In addition if your competitor announces something similar to your in-progress design, your concealed A' Design Award recognition creates dated, third-party-verified proof of prior independent recognition of your version, defusing "they copied us" narratives in the press and on social media before they begin.
Licensing Premium
When licensing your design IP to manufacturers, distributors, or partners, third-party validation such as the highly respected and internationally prestigious A' Design Awards may help support higher royalty rates, lower upfront discounts, and stronger non-compete terms. You can reveal the concealed A' Design Award recognition under NDA to elevate the licensee's perceived risk-adjusted return which may provide a measurable lift on contract value.
Counterfeit Suppression by Obscurity
Publicly-awarded products promoted online quickly get cloned before official launch. When your work wins A' Design Award's Concealed Categories, it provides you with a stealth shipping window, allowing legitimate distribution to lock in before clones appear. For categories vulnerable to counterfeiting (luxury, fashion, consumer electronics), establishing dated, third-party recognition of authentic design pre-launch strengthens enforcement actions when counterfeits inevitably appear. A' Design Award's concealed entry preserves this evidentiary value without giving counterfeiters a public preview. Public award announcements are tracked by counterfeit operations as signals of likely high-margin products to clone. A' Design Award's Concealed Award status delays counterfeiter awareness until you have established sufficient distribution, brand presence, and legal preparation to fight back. This is a direct gross-margin protection mechanism.
Subsidiary Architecture
For brand portfolios where the parent company's relationship to a sub-brand is itself confidential (private-label retail, OEM relationships, holding-company structures), concealed A' Design Award recognitions validate your design and projects without exposing your corporate architecture.
Customer Loyalty and Inner-Circle Marketing
For luxury, B2B, and enterprise sales, top customers can be read-in under NDA to upcoming products with concealed A' Design Award credentials. Your secret disclosure deepens key-account relationships, accelerates upgrade cycles, and supports premium pre-order pricing among the most valuable customers, before the public reveal. You can disclose your A' Design Award privately to whom you choose first; investors, board members, key retail buyers, top distributors, joint-venture partners, sovereign procurement officers. Selective disclosure through A' Design Award may function as a relationship-building asset.
Physical-Security Protection and Private Wealth Discretion
Architects and interior designers serving heads of state, royals, executives, and political figures get a liability; reducing publication route: recognition without exposing client whereabouts or floorplans to bad actors. A' Design Award thus provides confidentiality for your private clients and customers. Ultra-high-net-worth individuals commissioning private architecture, yachts, jets, jewelry, or bespoke commissions want designers credentialed but not credentialed loudly. A' Design Award' Concealed Categories let you satisfy your client's discretion while still building career capital, and you let your client choose a credentialed designer without becoming the subject of public attention. Quiet-Luxury and Anti-Hype Positioning is possible with A' Design Award; gaining validation without publicity is perfect for brands whose equity depends on discretion.
White-Label & Private-Label Manufacturer Recognition
With A' Design Award's Concealed Category entries, contract manufacturers can quietly prove design capability to enterprise clients without alerting other clients to competing engagements. This is a B2B sales enablement asset.
Stealth-Brand Pre-Loading and Pre-Revenue Startup Validation
Your new brand being built in stealth mode can accumulate concealed A' Design Awards before launch, then debut on Day One as already-decorated. With A' Design Award's Concealed Categories, you would accumulate awards in the background and have instant prestige on arrival to market. Moreover, early-stage startups without revenue have nothing to point to in VC pitches except claims. A concealed A' Design Award recognition is independent, third-party, prestige-tier validation that can be shown under NDA during fundraising, which may potentially accelerate term-sheet velocity and supporting higher valuations. Particularly potent for hardware, consumer, and DTC startups pre-launch. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories are also highly valuable for Crowdfunding campaigns; campaign day-one materials can include "A' Design Award Award-Winning Design" badges, which may help improve conversions. Your A' Design Award concealed-category wins can be pre-loaded into launch creatives.
Franchise & Multi-Unit Rollout Pre-Validation
For restaurant, retail, hospitality chains: store designs can be A' Design Award award-validated before franchise sales begin, raising franchise-fee negotiating power without revealing the concept to the open market. Moreover, with A' Design Award's Concealed Categories, you may potentially recruit franchisees, distributors, and retail partners using award credentials in confidential pitches all without your competitors mapping your recruitment pipeline.
Founder and Investor Selective Disclosure
Founders can disclose concealed A' Design Award winner status under NDA to specific investors in pitch settings without broadcasting innovation to the market. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories provide selective leverage in fundraising.
ESG Verification
With A' Design Award's Concealed Categories, ESG-positioned designs can be independently validated before being subjected to the public scrutiny that often catches greenwashing claims. You enter public discourse already armored with third-party recognition. Remember, sustainability reports, DEI reports, and innovation reports want numbers. Concealed awards provide countable, defensible metrics ("38 international design awards within the last 8-years") without forcing product disclosure.
Procurement & B2B Tender Advantages
Companies bidding into B2B tenders (especially government, infrastructure, healthcare) can reference concealed A' Design Award credentials inside RFP responses under tender confidentiality, lifting evaluation scores without revealing product details to competing bidders.
Export Control / ITAR / EAR Compatibility
Defensive technology designers in dual-use industries cannot publicize many products without potentially violating export-control regimes. Concealed entry, especially via SCIF (this is a higher level A' Design Award Service where your entry is evaluated in a SCIF, subject to additional costs) enables prestige accumulation under legal compliance with US ITAR, EAR, EU dual-use, and Wassenaar regulations. Your legal departments will recognize this as significant value. Remember A' Design Award does not award weapons, but dual use technologies that have positive social value are awarded and A' Design Award's Concealed Categories helps you nominate these projects without risk of disclosure, especially if SCIF service is ordered.
Stealth-Venture Validation
Corporates running stealth ventures, skunkworks, or sub-brands often want external design validation without exposing the venture or its connection to the parent. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories allow stealth-mode product validation that can be revealed later, either tied or untied to the parent brand, preserving full strategic flexibility on branding architecture.
Geopolitical and Cultural Risk Containment
Certain type of products, communication design or projects may offend a specific government, religious community, group of people or a regulatory body. Concealed A' Design Award recognition provides validation without provoking offended third-parties. Moreover, different markets have different disclosure rules, embargo customs, and regulatory windows. Concealed-then-selectively-disclosed allows your product to be revealed differently per territory, at your discretion; A' Design Award would by default conceal the entry, you may use Controlled Disclosure Service to make certain aspects of your design publicly accessible, when you want it. For brands in sectors that attract activist or geopolitical attention (extractives, defense-adjacent, controversial materials), a public award can attract unwanted scrutiny yet A' Design Award's concealed gives you credit without the political cost.
Heritage Construction
Whether public or concealed, winning the A' Design Award helps you accumulate corporate and institutional heritage.
Stage-Gate Process Integration
Companies running disciplined stage-gate product development can institute "external validation" as a gate criterion. Concealed-category award status becomes a documentable, repeatable, comparable input across products, turning your A' Design Award victory into a management-system instrument.
Internal Benchmarking Without Internal Bias
Your brand and institution creates many internal projects, each competing with one another, but how do you actually know which project is the best? Submitting work for independent evaluation at A' Design Award via Concealed Categories removes the political bias of internal reviews. The A' Design Award outcome becomes a neutral arbiter in internal R&D resource-allocation debates, you fund and proceed with the best projects, not the ones that have best connections. This helps your enterprise and institution get more meritocratic and efficient. Moreover, internal innovation programs and corporate venture units face periodic budget scrutiny. An external, prestigious, dated validation defends design-budget continuity in finance reviews. With A' Design Award's Concealed Categories, you can say; "Here is independent proof our spend is producing world-class output, even though we haven't launched yet.". Finally, design teams need measurable performance metrics. Public award wins are too rare and too public to use as routine KPIs. A' Design Award Concealed awards can populate your design-team scorecards without the political complications of publicizing every internal product evaluation. A' Design Award's Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze ranking system, applied to a concealed portfolio, becomes a third-party-calibrated internal KPI for evaluating creative-team performance, justifying R&D budgets to the CFO, allocating resources between divisions, and supporting equity-grant decisions for design talent. With A' Design Awards' Concealed Categories, large enterprises with multiple divisions can submit competing internal projects to benchmark against international standards. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories creates internal competitive culture without external embarrassment for non-winners, a powerful HR and innovation-culture instrument. Inside large organizations, beautiful design work is often killed by internal politics, sometimes the finance department kills your project, other times the legal department kills your product, and worst, and most of the times; it is a rival division that kills your idea; here obtaining an external prestigious validation such as the A' Design Award, in concealed categories, gives your design a shield; your work becomes harder to kill once an external authority has recognized it, that said remember we don't allow designers to submit projects without permissions from companies; so make sure to get legal permission to join the A' Design Award from your department head.
Quiet-Period and Embargo Compliance Default
Regulated industries (pharma, finance, public companies) often lack permission structures to safely participate in public competitions. A' Design Award's Concealed Categories bring default-compliant participation pathway; you can promote and publicize your already awarded product once you obtain regulatory compliance. In regulated industries, you legally cannot advertise an unapproved product. A' Design Award's Concealed categories let you get the validation now and unlock the marketing only after regulatory clearance, turning award status into a launch accelerator rather than a regulatory risk. Here, please note that we have high level requirements for especially medical products, we may require tests, standard compliance certificates and/or pre-approvals before awarding entries, especially for medical products.
Sovereign and Government Project Compatibility
State-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth-owned brands and government-commissioned works often cannot publicly compete in commercial awards for diplomatic or national-security reasons. Concealed A' Design Award status creates a sovereign-compatible recognition pathway that public award categories cannot offer.
Controlled Disclosure Service and Concealed to Regular Category Conversion Service
Here we have 2 concepts to note; Concealed Categories vs Regular Categories, and the "Results Disclosure Service". "Results Disclosure Service" is a distinct service made available to "Concealed Category" winners only, and is distinct from moving your design to a public category. When you move your design to a public category, then the design is promoted as usual, this includes PR campaign, interviews, press releases, profiles, media coverage, and 188+ more services. On the other hand "Results Disclosure Service" allows you to make "Limited Disclosure" where you choose from a list of available options, which information to make publicly available as a "Verification Page" - think this as a landing page that explains the Concealed Categories and makes limited textual (no images) disclosure of the fact you win award, at its most closed setting, only Profile ID and Design ID is listed, at more open setting the Controlled Disclosure Service allows you to select these options: [Design Name], [Design Primary Function], [Design Yearbook Page Description - Please note that if you left your yearbook text description blank, this is populated synthetically from your design textual details as such we would recommend you to fill this information yourself to control what is disclosed], [Award Status], [Award Category], [Award Year], [Your Brand Name (for Enterprises)], Winner Name : [Your Name and Surname, Overwritten by Name on Certificates Field, Overwritten by Yearbook Page Designer Name(s)], i.e. all this information can be turned on or of from the Public Results Verification, and no images. In this case you would still be in Concealed Category and under Concealed Categories, your images and other information for the specific design are not published. All said, we would like to remind that when works are awarded in concealed categories, it is generally not free to move them to regular categories, in many cases, we may require revoting in new category and this may have additional costs and revoting may further effect your award status. For controlled and limited disclosure under "Results Disclosure Service" (Results Disclosure Service is a distinct service where you choose from list of information what can be disclosed about your design), we especially request a distinct payment so that you do not accidentally click a button and release trade-secrets and/or private information not indented for public consumption, and therefore, for "Results Disclosure Service" your payment confirmation acts as your confirmation of request for public disclosure (and please note that even after your payment, we may decide not to publish certain or all information based on the potential risks, in general we try our best to reach out and discuss with you, however we do not guarantee that we may reach out to you, as in some cases we may simply confirm your request). For "Results Disclosure Service" your images are not shared. Learn more about controlled disclosure under Results Disclosure Service and how to activate it (requires login). Remember, "Results Disclosure Service" is something completely different from Public Categories vs Concealed Categories concept that we explain here, and is intended for Concealed Category laureates who wish to make their award status (partial information, such as simply the fact they won, even without specific status) publicly verifiable.
• If you are having difficulties in choosing the right category, simply register and upload your design and wait for the preliminary checking service which is provided free of charge. Alternatively, you could submit your design for the category 24 for hard to classify projects. If you are wondering why there are 100+ categories, we invite you to read more about it here: networking effects. For an unabridged list of categories, click here.
