About Design Encyclopedia

Design+Encyclopedia
The Design+Encyclopedia is a curated online resource that provides rich, relevant, and up-to-date information on topics related to art, architecture, design, creativity, engineering, innovation and inspiration. It is different from traditional encyclopedias and other online resources, as it is authored by award-winning professional designers, artists, architects and experts in the field. Design+Encyclopedia allows the inclusion of subjective insights and personal experiences, providing a unique perspective on design and designers.

One of the key strengths of the Design+Encyclopedia is its focus on promoting good design, award-winning designers, architects, agencies, brands and companies, which helps to gain recognition and visibility in the design industry and attract new audiences let it be journalists, media and editors or the public, consumers, clients, customers and even peers and collaborators.

By allowing for the inclusion of subjective insights and personal experiences, Design+Encyclopedia adds much needed depth and diversity to the information provided and helps others understand the designer's perspective.

Another strength of the Design+Encyclopedia is that it is written by experts in the field, which ensures that the information provided is trully rich, relevant, and up-to-date. Design+Encyclopedia covers a deep range of topics, from biographical information on notable artists, architects, and designers, to information on emerging design trends and technologies, and on how design may change in response to societal and technological changes.

Participating in the Design+Encyclopedia allows award-winning designers to reach new and further audiences with their work as well as help spread their perception, ideas, insights and knowhow on design. Participating in the Design+Encyclopedia is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in design, especially if you are able to provide concise, precise and accurate design related information that could guide other design professionals, upcoming designers as well as institutions and enterprises. It is so easy to take part. You and your opinion matters. Get started here, and type a few words to have your first entry published today and make yourself relevant, make your opinions count, make people mark your words. We are looking for your notable, reputable, independent and in-depth considerations and ideas to help them spread far and beyond.

The Design+Encyclopedia is freely accessible to anyone, without the need for an A' Design Award account. Contributions to the encyclopedia are open to all registrants of the A’ Design Award and are free of charge. However, each entry must go through a review process to ensure the information provided is accurate and relevant. Entries submitted by award-winning designers, artists and architects will be given special consideration, especially when they pertain to their awarded fields. You have a dedicated page within your A' Design Award Control Panel where you can track and manage your contributions to the encyclopedia.

Award winner designers are suggested to provide design knowhow on their fields as well as to provide a third-person narrative about themselves by creating an entry regarding their own biography or statement of art or design style in the Design Encyclopedia. Non-winners are not permitted to provide their biographies or statements as a part of the encyclopedia but facts and reliable information are welcome from both winners and non-winners.

Since design ideas could sometimes be subjective, there is no requirement for consistency or coherence when talking about the same subject. This further separates and positions the Design Encyclopedia as a rich source of design information which provides views on the same idea from different perspectives, school of thoughts and approaches. To start taking part in the design encyclopedia, please login to access your control panel and access design encyclopedia function from post-competition tab. Enjoy reading the Design Encyclopedia at this page and request for entries on subjects you wish to learn by contacting us.

What is Design+Encyclopedia?
Design+Encyclopedia is a crowdsourced online dictionary for design related terms, personalities and topics. We created Design+Encycolpedia to provide an equal opportunity for designers, artists and architects around the World to share their highly subjective ideas, personal experiences and individual opinions on varying design practices and principles, designs and designers, with the ultimate aim to collect a rich library of definitions, phrases and terms originating from different cultures and featuring unique perspectives. 

Our hope and approach is that the cumulative collection of subjective ideas may ultimately lead to cultivation and synthesis of objective multifaceted perspectives. Design+Encyclopedia entries (1) may have multiple definitions, (2) are subject to review and approval, (3) are required to be sincere, respectful, ethical, polite and humble. Design+Encyclopedia writers are expected to have either great research skills, or be highly knowledgeable in their fields, or be award-winning designers. Definitions provided by award-winning designers and leading experts are highlighted.

Contribute to the Design+Encyclopedia
We are always looking forward to expand the Design+Encyclopedia with meaningful content and entries that relates to art, architecture, design, creativity and inspiration. We are looking for volunteers, professional writers and editors to help us establish a knowledge base for our audience to build upon, to reflect, and get inspired from.

What can you contribute?
If you are an award-winning designer, you can provide us knowhow, techniques and details about your design field. We would be interested in knowing how you create your work, how do you get inspired, what sort of research you undertake, and which design practices and principles you follow. If you are good with research, we are looking forward to expand our design personalities section, especially looking forward to have dictionary entries for prominent designers, artists, architects, painters, sculptors, illustrators of our age as well as classic times.

How can you contribute?
To add your contribution, all you need to do is to visit Add New Design Encyclopedia Entry Page after login, this page also includes the Design+Encyclopedia guidelines and tips. If you do not have an account at A’ Design Award that is required for login, you may register one, free of charge here at A' Design Award - Registration Page.

What makes the Design+Encyclopedia so good?
The Design+Encyclopedia is a specialized, curated, and expert-driven resource that provides a diverse range of perspectives and insights on design-related topics, with a focus on promoting good design, award-winning works, designers, artists, architects and innovators.

1. No Gatekeeping. Design+Encyclopedia is truly an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, minus the gatekeeping. Gatekeeping refers to the practice of limiting access or participation to a particular group, community or activity, based on arbitrary criteria or qualifications. In the context of online hypertext publications collaboratively edited and managed by audiences, gatekeeping refers to the idea that certain individuals and groups have more control over the information that is included and published; many such so called free encyclopedias indicate that "anyone can edit them" but indeed these platforms have arbitrary control mechanisms, tools, moderators, power users and guidelines that make it more difficult for unconnected individuals and groups to contribute, while other platforms have community norms and social dynamics that not only discourage but prevent independent perspectives or voices, the Design+Encyclopedia is truly democratic, inclusive and open. There are no conflicts of interest in Design+Encyclopedia because anyone can truly contribute; you do not like what is being told, you can write your own opinion, and no moderator god will stop you from doing so, no one will limit your right to express yourself, there are no social dynamics to prevent you from sharing your knowhow.

2. New and Original Perspectives: The Design+Encyclopedia allows for the inclusion of subjective opinions and personal experiences of designers, artists, architects, engineers, innovators and other experts in the field, whereas other so called open encyclopedias say that they only provide objective, neutral information - which of course means they disregard any and all other opinions and schools of thought that they do not agree with or have an understanding of, resulting in heavy biases as well as lack of representation. Inclusion of subjective ideas and multiple opinions allows the Design+Encyclopedia to provide a more diverse range of perspectives and insights on a given topic. Indeed, the inclusion of many subjective ideas make the Design+Encyclopedia highly objective in aggregate. Information in Design+Encyclopedia may seem not diverse as the focus is on design, art, architecture, innovation and engineering, but on the contrary since there is such a good focus, the information is very diverse; think it like going to a supermarket vs going to a speciality store; you will find the best equipment, the cheapest as well as the most expensive ones, the simplest as well as the most complex products in the speciality store and not a supermarket; especially not a supermarket run by volunteers who do not understand what they are talking about; people in speciality stores are more likely than volunteers in supermarkets to know what products you need for which reason; this is the analogy we make for underlining the value of the Design+Encyclopedia.

3. Professional Expertise: The Design+Encyclopedia focuses on providing information from experts in the field, particularly award-winning designers, artists, engineers, innovators and architects, with a perspective of good design. The contributions of experts and professionals as well as focus on design industry helps Design+Encyclopedia to have information that is accurate and of high quality. In contrast, many so called free encyclopedias relies on a savage community of often unqualified non-notable uneducated uncultured volunteer editors who may or may not have expertise in a particular field yet still gatekeep the content due to their ego and complex; in many cases these power obsessed volunteers and moderators are unable to understand value within discussed ideas and articles outside their scope as they often lack industry specific niche knowledge that is needed to assess and understand unique viewpoints, yet these community volunteers are still not shy to edit, remove or delete articles in topics that they have no understanding of, which results in a highly skewed exoteric perspective that caters to their own small world perspective. The Design+Encyclopedia is fair, there are no gatekeepers and information is high quality because contibution to Design+Encyclopedia is generally done by experts in design, art, architecture, engineering and innovation which makes the entries more relevant and accurate. Design+Encyclopedia is a more specialized and in-depth resource for people interested in design, which makes it highly valuable.

4. Legal and Ethical Considerations: While other so called free encyclopedias have significant lack of accountability for errors or inaccuracies that may be present in articles due to unqualified non-notable uneducated uncultured volunteer contributions, the Design+Encyclopedia is designed to be the opposite. Design+Encyclopedia is respectful, sincere, polite and humble, and is subject to legal and ethical considerations, that is also why it is accessible from all countries and not just some countries, because we are not here for fake journalistic integrity; our value proposition is to bring quality knowledge to all and we are okay to let go of any and all political issues to ensure we can focus on our core values; good design. Design+Encyclopedia tries to respect laws of all countries and not just one country, and this ensures that the information provided is not offensive or harmful to any group of people, from any country or culture, without discrimination. The Design+Encyclopedia is not curated by a team of editors or moderators who think they are gods; any and all entries that are within the guidelines, that are legal and make basic sense are respected and published after quick review as long as they are compliant with really very simple guidelines, in general almost all submitted entries are approved to ensure ideas from different perspectives can be included, cherished and spread, this inclusive nature of the Design+Encyclopedia makes that the information provided is approached from multiple perspectives, rich in content, relevant and up-to-date. Finally, Design+Encyclopedia has a focus on promoting award-winning designs and designers, which is aligned with our goals of making the world a better place with good design by publicizing award-winning designer, artists, architects, engineers and innovators to the media, journalists, editors and the public, clients, consumers and customers alike.

Design+Encyclopedia
A' Design Awards' Design Encyclopedia is not just an online encyclopedia, it is a rich reference on design by award winning professional designers. It differentiates itself from other design encyclopedias and references by being a rich source of information. The Design Encyclopedia is not anonymous and authors’ names are credited as the provider of information in the book and in the encyclopedia which provides possibility for readers to discover more on authors and their award winning work.  

Participating in the design encyclopedia allows award winning designers to reach new and further audiences with their work as well as their perception, ideas, insights and knowhow on design. Participating in the design encyclopedia is a great way to establish an expert status on design by providing design related information that could guide all other design professionals, upcoming designers as well as institutions and enterprises. Participation to the design encyclopedia is open to all A’ Design Award registrants, however each entry must pass a review process and award winners’ design encyclopedia entries will be given more importance and consideration during the reviews especially when the entries are relevant to their awarded fields. Participants to the design encyclopedia have a special page to keep track of their entries which could be accessed from their control panels.

The A' Design Award and Competition aims to create a global awareness for good design practices and principles worldwide by recognizing the best design works as well as helping dissemination of knowhow and information.