Design Ratings Assignment

Design Ratings
A' Design Award and Competition, in collaboration with World Design Consortium, assigns and publishes designer ratings, titles and honorifics to award-winning designers, artists, architects, innovators and creators who showcase and prove their excellent design tenets and capabilities with their award-winning works. Inclusion in the World Design Ratings and obtaining a matching honorific title is provided free of charge to all A' Design Award laureates.

Good to Know: World Design Ratings is different from the World Design Rankings, and A' Design Award manages both.

Design Honorifics
Honorifics and titles are important for society as they serve as heuristic tools to easily comprehend status of individuals, within society or within a certain discipline. For thousands of years honorifics have been used to indicate hierarchy status to indicate capacity and skill competency; in mediaeval Europe the guild system made use of honorifics such as apprentice, journeyman, master and grandmaster that are still in use in some countries today to help differentiate skilled craftsman from unskilled craftsman, and to make it easy for common people to find a very good craftsman. With the rise of industrialization, and the prosperity provided by science and technology, education became accessible and academic institutions issued their own honorific titles such as Bachelor of Arts, Master of Design or Doctor of Architecture, to help differentiate the difference in educational achievement. Academic achievements and honorifics such as masters and doctorship are based on scholarly criteria and are not excellent indicators of design capability or creative capacity. To remedy this, in some countries there are state sponsored titles and programs such as “National Artist”, “State Architect” and similar, however these titles and programs apply to nationals from such countries and are not accessible. To create an international, accessible opportunity for excellent designers and architects to express their capabilities, as well as to help design buyers easily identify, rank and classify designers, World Design Consortium proposed the World Design Ratings programme where designers would be assigned easy to understand honorific titles and ranks that could later be used by design buyers to quickly identify and choose designers based on the desired skill levels.

Obtain Designer Title, WDC-Rank and Designer Honorific
By taking part in A’ Design Award and Competition, you will be able to obtain a designer honorific title and WDC-Rank tier status. You may use your designer honorific title, designer rating and WDC-Rank status to convince prospective clients, consumers and buyers as well as to communicate your design competency and capabilities to your audiences, peers and networks. To obtain your rank, rating and honorifics, all you need to do is take part in the A’ Design Award and Competition. There are no further requirements; you will be assigned a rating card, status and title depending on the quality and quantity of achievements you have; higher award status such as Platinum and Gold will be required to establish you in higher tiers. The full list of ranking tiers are as follows, starting from the top: Grand Master (GM) – WDC S-Rank Equivalent, Master (DM) WDC-A Rank Equivalent, Expert (DE) WDC-B Rank Equivalent, Professional (DP) WDC-C Rank Equivalent, Associate (DP) WDC-D Rank Equivalent, Practitioner (PR) WDC-E Rank Equivalent, and Novitiate (ND) WDC-F Rank Equivalent. Your designer titles and honorifics are granted for lifetime and of course, you may progress upwards within the ranks and ratings; you always have chance to increase your designer honorific title and status, provided that you are able to deliver good design. Every time you are eligible for a new title, honorific or status, you will be able to download your infographics and certificates such as the World Design Ratings Card and World Design Ratings Proclamation, free of charge, from the World Design Ratings section of their Control Panel. Award-winning designers use these to help convert leads into clients.

Transparent, Fair and Accessible
A’ Design Award and Competition is the sole benchmark for the designers listed at World Design Ratings for several important reasons. (1) Designers are ranked based on their actual achievements such as Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron awards won; and A’ Design Award & Competition is the competent institution to assign such achievements because (a) A’ Design Award has one of the World’s largest and most influential jury panel that is composed of world-class designers, artists, architects, and also influential journalists. (b) Entries to A’ Design Award are voted on pre-established evaluation criteria and further subject to a score normalization process; that considers the standard deviation of juror’s votes and not just their raw votes. (c) A’ Design Award follows blind peer-review and anonymous judging procedure, to ensure the entries are voted without any nepotism or favorism, (d) A’ Design Award provides extensive presentation guidelines and preliminary review and feedback to all entrants to ensure that the presentations submitted by participants all surpass a certain threshold and thus the entries are voted without bias; because if presentations are not all good, then the voting would be highly effected by how good the presentations are; by providing free feedback and support during presentations the A’ Design Award ensures that entries are voted fairly. (e) A’ Design Award and Competition therefore provides a transparent, fair and accessible platform for designers to benchmark their work. With that being said, it is important to remind that before you are assigned a rating card and honorific title, you must have at least three (3) jury evaluated entries.

Visit World Design Ratings platform to discover World's leading designers, artists, architects, engineers, creatives and innovators as well as their honorific design titles.