A' Award Expo Edition

A' Design Award – Expo Edition
The A' Expo Edition is a very special design competition that you could observe taking place during prestigious design events, tradeshows, conventions, tradefairs and large exhibitions. A' Expo Editions are sponsored by the event organizers and tradeshows themselves and therefore entry is totally free for participants i.e. the exhibitors take part in the A' Design Award's Expo Edition Competitions free of charge. During A' Design Award Expo Edition events, an established panel of jury members inspect the entries on location to select a few projects to honor them with the A' Design Award – Expo Edition, and an award ceremony takes place, which is also organized by A' Design Awards.

A' Design Award Expo Edition is a strong side-event for the fair to create a dynamic happening that involves participation of exhibitors and creates value for both exhibitors and organizer through additional publicity and authority creation.

There are 3 packages available for expo organizers: 1. Patronage & Guidelines, 2. Managed Organization, 3. Cooperation.

The Expo Edition differs from the international version of the A' Design Award by several features: 1. The results are announced within one day. 2. The Award ceremony takes place on exposition grounds. 3. PR and Publicity campaigns starts within the same day. 4. All awarded entries are physically observed and judged by a local panel which is composed of academics, professionals and entrepreneurs. 5. Expo Edition winners are granted right to join the international edition of the A' Design Award & Competition free of charge in order to get further benefits such as: Good Design Product logo utilization, World Design Rankings inclusion, Yearbook Publication, Exhibitions and more as noted in the A' Design Prize.

Summary of A’ Design Award Expo Edition Rules & Regulations
The Expo Edition of A’ Design Award starts by an event organizer (such as a trade show organizer) contacting us for one of the three packages: 1. Patronage & Guidelines, 2. Managed Organization, 3. Cooperation. Upon agreement,  A’ Design Award & Competition prepares an execution plan for the competition organization. Together with the execution plan, is the Expo Award Kit which consists of all the elements that are required for organization such as Awarding Guidelines, Speech & Press Release Templates, Graphic Identity, Voting & Agreement Forms, Award Certificate, Nominee Labels and more.

If the Managed Organization package is chosen, in addition, A’ Design Award & Competition also sends a delegation to the event to manage and mediate the event. The delegation of A’ Design Award & Competition will include at least two delegates: Award Coordinator & Jury Mediator. Furthermore, Mediators’ Assistant, Curator and Publicity Specialist could also be invited. In addition to the core delegation, A’ Design Award & Competition could also invite jury members to join the event . The size of the delegation usually depends on the event size, and is determined together by A’ Design Award & Event Organizer. This package also includes the organization of the awarding ceremony during the event.

If Cooperation model is chosen, in addition, A’ Design Award & Competition will organize a design exhibition during the event and will have a booth which acts as a base for operations for awarding process, which would also relay information to the public and the press. The exhibition includes previously awarded works, projects and designs and works as a perfect side event which successfully attracts the attention of both the visitors and the press.  The cooperation package also includes a conference talk or presentation by the award coordinator during the event, and presence of our delegation during the award ceremony and other sub-events.

Benefits to Winners
Winners of the A’ Design Award – Expo Edition are granted the following benefits: 1. Participation to Expo Edition Ceremony, 2. Award Certificate: Certificate of Distinction, 3. Special Expo Edition Award Winner Logo with Expo Name. 4. Distinct Press Release & PR Campaign, 4. Free Entry to the International Edition of the A’ Design Award & Competition, 5. Eventual A’ Design Award – International Edition benefits such as inclusion in World Design Rankings, Designer Rankings, Good Design Product Logo, Yearbook Inclusion, Awarded Entries Book, Participation to the International Gala-Night in Italy, Exhibition in Italy, Immense PR and Publicity and more..

• If you already have a competition as a sub-event, to boost it learn about The Grand Award Prize. Iron Grand Award Prize is included in all expo-editions; depending on the package there would be Professional or Digital Entry Tickets provided.

Benefits to Honorable Mentions
Exhibitors which receive a honorable mention are provided the following benefits: 1. Honorable mention certificate (certificate of appreciation). 2. Honorable mentions are given 50% discount when joining the International Edition of the A’ Design Award & Exhibition with the product they received honorable mention with. 3. List of entries and entities who were awarded with the honorable mention are mentioned in the press releases and editorial articles regarding the award.

Awarding Process
Before the awarding process, the expo organizers announce that the award would take place. Usually the announcement is done through the public communication system and all the exhibitors are once again alerted to make sure that there would be representatives in the booths to explain the nominated products when the jury visits. The jury panel / award committee which is composed of delegates from the A’ Design Award and Competition in addition to professionals and academics as suggested by the expo organizers the evaluates the nominated works of exhibitors who join the expo. The award evaluation usually takes place on the first or second day of the event. During the evaluation, the award committee walks through all the booths who have an eligible product. The eligible products are already marked with the nominee labels to help the jury to find and vote for the projects and they have already passed a screening phase. During the evaluation process, a mediator records the votes and feedbacks of all jury members for each product, to do this, for each product that is nominated, the mediator asks if the jury members vouch for the product, and records votes of each member (from 0 to 2) and feedbacks if any. On the score sheet, a zero vote is not recorded. 1 is recorded as / and 2 is recorded as X. This system is used to help it easy to calculate winners.  The jury could also take notes on their own, which could be useful while ranking. At each booth, jury should be reminded that only one product could be nominated. If more than one product could be nominated (or when there is general/entity nomination rather than entry), the jury chooses the best product. Once the jury walks through all the booths and exhibitors, they complete the voting process. Once the voting process is over, the mediator asks the jury to come together to give the final decision. To do so, the award mediator first calculates the number of votes for each entry and ranks all the entries. Once all the entries are ranked according to the votes, the mediator highlights the entries that receive the highest number of votes, and the potential winners (based on the number of winners calculation which itself is based on number of participants). In some conditions, if the number of votes for several designs are the same, the mediator will ask the jury to revisit these designs to re-rank them. The re-ranking is made by re-voting the designs which receive the same amount of votes. During the re-voting process, the mediator will engage the jury by asking critical questions regarding the nominated products, if after voting, the designs still have the same amount of votes, the mediator himself could cast a vote to break the tie or alternatively suggest to use the first visited first ranked rule. After the ranking process, the mediators’ assistant collects the name of the designer (or name of the company), and the product/design name  for the award certificate, and also asks the awarded companies to sign the awarding agreement. The mediators’ assistant also helps preparation of the results announcement. On the same day of awarding, the awarded entities are informed by the mediators’ assistant for the award ceremony which would be the next day (or in the end of event for 1 day happenings). The award ceremony usually takes place the next day to allow awarded winners time to prepare and to make sure that all the awarded entities would be present during the award ceremony. The A’ Design Expo Edition Award Ceremony features award background totems and the jury panel is present to hand the certificates and trophies if any. The award ceremony talk / opening is initiated by a spokesperson who provides a few words about the award and its’ importance for the society, expo and how it benefits the winners. After a brief introduction of the award, winners are called to stage and their framed A3 award certificates are given, the award certificates are especially made in A3 size to make sure that they are highly visible in the photos which are important for communication purposes. During the award opening speech, the event photographer is present and takes the photos of the spokesperson. Furthermore, each winner is taken photos during the ceremony several times; firstly a photo is taken when the award ceremony is presented, second a photo is taken during jury handshake, third a photo is taken with all winners coming together. After winners have their award announced, certificates given, photos taken, and shake hands with the award committee, the ceremony on stage is over and the winners are asked to follow the mediator. After the ceremony, the mediator explains the benefits of the award, the terms of logo usage, press releases, pr campaign etc, and also explains how to get more from the award; and presents them a voucher to participate the international edition of the A’ Design Award and Completion. The whole awarding event usually takes 2 days i.e. first day for voting and ranking, and second day for ceremony.

Nomination Process
Each exhibitor could nominate a single entry or entity to the award. For each nominated entry; product, project or design the exhibitor should provide a nominee label next to the item. If an exhibitor is not sure which product or design to nominate, either multiple nominee labels could be used (up to three) or the nominee entity label could be used such that the award committee could choose which design would be best for nomination.  Furthermore, for each nomination, the award terms and agreements should be signed. The award terms and agreements should be definitely signed before the award ceremony to ensure that the awarded entities comfort to basic eligibility conditions and respect to the award practices.

Eligibility
Original product manufacturers, designer product manufacturers, original product designers, companies who design and produce for themselves, designers, architects, creators, and other manufacturers who partake in the tradeshow as exhibitors are eligible. Distributers (and franchises) are normally not eligible since they usually do not have right to join the award program without written confirmation of the franchising / main producer companies. However, franchises and distributes could also be accepted to participate if they get a written confirmation and approval from the main companies for participation in the awards. Please note that for product manufacturers, all patented products are eligible but the jury might ask to see the patents, therefore patents should be printed, translated to English and readily available to be shown to jury on demand when asked.

Nominee Labels
There are two types of labels, one for entries and one for the entities. All exhibitors are kindly required to mark their entries with nominee labels to make it easy for the award committee to highlight the nominees and to fasten the awarding process. The nominee labels should be printed in A4 and placed on transparent A4 size Plexiglas or acrylic panels. For nominating individual entries, download the Expo Award Nominee Label for Entries (products, projects, designs and works) here.  For nominating entities, download the Expo Award Nominee Label for Entities (companies, designers, architects or corporate portfolios) here. The nominee labels are prepared and distributed in advance by the Mediators’ assistant.

Final Score Sheet
Each exhibitor which joins the design award could be given a final public score sheet . Please kindly be reminded that, based on the award organization package, the score sheet might or might not be available. If available, the score sheet indicates the nominated product name, the company name and votes or remarks of the jury members if any. The score sheet could be useful for exhibitors to gain professional insights regarding their designs from a qualified jury and could also include testimonials. Please be reminded that in any case, a score sheet for each participating exhibitor is already calculated by the award committee but not necessary shared with exhibitors due to time constraints.

Expo Edition Logo
In any case (i.e. Entity or Entry nominations), the award is given to a single product, project, design, work, service, idea or creation.  This means that the entity (person, organization or company) which has been awarded must use the award logo for the specific entry (product, design, work etc), and the award logo cannot be used for any other products or services even if they are versions or different configurations. The expo edition logo features the following information: 1. Category of the Award, 2. Year of Award. 3. Expo Name and Location. 4. A’ Design Award Expo Edition indication. 5. Award status if any (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron etc).

Jury Composition
The award jury panel consists of at least 5 people, and the core jury includes the following members: 1. Event Manager or Representative. 2. Three Academics: Professors, Rector or Lecturers from Universities. 3. At least one prominent professional or an entrepreneur. When asked, A’ Design Award & Competition could arrange both the professional and academic level jury members, however the participation of the event manager or representative is highly required.  The number of people in the jury panel is calculated depending on of the number of awards divided by two and should be minimum 5. Further compositions and jury details are explained in the manual which is given to organizers.

Award Committee
The award committee consists of the following: The Jury Panel, The Mediator, Mediators’ Assistant, Spokesperson, A’ Design Award or other Independent Observer. Both the observer and spokesperson are also kindly requested to take part in the evaluation session to help understand the event, and to ensure the integrity of the awarding session.

Award Status
Depending on the number of winners, the following award status are possible: 1. Platinum Award (Best of the Best / First Place / Product of the Year Award: Given only 1 per event.), 2. Gold Award (Up to 3 per event). 3. Silver Award (Up to 5 per event). 4. Bronze Award (Up to 7 per event). 5. Iron/Standard Award (As needed). The number of Gold, Silver, Bronze and Standard awards and their distribution is explained on the guidelines. In addition, Honorable Mentions could also be provided as needed but they will not get the full award benefits.

Award Certificate (Certificate of Distinction)
The award certificate features signatures of the award committee and the expo representative or the manager. It includes the date, year, award category, designers’ name (or company name), product name, and optionally the award status (such as platinum, gold, silver, bronze or the 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place). The award certificate is prepared during the fair, and printed on A3 paper and later framed in a modern fashion. The framed certificate is given to the representatives of the awarded works (usually designers, company managers etc) during the ceremony which takes place on exhibition grounds. Furthermore, an honorable mention certificate is also available. The award certificate is prepared by the mediator, and features the signatures of the core award committee, and a digital edition is given to the winners so that they could use in their communications. The certificate does not have a QR code.

Voting Form
The voting form includes the following information: Name of Entity (Company/Designer), Name of Entry (Product/Design), Location (Booth Number or Name, and Hall Number or Section Name), Votes Field, Total Score Field, Space for Remarks, Category (Type of product or design) and jury feedbacks.  The score sheet is carried by the mediators’ assistant who records the votes of each individual jury members, along with comments.

Participation Agreement Form
Each entity who wish to nominate an entry to the A’ Design Award – Expo Edition should sign the participation agreement. This agreement is necessary to protect the award organizer and expo organizers from any legal issues that could arise. In a brief summary, the participation agreement form states that the entity who will receive the award is responsible for using it properly, and also the awarded entity proclaims that the design is genuine and original, and agrees that the award could be cancelled if decided so by the award committee.

Award Winner Totems
A’ Design Award & Competition provides award winner background totems, which is about 5 meters x 2.5 meters, the award winner totems are used as a background during the award ceremony for taking photos and are usually exhibited during the exhibition. The design of the winner totems are included in all expo edition packages, and when requested by the organizer, the award winner totem could also be configured and realized with also other logos or images such as that of sponsors etc.

Expo Edition Trophy
The expo edition trophy is a unique trophy, designed and provided by the A’ Design Award & Competition (Requires 3 months in advance for design and realization). Since the award takes place in the exhibition within only 2 days, the expo edition trophies are not customized to the name, but they could potentially feature the following information or could have different configuration, color, shapes or material based on: Award Category, Award Status (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron), Award Year, Expo Name etc. A protective case is usually provided as well. The trophy is optional.

Expo Edition Packages

Patronage & Guideline Package Details and Costs
This package includes the rights to use A’ Design Award logo, Design PR Wire Logo, Design Mediators Logo, Mood – Museum of Design Logo if the guidelines are followed exactly for the event organization i.e. such as inclusion of the independent observer, following rules for awarding, ranking etc. Furthermore, this package consists of a kit which explains the awarding process, the evaluation ceremony, organization methodology and all other sub details, and features the detailed guidelines and a kit which explains how to organize the event, and support from A’ Design Award. The base cost includes 3 winners, the first place gets professional entry ticket and second and third place gets digital entry tickets. The variable cost depends on the number of extra winners; large tradeshows usually ask for 10 to 40 winners, when the 3% rule is considered. For each extra winner, the cost is 1.500 Euros for professional entry tickets and 750 euro for digital entry tickets, including any tax. The service also includes PR and publicity for the event. Includes press releases and editorial placement for Expo & Award Ceremony.

Managed Organization Package Details and Costs
This package already includes the patronage and guideline package, plus also includes a delegation from A’ Design Award who would join the event from Italy to organize and manage the award. A conference talk or speech to the attending audience is included.  The cost depends on the cost of A’ Design Awards’ delegation which is calculated as follows: For each member of the award committee, the event organizer agrees to pay and arrange all eventual travel and hosting costs (Travel: airlines, taxi, drivers etc. Accommodation & Hosting: Hotels, Food etc.) plus for each delegation member the award committee agrees to pay 375 Euros/day compensation (and the minimum payment is 4 days stay since event takes 2 days usually, and 2 days of travel is also calculated). The delegation consists of at least 2 members, therefore the minimum cost is + travel and hosting fees (min. travel and hosting fees is 3.000 euro) + 3.000 euros for a 2 day event. If there would be more than 3 winners, there is also 1.000 euro additional fees for number of award winners, however the delegation size and duration of stay should be agreed in advance. Includes press releases and editorial placement for Expo Details & A’ Design Award Expo Edition Ceremony.

Cooperation Package Details and Costs
This package already includes the managed organization package, and also the patronage and guideline package. In addition, the A’ international design award exhibition will be taken to the event venue from Italy which helps to create an attraction for your guests, visitors, exhibitors and the media. Furthermore, the package also includes a carefully prepared conference talk or symposium speech by one of the A’ Design Award delegates on role of design or any other event specific issue related to design.  This package therefore includes at least 6 press releases and editorial placements for: A’ Award Exhibition at Expo, Expo Award Ceremony and Results, The Expo/Event Details, Expo Highlights on Exhibitors, The Conference/Speech during Expo and Expo-City focus. Combined with award ceremony, conference talks and exhibition, and the additional press releases and editorial placements, this package creates a very strong side-event within the fair.  A great value proposition for events. The event organizer must provide space (usually at least  112 m2 or more space is required for A’ Design Award exhibition of posters and products and a longer booth is preferred) and the event organizer must prepare the booth in advance (usually using modular system, and the event organizer should also apply graphics and print posters on forex etc) and the event organizer should allocate 2 presentable staff members for A’ design awards to help during stand preparation, to assist mediation during award evaluation, to help prepare the award certificates and to take care of the stand during award ceremony etc. The design of the booth and graphics will be provided by A’ Design Award and Competition, and the transportation costs of physical items are also going to be covered by the A’ Design Award as well. The cost for organizers is 3.000 Euro for a 3 person delegation for up to 5 days and all the independent costs would be covered by A’ Design Awards. However, if a larger delegation is required, or if the event is too much far away from Italy (more than 3 hour fligts), the event organizer could also be asked to sponsor airfares of the delegation as well.

Delegation Size
The minimum delegation size is zero (0) people for the award patronage and award guideline package, however an independent observer should be arranged in advance. The minimum delegation size for managed organization package is 2 people for smaller events and could be 4 or 5 people for larger events and should be agreed in advance by event organizer and the A’ Design Award. The delegation size for cooperation is usually three but could be more as agreed by the event organizer and the A’ Design Award.

Number of Winners
The number of award winners depends on the event size, however minimum and maximums apply. The minimum number of awards is 3 for events which have less than or equal to 125 exhibitors. The number of award winners is 5, for events which have 125 to 200 participants. For events with more than 200 exhibitors, the number of winners is calculated based on the number of exhibitors in the event and is calculated as 2.5% of the total number of exhibitors. If organizers require, the number of winners could be decreased, however they cannot be increased.

Costs for Participants (Exhibitors)
A’ Design Award Expo Edition is an important side-event to support the main event and therefore event organizers sponsors the costs of participation for exhibitors i.e. it is free for exhibitors who join the expos which feature the A’ Design Award – Expo Editions. The A’ Design Award Expo Edition features countless benefits to winners, mainly focused on PR and publicity, advertising opportunities, editorial inclusions, logo usage, award certificates and more. 

Cost for Expo Organizers
The cost for expo organizers are negligible, and depends on the type of package: For award patronage and guideline package, the cost depends on number of winners (i.e. the fair size). For managed award organization, the cost depends on fair location and delegation size. The cooperation package is almost free for event organizers, since majority of the costs are covered by A’ Design Award.  Depending on the fair and location, different partnership or sponsorship opportunities could be available. The preferred model for A’ Design Award is the cooperation model since it allows us to communicate our winners through the exhibition.

How to Apply to Host the A' Award Expo Edition?
Application is online, please get in touch with us using our simple form.

The A' Design Award & Competition is one of the Worlds' Leading Design Accolades, reaching designers and design enthusiasts in all countries, also managing the World Design Rankings.