Totally Free?

Completely Free.
Dear Designer, if you are reading this page, it is possible that you discovered our Join for Free initiatives page which lists and explains dozens of way to take part in the A’ Design Award and Competition without making any payments, such as the Design Award Scholarship program. View these free entry methods now if you have not checked them already; we especially created these entry methods in order to create additional value for the existing laureates such as getting past award winning works featured or for example collecting ideas to improve the platform or to create additional publicity to advertise our laureates. By taking part in the Join for Free initiatives, you are paying the entry with your time; there is nothing free in this world, the concept of free is abstract; it is merely an illusion, and let us explain it further; whatever you do, it takes time and effort, therefore even a free lunch would take half hour of your time plus perhaps half hour of travel, so how much would you earn in that time if you did not take the free lunch? There is no such thing as free lunch; there is an opportunity cost, and we definitely do not provide a completely free entry. However, we do deeply respect you, and therefore we wish to explain why we cannot offer a free entry.

Fairness Requires Independence
We at A’ Design Awards sincerely wish that we could provide free design award entry to everybody, or to the very best at least, however we have to have complete economic freedom in order to organize a fair event. Having complete economic freedom requires us to be economically sustainable, so that we do not depend on any other institution or party. By not depending on any other party, we are able to run the design competition without any intervention, and that is exactly how the design accolade can be devoid of political, ideological or financial influences. By being able to sustain ourselves, we can be independent and fair, and you would most likely agree that it is not prestigious to win a competition that is not fair or independent. A good design award must be independent and fair. This is the major reason why entry fees are required for joining the A' Design Award. Furthermore, we have a no further fees policy, which implies that the entry fees are the only fees that help us sustain the design accolade.

Ethics and Inclusiveness
We at A’ Design Awards, honestly believe our Free to Join initiatives do actually give a very good opportunity for all sorts of designers to take part in the competition. While they might seem as a nuisance to some participants, indeed our Free to Join initiatives were designed to create value for all, such as promoting past winners or submitting ideas to improve the accolade. Our free to join initiatives provide accessibility and allows anyone who want to join the competition to take part without paying any fees.

Your View Matters
It is highly likely that a professional designer would not work for you for free; unless you offer something in return, and we as a professional design award organizer cannot work for free for you either, unless you offer something in return; when it comes to business, we are not different than you, we have families, we need salaries in order to sustain our families, we need to pay everyone in our office, and everyone in our office must work a lot to publicize the winners and to run their daily errands. We are truly sorry if we cannot afford to have your work enter the competition for completely for free, please do accept our apologies on behalf of our team.

Your Difference is Our Difference
You might be a very good designer or represent an excellent enterprise, however we have to get entry fees from all participants, even if you are a famous brand or a very famous design studio, we still need you to pay for an entry but we never oblige you to do so you are free to join the competition or not but please mind that we already have the initiatives for Young designers to join for free, however professionals must pay; if you are a professional and get paid to do your job, we also deserve to get paid to do our job in a professional way. We remind you the following phrase; if you do not pay for a product, you are the product being sold. Our competition is not free and you are not the product, we are a very good competition so we are okay if very good designers pay to nominate their work, because we have a methodology and we constantly work on new ways to deliver value as well as ways to avoid risks for participants and to make the competition more fair. You might for sure find many Design Contests or other events that are free to join, but consider once again, is your work so cheap that you need to join free contests? Your work matters.

Exclusively Invited?
If you are exclusively invited to take part in the competition, we still do not provide a free entry, we do invite many participants each year but not so many, like a few hundred, a small number when the whole competition is considered. When we invite good and great designers and their good and great work, we do usually provide an incentive to join the competition which means a discount for nomination, resulting in less nomination fees paid however we still ask for the fees. We indeed created this page as part of our transparency effort to ensure that no one gets the wrong impression. The A’ Design Award is not a free competition; even those who join for free, does something; even the Young Designers who are not asked any fees to join when they take part of the Design Award Scholarship program, are at least asked to get a 9 or 10 preliminary score.

Our Mission and Vision
The Vision and Mission of A’ Design Award and Competition is to create a global awareness for good design by promoting exceptional design work throughout the world. However, we cannot accomplish our task without funds, these funds come from sponsors but mostly from participants. You might say that you have exceptional great design that we shall promote, we do definitely agree, however there are many exceptional design work out there, and unfortunately if we provide a free entry to you for nominating your work, the competition would just not be fair, furthermore if we provide a free entry to all great works, we would just not be able to organize the competition year after year with a given level of quality with a set of high standards that satisfies the needs of participants. So, sorry but you cannot have completely free entry even though we would really like to provide it to you. Once again we do sincerely wish to apologize for not providing a completely free entry to you and your work.

Free Preliminary Score
While we cannot provide you a free nomination, we are pleased to provide you a free preliminary score; learn more about preliminary checks which allow you to learn how good your design is, its chances of award victory as well as insights on your presentation, completely free of charge. Furthermore by simply creating an account at A’ Design Award your name will be listed at World Design Index, and there are other benefits too. It is a good idea to get a free preliminary score before everything else, at least you might decide whether it is worth to join or not. We remind you that creating an account is free, making a submission and getting a preliminary score is free and without any obligations to nominate, which is subject to a nominal fee.