FAQ Entry #241

This is a respond to a previously asked question about the A' Design Award and Competition. The full list of frequently asked questions can be accessed here.

#241: Is it possible to register the same project to more than one category?

Yes and no: Yes, you can register the same project to more than one category however you should break this project into pieces; For example an office chair could be submitted to firstly the furniture design category, and secondly the engineering and technical design category. When submitted to furniture design competition, the presentation should follow a different approach, and for the engineering award, the presentation must focus more on the technical aspects. Likewise, for example, a product for kids can be nominated to both toys category and its packaging could be submitted to packaging category; again in this case, there should be two distinct presentations, images and text submitted; i.e. The product submission to the toy category should demonstrate and explain the product itself; the descriptions and images should relate to the product, not its packaging, while the packaging of the product and its technical details is different; it must be made completely different from the toy product submission; details and descriptions must related to the packaging which would be evaluated. Another example is the design of a construction or real estate project; it could be submitted to the architecture category for its architecture, interior category for its interior, and to the real-estate and construction design award category for the whole project. In most cases, a product is usually evaluated by its packaging, however the weight will be different. Another example is a 3D packaging design; it usually contains a form element and a graphic element, thus even a packaging design could be submitted for two categories - for packaging and graphics, but there must be two different presentations, focusing on the aspect that would be evaluated. A Final example would be a bag, which would be submitted to fashion accessories design category, however if you invented a new textile for it, this particular textile could be submitted to the textile award category, but again, the presentation must be different. Given all these examples, it is possible to submit one project to more than one competition categories, however, for each of the categories submitted, a distinct presentation must be prepared, which also uses distinct images, text and descriptions. The best practice and the most common approach is to nominate a project into a single award category, yet we had cases in which a project has been awarded multiple times as it was submitted to multiple categories, with distinct presentations. You should also be reminded that submitting a project to more than one category requires multiple nominations, thus cost of participation increases. Finally, be also be reminded that once you submit your project, the preliminary jury will suggest you the category where your project could create the most impact; thus if you are just unsure about which category to submit and therefore thinking of making multiple submissions, simply submit the work to the category you have in mind and wait for the preliminary results.

Keywords: multiple category submission, multiple category nomination, multiple award submission, multiple entry submission, submitting a project to multiple categories.

The following questions could be related:

• #44: Is there a discount for submitting the same article (design/entry) to multiple categories?
• #289: I am not sure in which category should my project be. I would be grateful to know if it is possible to submit one design in several categories.
• #396: Can I submit my design into many categories? If yes how do I do that?

If you did not find your answer, please feel free to check the faq pages for more questions and answers. You will also want to check our webpage for details; thanks to our transparency policy, we document and publish everything.