The Countdown to…Winning?

The clock is ticking down…4:45, 5:00, 5:10. We work franticly to create PDFs, search for hard copies, burn DVDs, curse that we hadn’t gotten the disc drive on our computer fixed AGAIN, fill out forms, scratch down signatures…5:20…scramble for a Fex Ex form…what’s our account number….5:30…package it all up, surround it in packing tape….do a sprint down the road to the last possible Fed Ex drop, plead with the Fed Ex guy who was already pulling away…. Few. Made it.

This is us getting a project out for a major important client, right? Actually, this fast-paced action adventure is the comedic happenings that occur each year when we send in our entries in for consideration to design competitions. Every time I say it will be the last we do it this way, and this year I’m on the way to making that a reality. Many of the big competitions have been announced, and deadlines are fast approaching. Our first deadline hits at the end of February. I’ve got the entry forms printed out with the deadlines highlighted for each. Maybe this year we can avoid the mad dash at the end.

My original art director, my Obi-Won if you will, Mrs Osborn, gave me some good things to keep in mind as you enter competition after competition: You never know who’s judging and why they make the choices they do, and you never know if they are choosing their friends, only their members, etc. And who knows who and what you’ll be up against that particular year. Still worth it?

Competitions can be expensive, and often a nuisance if you wait until the last minute to throw your entry together, but they can be a great asset to your studio and your design team. Being publicly announced as competition winners can bring in recognition sometimes needed to get a leg up on the competition, can be encouraging to a team of designers who have spend a year making compromises for the client and having their creativity squashed. It can be a reason to send out a press release, or a friendly reminder to clients that haven’t been in contact. It’s nice to add the title of “award winning” to your studio name. And its nice to have some eye-candy decorating your walls in the form of awards when clients stop by.

We’ll be entering this year again, hopefully under less stress and strain than in years past. And if we win again, great, my boss always like to include such statistics in her year end reports, and we’ll make a little more room on our wall for our awards. If nothing comes of our entries, I still know that we did GREAT, CREATIVE work this year, and that matters more to me than anything else. Also, when the clients are happy, it’s true to say that you’ve already won in a big, big way.

Keep an eye on those deadlines, and good luck. It would be great to have more New Hampshire and Vermont representation in the winners circles!