One Thing That Could Ruin Your Design Contest Attempt

When I started my design career, I was a big fan of those designers, who won design awards. I saw design contests everywhere. There are websites like Awwwards, Red Dot, Indigo…

There were so many design platforms to participate in. But I didn’t know if I am experienced enough to start getting into them.

I continued to work for many years and didn’t enter any design competitions.

The feeling that I needed to participate in design contests didn’t go for years. When I started my personal brand a few years ago, I decided that it was time to participate in design contests as well.

That being said, I entered a few competitions and was excited that it’ll be an amazing journey. But the reality was different.

Experience That Inspires

When you want to join a contest, you expect amazing things to happen to you. Maybe you don’t expect to win, but your work will be seen by thousands of people.

This is already amazing, and you are starting to prepare for your amazing design contest journey.

My major trigger in design contests was my ability to be creative and innovative. I wanted to show the whole freedom of my mind. I was pretty tired from my routine job, so design contests were like fresh air to me.

This is why I began to check the most popular websites and their participants. The very first website I decided to start from was Awwwards.

Awwwards is a super popular website where you can publish any type of website and showcase your creative ability. They accept submissions year-round, so it was a perfect choice for me.

Unlike Awwwards, other design contests that I found had strict deadlines. Apart from that, in most cases, the fee for the submission was higher on other platforms.

As a result, I decided that Awwwards will be my first platform where I will participate as a designer.

It was a coincidence that my personal website needed an upgrade, so I decided to redesign my website and submit it to Awwwards.

If you’re curious about my redesign story, you can check out this article.

Once my redesign was ready, I started to prepare a presentation. It was very easy to prepare additional images for my major cover.

I believe that the most important part was to create short videos that could show animation and interaction on my website.

The problem was in the video ratio. I recorded a part of my screen only so my bars won’t be visible, and the result was unacceptable.

So I played with inspector mode to record my website in a proper resolution, edit it and upload it to Awwwards.

I found this the only downside of the general presentation of my website.

Other than that, I was happy with my experience. I submitted my website and waited until it’ll be reviewed and published.

Designers Who Want To Demolish Your Work

I was checking other designers’ work on Awwwards when I got a new email that hit my email suddenly. It said, congratulations, your work is reviewed and published.

It was an amazing email! I was waiting for that email for about a week. I quickly checked my submission and it was online! Here is my website submission if you’re curious to check it.

So I expected that I might win some awards. Every day I check my work to see how people vote on my design. After a few days, I understood that some votes are under 6.5, which means I can’t get an Honorable mention.

But that was fine for me since it was my very first experience and my personal website was just a try. I created this website for other needs, and it wasn’t creative enough for a design contest.

Nevertheless, I was curious about how people would vote on my design. During the week, I saw different marks, like 5, and 6,7,8,9…

And that was fine. I just needed to understand what other designers think about my work.

And suddenly I saw a 2.10 mark! Can you imagine? Someone voted my design 2.10 out of 10!

I immediately was curious about whom this person was. Maybe he or she is a designer who won a lot of awards on this website or someone cool?

How I was surprised when I saw that this was a young designer with no awards at all. Literally, his profile doesn’t have any awards. But he is an active voter on Awwwards.

It’s something that was unacceptable to me immediately. How can he judge the work of others if he doesn’t show his own expertise?

Once I checked his profile furthermore, I found another interesting thing. He votes for almost every design with low marks. I checked those designs and they are awesome!

After more research, I got another idea. Maybe he just doesn’t want that people will win an Honorable mention? Like literally, it was the only explanation for his actions.

Unfortunately, there are such people on Awwwards who can’t show their own expertise apart from judging others will low marks.

I think this is something Awwwards can work on. If someone might want to vote, he or she needs to show expertise before taking any action. Money isn’t everything.

What Are My Future Plans

After my first Awwwards experience, I started to think about what should I do next. Should I give up on this website or give it another try?

Since my first submission wasn’t too cool. I decided to create another concept specifically for a design contest.

My new submission is more creative and has higher design quality.

I will see how it will do once it is published.

You can’t expect with design contests anything for sure. My experience proves it. Yes, it’s very exciting to participate in them, but there are two downsides to expect.

First, all design contests are paid. If you’re serious about participating in them, prepare a good submission. Standard design solutions aren’t good enough.

Second, don’t expect to win. I know that design contests were created with a specific goal to give you a design award. But it’s better to expect nothing from them.

Think about design contests as an exciting journey for your designs. It’ll help you to not be upset if you get nothing.

I personally decided to continue my design contest journey, because I love to enter them.

There is a huge downside that I need to spend money to submit my designs, but I think about it as my self-improvement investment.

If Awwwards doesn’t work for me, I have other platforms to try, so I’m not giving up.

Besides, I’m not trying to impress someone but just grow as a designer. This is something that I personally need this is why I will continue to enter more contests in the future.

Final Thoughts

If you want to enter design contests, give yourself a favor and prepare a strategy. First, select your best work only, because standard solutions don’t work.

Second, participate in design contests not for your personal brand, but for your design growth. Keep calm if you don’t win anything because it’s normal not to win at all.

Third, learn from others. When you enter open design contests, you’ll have the ability to check other works. It’s your chance to see what is trending and what other designers create today.

Don’t give up and follow your heart.