The Best of 2024 project is part of an ongoing initiative by AIGA Arizona to catalog and chronicle the people and creativity that make up Arizona's vibrant design community. Each year since 2014, the Best Of exhibition has been shown in person and virtually during the Phoenix Design Week conference.
Every entry (space permitting) will be presented in a physical display during the PHXDW Conference on Saturday and Sunday, October 5-6, 2024, as well as in an online gallery that will open for viewing on October 1.
Best Of 2024 Voting: Community & Conference
Unlike a traditional design competition, there are no official judges and no categories for the Best of 2024 — this is a "people's choice" voting process. Pre-pandemic, only PHXDW attendees were eligible to vote, but now that we have online galleries (thank you Incentive Pilot and Robby Doyle) in addition to an in-person display, we'll be conducting both a Community online vote as well as an in-person Conference vote.
Once the Best of 2024 online gallery goes live on October 1, anyone anywhere will be able to view, log in, and vote for their favorites until Friday, October 4. We'll compile that tally as the Community winner.
Then, during the PHXDW Conference from October 5-6, only in-person attendees will be able to view the physical display in the conference hall at Phoenix Convention Center and cast their votes. Both the Community and the Conference Best of 2024 winners will be announced from the stage on Sunday, October 6. Will the winner be the same entry in both votes? Hmmm, you'll have to wait and see!
The Best Of 2024 winner receives a free pass to next year’s Phoenix Design Week conference, the opportunity to contribute a blog article* about their project for the AIGA AZ website, and is included in the graphics for the following year, like Welcome to the Jungle by Bob Case (above), the 2023 Conference Winner.
Submission guidelines and tips
The rules are easy: There is no entry fee – yay! The only requirements are (a) you must have been a resident of Arizona at the time the piece was created, (b) the project was first created between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024, and (c) there is a limit of 2 entries per person/firm (for items such as a brand project or a campaign, please submit multiple related executions as a single entry). Form submission deadline is Friday, September 13, 2024 at midnight.
Deciding what to submit
During the voting phase, viewers are asked to evaluate each entry and vote for the one(s) that exhibit the best that design can be. When deciding what to submit, consider how your project:
- Solves a challenge in a unique way
- Communicates a message effectively
- Demonstrates an inspired degree of creativity, talent, and skill
- Makes excellent use of the medium – printed or digital
- Marks a significant milestone or point in time
- Surprises and delights your audience
- Is a source of pride for you!
Make it tangible
For the in-person exhibition, people gravitate most to the items they can pick up and interact with. Even if your project is digital-only, consider how you might make it tangible – making a print-out, a promotional sticker, or including a sample of the product that’s being offered on a website can help call attention to your entry. If your entry is a food or beverage item, please empty the contents and provide only the package. Here are some examples of past items on display:
WIIFM?
Simply having your work in an exhibition can be a feather in your cap on a résumé, not to mention that the online gallery we provide offers an additional searchable presence – not only for you, but also your colleagues and clients.
Most of all: Don’t get hung up on the “Best Of” term – if you have worked on something that you are justifiably proud of, please send it in. The true goal of this initiative is to build AIGA Arizona’s historical archive of the designers that live and work in our state, the clients and organizations we work for, and the design trends over the years.
No matter who you are — individual designer, agency, in-house group, and students — we want to see and show off what you have been working on this year. Ready, set, go: show us YOUR best of 2024!
Have a previous year's project to contribute to the ongoing AIGA AZ Design Archive?
Go ahead and use this form to send it in — just enter the original date it was created or launched in the Date Created field. We're gradually building the AIGA AZ Design Archive categorized by year from all previous Best Of submissions, and we'd love to represent your noteworthy work as part of Arizona's design legacy, too! For more information, contact Kathy Morgan.
*Space permitting, subject to review and approval of AIGA Arizona Communications Director.