All about Design

In a rapidly changing and increasingly demanding marketplace, design is a critical source of competitive advantage. Embedded within, and throughout a business, design can impact across the total enterprise transforming its fortunes and tangibly realising its strategic intent. 

From measuring success to sharing excellence and best practice, we work to build universal confidence in design investment, and to enable thriving partnerships between those commissioning and managing design and the agencies delivering it.

Through our work, and with the powerful collective voice of our membership, the DBA is uniquely placed to drive design ever further up the agenda in business and government. 

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Design Effectiveness

The DBA champions the role of effective design in the creation of business growth.

We support the sector in articulating the value of design and work with business and government to achieve a marketplace where design’s full potential is universally capitalised upon. 

DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

The most persuasive way of communicating the value of design is by measuring its effectiveness.

Founded in 1989, the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards recognise impactful, wide-ranging examples of design that have had a tangible and measurable impact upon business and societal success.

Judged by a broad range of business leaders and entered jointly by client and designer, the Awards draw focus onto the role design plays in enhancing people’s lives and delivering competitive advantage for business.

Prestigious and authoritative, the awards are evidence-based, the impact of design measured and verified with commercial data used as key judging criteria. Nowhere is the quality and effectiveness of the design industry’s offer more evident than across the case studies recognised in the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards. They provide compelling proof that an investment in design, is an investment in the future of a business. Learn more.

deatrophy_210x118“Design has the potential to truly impact people, society, and the environment. Quantifying this impact is a key step in proving this potential, and establishing design a key strategic partner at the highest levels of business.” Chris Padain, VP, Global Head of Product Experience, Design & Packaging at Bayer Consumer Healthcare, DBA Design Effectiveness Awards judge.

 

2023 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards: winners announced

The winners in the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards 2023 have now been announced. Congratulations to the winning agency and client partnerships and thank you to our fantastic judges who brought their insight and experience to rigorously judge the entries. View the full list of judges here and browse the 2023 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards winners here

2024 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

The call for entries for the 2024 Awards is now closed. The entry deadline was 3 November 2023. 

Judging takes place in January to March 2024 and the shortlist will be announced in the Spring. The Bronze, Silver and Gold winners and Grand Prix will be revealed at the ceremony in June 2024. 

In the meantime, if you are interested in entering the 2025 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, you can: 

  • Visit effectivedesign.org.uk to be inspired by previous winning case studies and find out how to enter. 
  • Take a look at these FAQs and Vox pops to find out what kind of projects to submit and to answer your questions about entering the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards. 
  • Sign up to hear news from the DBA and to receive the entry pack in Summer 2024. 

Winning a DBA Design Effectiveness Award

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The DBA Design Effectiveness Awards celebrate and prove how powerful partnerships between clients and designers can be. We jointly award both parties, and a win will:

Recognise
Rigorously judged by a senior panel of client level judges, a win provides independent, authoritative and unquestionable recognition of the impact of your work in the real world.

Evidence
These awards reward the significant value you can add to any business and demonstrate your ability to deliver effective design. Persuasively and powerfully demonstrate your ability to deliver competitive advantage through design, setting you apart and driving new business opportunities.

Prove
Powerfully articulate the case for design investment at board level, maintaining and growing budgets.

Position
Winners are included in a global PR campaign targeting business, consumer and design publications. Position your company or department as a design leader, increase exposure and prestige with clients, colleagues, suppliers and the media.

Motivate
Boost and motivate your team morale and attract the right people as you grow.

Align
Winning a DBA Design Effectiveness Award aligns you with an elite group of businesses whose capability to deliver results through design is irrefutably proven. Leverage a unique winner’s logo across your communications as the marque to demonstrate the tangible returns you’ve delivered and display a trophy proudly within your offices. Your work will be displayed on effectivedesign.org.uk and warc.com enabling you to globally profile your work in detail and demonstrate the scale of impact you’ve delivered.

Benefits of winning aside, entering these Awards will bring a discipline to your team that will enable you to continuously measure, track and prove the impact of your work to your clients. The DBA can support you to develop the skills and techniques that will embed effectiveness practices and processes in your everyday work. 

More info at: www.effectivedesign.org.uk

Watch a short video about the 2023 DBA Design Effectiveness Grand Prix Award winning, High-Risk Pregnancy Referral Tool and the profound impact it’s having on the lives of women and their families. And read the case study here

Hear Clive Grinyer, Chair of the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards Judging panel 2019-2023 talk about how the 2022 winners used design as a strategic tool to tackle present and future challenges, delivering growth for businesses as well as helping address societal issues.

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