DESIGN COMPETITIONS

Design Competitions

As you complete work in your courses, it’s always a good idea to be on the lookout for design competitions to enter your work into. Some competitions are more competitive than others and your Communication Design faculty can give you a heads up. The School of Communications can help you pay for competition submission fees by going to the Awards and Competitions Committee and submitting an application. The only catch is that they need you to fill out your application in advance so the committee can review and approve it—so don’t wait until the last minute!

We’ve posted a couple of our favorite design competitions below, but if you’re looking for more options, check out the Awards and Competitions page on the School of Communication’s website with more than 40 competitions. Here you’ll find a list of competitions for each major in the School of Communications. Of course, if you win an award for your work, then let your faculty know! The School of Communications might just write an article about you to share your good fortune. Good luck and go get ‘em!

  • The American Advertising Awards is the advertising industry's largest and most representative competition, attracting more than 25,000 entries every year in local AAF Ad Club competitions. The mission of the American Advertising Awards is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising.

    Typically, Elon students enter work through the American Advertising Federation Triangle Chapter, which represents the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill areas.

    https://enter.americanadvertisingawards.com/a/organizations/03-RDH/hom

  • Creative Quarterly is an international journal focusing on promoting the best work in graphic design, illustration, photography, and fine art.

    https://www.cqjournal.com

  • Communication Arts (CA) is a high-ranked design competition with a nationally representative panel of distinguished visual communicators.

    The Communication Arts magazine is a good read and worth adding to your graphic design resources list. Student subscriptions are $39/year.

    https://www.commarts.com/competitions

  • The Design Kids (TDK) is free for students and graduates to enter and its purpose is to celebrate emerging design talent.

    https://thedesignkids.org/awards/

  • The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (Visual Communication Division) holds a variety of contests.

    Elon University's School of Communication has a connection with AEJMC, and many faculty are AEJMC members.

    Several AEJMC competitions include:

  • Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) is a news and information magazine for and about the design community. You might consider adding this website to your resources list.

    GDUSA holds a variety of design competitions, which can be accessed by going to: https://gdusa.com/category/competitions/enter-now