Cause4Design: Cause/Affect awards

[Drazan]

Cause4Design project was entered into this Award contest as suggested by Urst and a few other members.

The voting should be live today according to their website.

http://aigasf.org/causeaffect/choice

:D
Jade

[morea]

looks like the voting is up, but I don't see ours on there...

[WannaBrie]

I think they are still building it, because I went on there earlier this morning and none of it was there. So I guess we should check back later

[Drazan]

I emailed them to see what's up.

[Drazan]

Jade-

Your entry was received and the judges did review it.

We received over 200 entries and not all of them are on the website.

The ones that are nominated for People’s Choice are shown.


Thank you.

Donald W. Savoie, Executive Director



huh? I thought that we were signing up for the people's choice award. Is this like a preselected thing? Then I would have rather the $50 this costed go to Ana.

**disapointed**

[WannaBrie]

aw man, are you serious? They charged you $50 just to review the calendar? What kind of a "peoples choice" award is it if a few judges pick a few pieces? Boo. That sounds like a bogus way to make some money...lets see $50 each entrant x 200 entries, um that's $10,000. I only see 9 entries on there. WTF?

[Drazan]

$30 for entry + calendar + shipping = $50

So yes.

If anyone has time, can you do in to the site and read the fine print on this. Let's not jump to conclusions - or at least I hope my conclusions are wrong.

[WannaBrie]

I didn't see anything on there that said the entries would be selected by board member until the final voting page. So apparently we were not selected. I think this was very misleading. Tell me if I missed anything tho, but if this is the way a "people's choice" award works, its bogus. It should have been called the AIGA board members choice awards.

[budafist]

Oh no! That's sad.

I just had a second read of that website. Unless they have updated the copy, there is nothing I can see that suggests entry fee only gives a chance to be reviewed by board members. Entry fee should be entry fee. I thought it was entry for the People's Choice Award too. I mean, who is doing the nominating? Some anonymous staff at their offices? That's not People's Choice.

Sounds like a money maker to me. Which is really disappointing since many of these pieces would have been done pro bono. I would have preferred this money have gone to Ana too. You learn some you lose some.

"Hey I know! Let's make some $ out of designers that give back. They give us money for us to look at their work."
"What? That wont work, who would do that?" :confused:
"You just wait and see" ;)

....Cha-ching!.....$6,000 later....

"See?" :D

I'm begining to wonder if this is why they gave only a very tight deadline. Moneymakers only work if it's a quick scheme. You leave it up too long and people have a moment to mull over it and it's over.

[D-Frag]

very misleading for me as well

[WannaBrie]

RE: "people's choice award"

I am so disappointed and confused. Why would AIGA support an award like this? I would think a ""people's choice" award would include more than 9 nominations from a pool of over 200 entries. If it was truly a "people's choice "award, all 200 entries (who each paid $30) would have been shown. I think if they are going to appoach this like juried art shows, they need to be more clear about the rules. But really what I find most disappointing is that they have chosen to ask for an entry fee from the entrants. This is supposed to be an award for doing good. Most of us only get to do these projects PRO BONO. that is what should be celebrated here. Those designers that do these projects out of the sheer good of their hearts. And in this case, I know a few of you went way above and beyond. I am forwarding this message to AIGA.

[WannaBrie]

This pissed me off so much, I composed the following: (haven't sent it yet)

I am so disappointed and confused. Why would AIGA support an award like this? I would think a ""people's choice" award would include more than 9 nominations from a pool of over 200 entries. If this was truly a "people's choice "award, all 200 entries (who each paid $30) would have been shown. I think if you are going to appoach this like juried art shows, you should be more clear about the rules. But really what I find most disappointing is that you have chosen to ask for an entry fee from the entrants. This is supposed to be an award for doing good. Most of us only get to do these projects PRO BONO. that is what should be celebrated here. Those designers that do these projects out of the sheer good of our hearts. Next time, please make it clear to the designers or groups of designers who have put their "free" time and energies into doing projects for good causes, that if they wish to receive regonition for their hard work, then they should be prepared to pay up.

thanks anyway,

starving designer trying to make some difference in this world anyway.

[frankster]

I'm confused. It looks like the competition was invented, judged and set up by AIGA SF chapter. Dec 4th they are having a nice party to celebrate the winners. I notice that two of the 9 "people's choice" projects are from within SF. Can't tell where a lot of them are from though. The money was payable to AIGA SF right? I'm not a member, so I've not got a clue how they operate. Seems really odd though. I bet a lot of people paid the money just to have their work seen by the public. I certainly didn't expect our little project to win anything against some of the fancy non profit printed work, but it was the screen time that Anna's project needed from this and I thought that's what the entry fee guaranteed being "people's choice" and all.

[D-Frag]

yeah its pissed me off enough to write to the AIGA as well

[frankster]

I'm not sure if you realise that a lot of the entries were probably not done pro bono. That was not a stipulation.


All design work entered in the competition must promote or support social good and actively engage in enriching our lives. For example, it can raise awareness about a cause or condition. It can celebrate an arts institution or event. All we ask is that it doesn’t contribute directly to the profit of a commercial organization.

A Non-profit paying a designer or agency a full wage for design work on a project would still mean that project was eligible for entry.

[carter the artist]

I Call shenanagans!!!

[PrintDriver]

And this is just another reason to think AIGA is a crock of ...
If the 'contest' was juried, they really ought to have said so. And listed the jurors and their qualifications...

[D-Frag]

yeah, i emailed "Don" yesterday, basically stating that 1. I think its unfair for the AIGA to have any kind of "contest" when they preach no-spec work. 2. for the entry fee price, ALL of the entries should of at least had a link to the site, even if they did not win.

Eh, ive never been all that impressed with AIGA, I can tell you that I personally will never be entering any of their "contests" in the future for this exact reason.

[PrintDriver]

A juried contest isn't spec work. It's a contest of work that has already been done (and paid for usually) for another client.

[D-Frag]

okay, well then charging an entry fee for a contest that is "helping" non-profits is kinda like and oxy moron wouldnt you think? if they wanted to help, they would of done it free of charge just like the "grunts" *cough* I mean, graphic designers did.

[frankster]

okay, well then charging an entry fee for a contest that is "helping" non-profits is kinda like and oxy moron wouldnt you think? if they wanted to help, they would of done it free of charge just like the "grunts" *cough* I mean, graphic designers did.

Again, it says nowhere that the projects must have been done pro bono. The majority of these I'm sure where paid for by non profits with a budget.

[D-Frag]

i see your point, well, shame on me then for interpreting it the way i did. i wonder how many winners were actual memebers of the AIGA :scratchychin:

[D-Frag]

Im sure i was pretty harsh in my original email sent to the contact, I did call them "shady" for charging an entry fee for non-profit organizations. at the same time, I can see there point in generating revenue for such events. and bottom line, its all for a good cause in the end right? im not going to lose sleep over it, im over the initial bummed out feelings i originally had. and i didn't expect us to win over alot of the fancy stuff. we are just a humble cause and do what we can in this little piece of the world we come into contact with.

i was offered a refund if we wanted to get it back, but im sure thats well beyond the bigger scope of things and its probably to much of a hassle as it is.

just so you guys know this is the response i got.

I was truly dismayed to read the email you sent to Don. As president of the San Francisco chapter of AIGA I felt that I should respond personally.

First, AIGA itself is a non-profit organization. We have to charge entry fees for our competitions and events to both cover the costs of the events themselves and to raise money for other initiatives (scholarships, education programs, etc.). The cause/affect awards is a new concept, designed to help promote the idea of doing work for good causes. We intentionally kept our entry fees low (compared to other industry awards competitions) to allow non-profits and people with limited funds to enter. But we need to able able to cover our costs for the competition, or else the it could not exist.

The fact that we charge for events and competitions is in no way related to our position of not doing spec work—the two issues have nothing to do with each other.

Second, your entry was included in the wider competition that was judged last weekend. The judges picked 20 different winners in 7 different categories from over 300 pieces of work submitted. There were at least 20 additional projects which will receive an honorable mention. All of the award-winning work will be on display at our Awards Ceremony on December 4. It was our intention all along to give the entrants maximum exposure.

The People's Choice Award is just one small component of the larger competition. Those entries on the website are a handful of the hundreds we received and are those selected by AIGA Board members. The call for entries states that "selected work" will be entered in the People's Choice competition. We're sorry if that wasn't clear.

I am happy to refund your $30 entry fee if you truly think that any part of this competition has been shady. I think that we expressed our intentions clearly and am very proud of the AIGA SF board members who put the competition together. By refunding your money, we will be removing your entry from competition. If yours was one of the winners, we will select a piece in it's place and will not display yours in the exhibition or in any materials that might be generated about the competition.

Let me know if this is how you'd like to proceed or if you have any other questions or concerns that I can address.

[morea]

I don't know about asking for a refund, but as I see it the whole problem was that they never said in the rules that it was going to be pre-screened; if they had, then maybe we wouldn't have entered it.

The reason that we entered was not to win (though that would have been nice) but since it was supposed to be "peoples choice" the point of entering was to get some publicity for the cause.

I wish that they had been more clear about the way that this was going to go down before we spent the money to "market" the calendar.

[budafist]

I didn't expect us to win either, but a tiny bit publicity would have been nice.

[urstwile]

Wow, that really sucks. To me, the main point was about gaining some visibility for Ana's cause, not about winning, although that'd have been nice too.

I really feel sucky about this, especially since I was one of the people who suggested it in the first place. Shenanigans indeed, even if the fine print can't prove that to be so. :(