01 Awards overview

Global Design Ecosystem Big Data Research Award

Designverse Awards, as a core product of YoungBird's global design ecosystem big data research & service platform, evolved from Designverse Ranking, which went online in 2019 and continuously accumulated data and judgment criteria. After three years of operation, it has upgraded to Designverse Awards.

Designverse Ranking is an important component of the Designverse platform, developed based on global design awards and professional media data and algorithms. It fills the market awareness gap for development and design agencies. Through user co-construction and continuous collection, refinement, extraction, and summarization of actual projects and events, it allows global development agencies and design resource agencies pursuing beauty and quality to connect.

Designverse Awards is an award platform that connects design resource agencies and development agencies, accurately targeting the design resource pool of design subfields for development agencies, and empowering design resource agencies. Through the unique functions of big data and data monitoring, search ranking, resource linking, and brand promotion provided by the award platform, it allows them to reflect on their position in the design industry and solidify their brand through the promotion and publicity services of the award platform.

Designverse Awards aims to recognize design agencies, brands/companies, and highly influential events that have made outstanding contributions to the big design industry chain. Through rankings' digital filtering and platform empowering by content promotion, we provide participating agencies with long-term brand growth incubation and consulting services, support originality with awards, and help participating agencies enhance the value of their digital assets, enabling them to be discovered and recognized by the industry, and to tap into a wider range of potential business opportunities. Furthermore, the award serves as a platform center for publicizing intellectual property rights, assisting in confirming the publication dates of entries' intellectual property, supporting and encouraging the originality of entries, and providing support and endorsement for the rights protection of entries.

Design resource agencies: including scheme design, technical consultants, professional consultants, specialized consultants, operation consultants, etc.

Development agencies: such as government, government development platforms, developers, brand owners from various industries, high-quality private owners, etc.

02 Final Review Judging Panel

The final jury panel of the Designverse Awards consists of industry leaders who have a concrete understanding of the big design industry ecosystem, accumulated cooperation experience, and judgment, as well as specialized judges with international perspectives and experience leading renowned works. Together, they evaluate the "Designverse Awards Jury Grand Prize" in various subcategories of space, product, and brands/major events categories, and select the "Designverse Awards Outstanding Prize" from them.

The "Designverse Awards Outstanding Prize" includes six Outstanding Prize in space category (architecture, landscape, interiors, technical consultants, professional consultants, specialized consultants), four Outstanding Prize in product category (residential, office, social and leisure, transportation), and two Outstanding Prize for annual major events.

Members of the final jury panel have the right to recommend 2 participating agencies directly shortlisted for Nomination Prize, and also have the right to set up Special Jury Single Prize. The final jury panel of 2024-2025 Designverse Awards will gradually announce 18 specialized judges after the launch of the awards.

03 Awards Process

The evaluation process of the Designverse Awards is divided into two stages:

First Stage: Preliminary Evaluation Stage

The Designverse Big Data Research Center assists the Awards Committee in selecting and evaluating the "Designverse Awards Nomination Prize" and "Designverse Awards Special Honor Prize" based on statistical analysis and search rankings derived from the platform's big data, which permeates the entire industry.

- Search rankings of design resource categories within the designverse platform serve as important criteria for evaluation.

- For space category (architecture, landscape, interiors), rankings from the designverse platform are referenced as important evaluation criteria.

- For product and brands/major events category: The Designverse Big Data Research Center gathers comprehensive insights from multi-dimensional public opinion trends across the entire web. It extensively covers, identifies, and focuses on various clues and sources, including traditional media, internet/new media, social media, forums, and other channels. The database continuously tracks and efficiently integrates data, providing insights into digital assets related to design-related brands/major events, as well as online public opinion and communication volume and their concentration of activity. This assists in the overall construction of rankings for the IP section of the designverse platform, serving as a crucial basis for awards evaluation.

Second Stage: Final Evaluation Stage

The final jury panel is responsible for selecting the "Designverse Awards Jury Grand Prize" and the "Designverse Awards Outstanding Prize."

04 Awards Setting & Entry Categories

The Designverse Awards sets four categories of awards for space, product, and brands/major events categories, namely Nomination Prize, Special Honor Prize, Jury Grand Prize, and Outstanding Prize. For the Designverse Awards 2024-2025, new categories of awards have been added for space and product categories, including Concept Nomination Prize, Concept Special Honor Prize, Concept Jury Grand Prize, and Concept Outstanding Prize.

A. Space Category

Targeting all space design resource agencies, the entry categories include scheme (such as architecture, landscape, interior), technical consultants (such as structural, MEP, transportation, etc.), professional consultants (such as curation, multimedia, signage and wayfinding, etc.), specialized consultants (such as pre-planning consultant, sustainable engineering consultant, etc.) and their respective subcategories, a total of 94.

Space Category - Concept

Targeting all space design resource agencies, the entry categories include scheme (such as architecture, landscape, interior), technical consultants (such as structural, MEP, transportation, etc.), professional consultants (such as curation, multimedia, signage and wayfinding, etc.), specialized consultants (such as pre-planning consultant, sustainable engineering consultant, etc.) and their respective subcategories, a total of 94.

B. Product Category

Targeting all enterprises/brands of product category, the entry categories include residential (such as home building materials, home furniture, household appliances, etc.), office (such as office supplies, office equipment, office furniture, etc.), social and leisure (such as social space supplies, cultural space supplies, etc.), transportation (such as vehicles, boats, aviation, etc.) and their respective subcategories, a total of 24.

Product Category - Concept

Targeting all enterprises/brands of product category, the entry categories include residential (such as home building materials, home furniture, household appliances, etc.), office (such as office supplies, office equipment, office furniture, etc.), social and leisure (such as social space supplies, cultural space supplies, etc.), transportation (such as vehicles, boats, aviation, etc.) and their respective subcategories, a total of 24.

C. Brands/major Events Category

Targeting all major events planning/operating agencies, it is mainly divided into four categories：corporate/brand (such as awards, exhibitions, promotional activities, etc.), regional/city (such as art festivals, biennials/triennials, trade shows, etc.), international projects (such as art festivals, biennials/triennials, awards, etc.), and domestic projects (such as art festivals, biennials/triennials, media, etc.).

05 Awards Schedule

Registration Stage

Early Bird Submission: 2024/4/1 – 2024/6/10

Regular Submission: 2024/6/11 – 2024/11/11

Delayed Submission: 2024/11/12 – 2025/1/26

The above times are based on the Beijing Time.

Awards Announcements: End March to Early April 2025

06 Entry Requirements

[1] The Designverse Awards are open for global registration. Spatial design agencies, product design agencies/brands, and brands/major events planning/operating agencies are all eligible to apply.

[2] Participating works must have been completed within the past five years. Works completed/purchased/used between April 1, 2019 and the deadline for registration. You can have your submitted works publicly announced on the official Designverse website after registration and submission.

[3] There is no time or space limit for concept works, such as past bidding, unrealized designs, projects under construction or designs that have not been put into production.

[4] Participants must be legal entities or individuals with primary responsibility, including but not limited to manufacturers and distributors of goods, building owners, software or media suppliers, project developers, and research sponsors.

[5] For works involving multiple participants, joint registration is allowed. One party must be selected as the participant, and all other members must be registered on the Designverse platform.

07 Registration

Step 1: Online Submission of Participating Works

Login to the official website of Designverse (www.designverse.com.cn) to register your agency and upload participating works.

*Complete the agency's homepage information, including the company's Chinese and English names, company logo, company introduction, expertise subfields, etc.

*Complete the content of the participating works, including well-illustrated texts, project information, image library, etc.

*For registration and uploading guide, please click the link: https://www.designverse.com.cn/en/help?id=51

Step 2: Send an Email to the Official Email Address of the Awards Committee

After completing the first step of online submission of participating works, add the WeChat account (DesignverseAwards) and send an email to the official email address of the Awards Committee: awards@designverse.com.cn. The subject of the email should be: Confirmation of Registration for Designverse Awards + Name of the Participating Agency + Name of the Participating Work.

Step 3: The Awards Committee Confirming Your Registration and Sending Registration Payment Form

After receiving the registration email and confirming it, the Awards Committee will send the registration payment form via email. Participants are required to complete the payment before the deadline specified.

*Participants who fail to make the payment within the specified period will have their registration canceled.

*Special Support: Start-up Design Agencies Participating in the Awards

After paying the registration fee of RMB 980, if a participant's entry wins a prize in the preliminary stage and has the opportunity to advance to the final stage, it will need to pay the remaining registration fee according to the regular amount. (This applies to one entry; if there are two or more entries, the same principle applies)

*Definition of start-up design agencies: architectural design agency 9 years, landscape design agency 7 years, interior design agency 5 years，industry/product design agency 3years.When applying for the award, the start-up design agency needs to provide the organization's business license as an attachment to the email, and the text in the email should say "Apply for special support".

*The above registration fees do not include taxes and are the cost for one participating work (Unit: RMB). For information on promotion and publicity fees, please consult the Awards Committee.

*The review fee includes the essential award-winning benefits of Designverse Awards.

08 Benefits for Submitting Entries

Submit One Entry

Participants who pay the registration fee of RMB 3680 will automatically receive the following rights:

Usage rights for the designverse platform's cosmic yellow pages, where they can provide one contact method publicly (valued at RMB 3240/year).

B. Co-building bonus points for adding media and awards to the Designverse Ranking.

C. Quarterly usage rights for the Designverse Ranking (valued at RMB 2450/year).

D. Professional improvement services from the Designverse Matching Center, including one-on-one guidance on how to enhance platform information for co-building and achieve higher rankings on the rankings.

Submit Two Entries

Participants who pay the registration fee of RMB 7360 will automatically receive the following rights:

Usage rights for the designverse platform's cosmic yellow pages, where they can provide two contact methods publicly (valued at RMB 6480/year).

B. Co-building bonus points for adding media and awards to the Designverse Ranking.

C. Semi-annual usage rights for the Designverse Ranking (valued at RMB 4900/year).

D. Professional improvement services from the Designverse Matching Center, including one-on-one guidance on how to enhance platform information for co-building and achieve higher rankings on the rankings.

Submit Three Entries

Participants who pay the registration fee of RMB 11040 will automatically receive the following rights:

Usage rights for the designverse platform's cosmic yellow pages, where they can provide contact information publicly, with no limit on the quantity (valued at RMB 3240/year for each contact method).

Co-building bonus points for adding media and awards to the Designverse Ranking.

C. Annual usage rights for the Designverse Ranking (valued at RMB 9800/year).

D. Professional improvement services from the Designverse Matching Center, including one-on-one guidance on how to enhance platform information for co-building and achieve higher rankings on the rankings.

09 Awards Benefits

Regular Award Benefits (Essential Award-winning Benefits)

Winners are entitled to regular award benefits as follows:

Designverse Awards certificate (digital version)

Digital Yearbook

C. Right to use the Designverse Awards logo

D. Winning works released and distributed on relevant social media platforms under designverse

D. Designverse Platform homepage & prize tag & IP page display and priority recommendation (including award logo)

F. The logos of winning agencies/brands on the Designverse Platform homepage display (limited to Jury Grand Prize & Outstanding Prize)

*Promotion and Publicity Benefits PRO (Optional Award-winning Benefits)  

After paying the promotion and publicity fee, winners will receive the Promotion and Publicity Benefits PRO, including the following benefits:

A. Designverse Awards trophy & certificate (copy version) 

B. Column interview and new media articles publication and promotion: Choice between "Eyes on Me" and "Super Nova" columns.

 Short video "eye on me" Designverse Discovers You Case Collaboration.

*The above B, C and D will be published on the official Designverse website, WeChat public account/video account, and distributed to matrix media platforms (including Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Tik Tok, Tencent Video, Bilibili, iQIYI, Sohu, Youku, etc.).

*The "Eyes on Me" column aims to discover innovative design thinking and practices.

*The "Super Nova" column highlights and exposes emerging stars in the big design industry chain, showcasing their unique expressions of innovation. They represent the fusion of soul and order, witnessing the brilliant fusion of super design stars and this era.

E. Custom Brand Digital Asset Consultation Report

*Brand digital assets refer to the collection of active content related to the brand on the Internet. They encompass the accumulation of relevant information about the brand in the digital domain and the strength of connection between consumers and brand information. Brand digital assets involve a quantitative audit of all information accumulated by the brand on the Internet, evaluating the brand's performance in the digital domain in the form of a comprehensive index.

*The Designverse Big Data Research Center can assist you in collecting and analyzing data tailored to specific objectives, providing comprehensive and professional data support to client organizations in a shorter timeframe. We offer recommendations for improvement and direction to facilitate brand growth.

10 Intellectual Property Statement

Participants in the Designverse Awards (including but not limited to design agencies/companies/brands) hold complete intellectual property rights to their submitted works and authorize the organizer to reasonably use the aforementioned intellectual property for advertising and public promotion purposes related to the Designverse Awards. The organizer has the right to publish, exhibit online/offline, and release the works of participants in multimedia formats such as videos on media platforms. All works submitted by participants (including but not limited to design agencies/companies/brands) are original creations of the participants and must not contain any content that infringes upon the intellectual property rights of any third party. In the event of any infringement or allegation of infringement, the infringing party will bear all legal consequences and be disqualified from participating or receiving any prizes.

11 Awards Institutions

Organizer: Designverse Platform (www.designverse.com.cn)

Award Execution: 

Designverse Big Data Research Center

Designverse Content Center

Designverse Matching Center

Desginverse Intellectual Property Center

Academic Support: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

For any inquiries, feel free to add the Awards WeChat account (DesignverseAwards) or send an email to awards@designverse.com.cn

The final interpretation of all content of the Designverse Awards belongs to the organizer.

For more info on the Awards, please click https://www.designverse.com.cn/en/article/space/449809 (The final brief version of Designverse Awards 2024-2025 on the official website - ww.designverse.com.cn - prevails)