Call for Entries 2020: FAQs

22nd January 2021
by 100 Archive Team,
edited by Aideen McCole

Cover image: Call for Entries 2020: FAQs

With just over a week to go until the deadline for 2020 submissions (Sunday 31 January and NOT A SECOND LATER, you hear us?) design projects from all over Ireland and from Irish designers overseas are beginning to come in thick and fast. Hitting a stumbling block with your own submission? Here are some of our Frequently Asked Questions that might help you out...


Am I eligible to submit?

If you are a designer, of any nationality, living and working in Ireland, or an Irish designer living and working anywhere else in the world and you're working in the broad field of communication design, you are eligible to submit. If you are a student you might be eligible to submit, but that depends on the work in question. More on that below...


Is my work eligible?

If you answered yes to one of the above and you have published professional work between 1 January and 31 December 2020 that can be considered as communication design (that's graphic, print, digital, branding, identity, motion, insert subcategory here...), then yes, send it this way.


I made the work in 2020 but the client didn't publish it until 2021: can I submit that?

If the work wasn't made public in 2020, hold onto it until next year's round of submissions.


I missed a previous year's call for entries: can I submit old work?

While you can't submit work for consideration for an already published Archive Selection, premium designers and workplaces can submit old (legacy) projects to be assessed by our Professional Panel. Legacy projects approved by the panel will then be visible in Projects and on your profile. Might be handy.


Is student work eligible?

Work made for a college brief and assessed is not eligible for entry to the 100 Archive. So if you got a mark for it, we're afraid we won't accept it. However, there are a few scenarios where a student can submit work they've made. One is a college brief for a public or commercial client which was NOT assessed or marked. Another example is work which you developed during your time in college which you then published or made commercially available subsequent to your studies, such as a typeface you designed in college which you put on sale afterwards. The last example is where you might happen to be a student but you're also working commercially or making work purely for public consumption alongside your studies. So that work you did for a client or a mate made public in 2020 is fair game.


How do I submit? Do I email it to you or what?

Submissions can only be made through this site. You need to join the site and when you're signed into your account, navigate to 'Projects' and hit the 'Submit to the 2020 Archive' button. Once you've drafted a submission, you'll be prompted to buy a subscription or a one-time submission credit. Most submitters will buy either a premium designer subscription (€120 to submit loads of projects) or credits (€30 per project) in order to make submissions. If you're in a studio with a lot to submit and you want to share the load among a number of designers, grab a premium workplace subscription for €360.


What do I need to provide in a submission?

To submit a project you need to supply max. six images or gifs, a video link if relevant (more info on your visuals below), a URL ONLY if the project is or contains a website and a short description of the who, what, when, how and why of the project. Make sure your description tells us how the project came about and your approach to creating it. Make sure we can tell, aside from what the project looks like in your visuals, what's smart, novel, inventive etc about your work. Did it fulfill the brief and does the client love it? Is it particularly relevant to where we are in 2020? Is it unique, and if so, how? Ensure all those involved are happy for you to submit the work and credit all those involved in the appropriate fields: fellow designers, other collaborators and suppliers and the client.


How does the anonymity work when you're asking me for credits? Do I add those in now or later?

When submitting a project, include all designers involved in the project, including yourself, in the Designers section of the upload page. Include the studio in the Workplaces section, if relevant, and include a credit for anyone and everyone else involved, if relevant, in the Other Credits section (so client, photographer, researcher, copywriter, developer, illustrator...). During the assessment process all of this information is hidden from the panelists, so none of the grudges we hold can affect your assessment. 

However, something you need to be careful with is the description you include of the project. SO MANY TIMES designers include their own names or their studio names in the description, so you need to avoid that! No 'X client approached Y studio when they needed their brand refreshed,' please. PLEASE.


Can I include a web link in my project submission?

Web links can be included ONLY where you're linking to a website that constitutes all or part of the project you are submitting. So for example, if you're submitting the design of a businesses website, include a link to http://www.thatbusiness.ie. DO NOT include a link to http://www.myportfolio.com/thatbusiness as that will give away your identity during the assessment process.


Images, videos, gifs, oh my!

We know, we know, your work's magnificence is most apparent in a TIFF file that's at least 20MB in size. BUT our website can't handle those, least of all when you're uploading your six images at the same time as 150 other designers are uploading theirs... So here's the story with visuals:

— you can upload a maximum of 6 images or GIFs in a project

— those images and GIFs should be no more than 2000px on the longest side

— they should be no more than 3MB in size (the site won't let you upload any bigger, so don't even try)

— videos can't be uploaded: YouTube or Vimeo links only


I submitted something and then realised I need to make an edit: what do I do?

While we hope to introduce editing functionality soon, we don't currently have the capacity to let you edit your own submissions. So we need you to be very careful and attentive when submitting, and if you discover once submitting that something needs changing, drop us a line by email with very clear instructions and we'll help you out.


How are submissions assessed and how is the 100 Archive Selection made?

Your work is first assessed by our Professional Panel. If three or more panel members give it a thumbs up the project becomes live on the site. After the annual deadline passes, the Professional Panel complete their assessment and our Archive Panel then begin their selection process, where each panellist creates a shortlist of 100—150 projects. The final 100 projects are those in receipt of the most votes from the Archive Panel, with two exceptions:

— No designer or studio can have more than five pieces selected for the Archive in any given year. In cases where someone has more than five pieces selected by the Archive Panel, the designer/studio in question decides which five pieces will be included

— In cases where there are more selections than spaces in the Archive, the decision as to what is included is made by taking into account the nature of the work being considered and the year of the Archive. For example, is the work similar or quite different to the other work in the Archive, or is it especially reflective of life/culture in the year in question, does it add to the diversity of the work in the Archive...?


When will I find out if I'm successful?

If your work is approved by the Professional Panel it is immediately published to the website. You will no longer see it as 'Pending' under 'Projects' when logged in and instead it will be visible in the main Projects section on the 100 Archive. Each annual selection is announced in spring, so keep an eye here to find out when we will reveal the 2020 Archive Selection so you can see if you have made the 100...


This new site is really slick, but I'm hitting a wall somewhere. What's the deal?

An enormous amount of work has gone on behind the scenes for the past three years to bring you the site you're scrolling now, but the work isn't done yet. There will no doubt be kinks that need ironing out, so drop us a line by email if you're having difficulty with anything and we will get you sorted as soon as we can.


I have a different question: how do I ask it?

If you're still in the dark, drop us a line by email: admin at 100archive dot com. We'll try to get back to you as quickly as we can, but bear in mind we're a small, almost entirely voluntary team and this is a busy time for us. Your patience, as well as your submissions, are greatly appreciated...

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