European Design Awards

The European Design Awards, also known as the ED-Awards, are annual awards presented to European designers for outstanding work in the communication design field. The ED-Awards is a joint initiative of design magazines from across Europe and endorsed by the International Council of Design. The ED-Awards are judged by a panel of representatives (journalists and design critics) from fifteen European design magazines, while the winning submissions are featured in the ED-Awards Catalogue.

Model

The ED-Awards is different from other design awards schemes in that the jury is not made up of designers, but of design journalists and critics – people who see and judge work for a living.^[1] Furthermore, since the ED-Awards organisation is made up of design magazines, it provides an opportunity for everyone submitting work, to have it featured in a number of these media. A lot of stories and articles are created through the submitted work every year.^[2]

Jury

Originally, the ED-Awards jury was composed exclusively of journalists from leading graphic design magazines across Europe, including Germany's Novum (Zeitschrift), UK's Eye, and France's étapes:, among others. However, in recent years, the ED-Awards has broadened its jury composition to incorporate a more diverse range of expertise within the communication design field. This evolution reflects a strategic decision to include not only journalists but also critics, curators, academics, and content creators (always linked with the realm of communication design)^[3]

Categories

There are 47 award categories, in nine groups,^[4] covering branding, packaging, exhibition design, typography, digital design, illustration and self-promotion, among others. There are also three special distinctions: Agency of the year, Best of show and Jury prize.

European Design Agency of the year

The top accolade in the ED-Awards is every time, the distinction bestowed upon the most (creatively) successful studio of the continent. This title has so far been awarded to:^[5]

• 2008 Beetroot Design Group, Greece
• 2010 Lava Design, the Netherlands
• 2011 Les Graphiquants, France
• 2012 Silo, the Netherlands
• 2013 Jaeger & Jaeger, Germany
• 2014 R2, Portugal
• 2015 Ermolaev Bureau, Russia
• 2016 Raffinerie AG für Gestaltung, Switzerland
• 2017 Silo, the Netherlands
• 2018 Vruchtvlees, the Netherlands
• 2019 Kind, Norway ^[6]
• 2020 ANTI, Norway ^[7]
• 2021 WePlayDesign, Switzerland ^[8]
• 2022 Verve, the Netherlands ^[9]
• 2023 Studio Dumbar, the Netherlands ^[10]
• 2024 Studio Airport, the Netherlands

Host cities

Each year's results are announced during a ceremony which is hosted in a different European city. So far, the European Design Awards ceremonies (and accompanying events) have been hosted by:

• Athens, Greece (2007)
• Stockholm, Sweden (2008)
• Zurich, Switzerland (2009)
• Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2010)
• Vilnius, Lithuania (2011)
• Helsinki, Finland (2012)
• Belgrade, Serbia (2013)
• Cologne, Germany (2014)
• Istanbul, Turkey (2015)
• Vienna, Austria (2016)
• Porto, Portugal (2017) ^[11]
• Oslo, Norway (2018)^[12]
• Warsaw, Poland (2019) ^[13]
• The 2020 ^[14] and 2021 ^[15] events that were scheduled to take place in Valencia, Spain had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic^[16]
• Tallinn, Estonia (2022) ^[17]
• Luxembourg city, Luxembourg (2023) ^[18]
• Naples, Italy (2024) ^[19]
• Ljubljana, Slovenia (2025) ^[20]

Related links

• German Design Award
• Red Dot
• Communication Arts