The Construction New Media Awards

Overview

A Cape Town-based initiative, the Construction New Media Awards celebrates and elevates the status of South African new media design. It honours and accredits those designers, writers, programmers and thinkers who produce challenging, imaginative, interactive work, both on a creative and a functional platform.

The Construction Awards brings a global perspective to the proudly local flavour of South African new media design. The overriding aim is to give South African designers the kudos they deserve in the international arena, by taking their unique brand of design out there and showing it to the world.

The inaugural event took place on 2 March 2001. It was launched in conjunction with the 4th International Design Indaba; sponsored by Independent Online and the International Design Indaba; judged by some of the world's most exacting, most awarded designers; and supported by an overwhelming number of South African digital media design agencies.

The long-term result of 2001's success is that the award will continue to operate from year to year, in association with the International Design Indaba.

Eligibility

Any project created for digital distribution on a floppy, CD-ROM, online service or the WWW, is eligible. This includes interface design, educational and entertainment programmes, interactive product display, self-promotion.

Work that has been commissioned by clients is eligible. The version of the entry being submitted for judging must have been produced and executed between 9 February 2001 and 8 February 2002. The respective client concerned must give their permission and no entry may be submitted by more than one organisation.

Judges and Judging

In remaining true to the medium, all judging takes place online, with the exception of the CD-Rom category.

Judges for the Construction New Media Awards 2002 are:
- Joshua Davis – praystation.new_york
- Tom Roope – tomato.london
- Lewis Blackwell – getty_images.london
- Hans Bernhard – ubermorgen.vienna

Last year's judges included:
- Tom Roope – tomato.london
- Neville Brody – uk
- Thomas Mueller - razorfish.ny

Full bio's of all the judges, past and present, can be found online at www.constructionaward.com.

Awards

There may be no fortune in winning a Construction Award, but fame comes in the form of the coveted Grand Prix. It is awarded across all four categories, which include Websites, Exe's, CD-Roms and Online Advertising.

Each discipline and its sub-categories can be awarded a Gold trophy, which will be accompanied by a certificate. This is the same for the Student Award. All finalists will also receive certificates.

Last year's Grand Prix winners (Redshift) spent a week at the Razorfish NY office. This year, the winner goes to UBERMORGEN, one of the world's most innovative new media shops in Vienna, Austria.

The Construction Awards reserves the right not to make an Award in any category, and the decision of the judges is final and binding.

Categories and Entries

There are 4 disciplines in which awards will be judged:

1. Websites
- Self-Promotion
- Non-Functional
- Functional
2. exe
- Self-Promotion
- Corporate
3. CD-Roms
- Self-Promotion
- Corporate
4. Online Advertising
5. Student Award – work done while the entrant was a student; it can be across all the above disciplines.

Entry forms are on www.constructionaward.com. To streamline the process and (hopefully) lessen the last-minute-entry-deadline-crush, entry forms may be filled in piecemeal and saved online. They may then be edited at leisure and then submitted, along with payment

Full details can be found at www.constructionaward.com.

Entry deadline

Closing date for entries is 31 January 2002.

Entries received after that date will not be eligible.

Entry Fees and Payment Options

- For Websites, Exe's and CD-Roms - entry fees are R 500.00 per entry.
- For Online Advertising - entry fees are R250.00 per individual entry, or R300.00 per campaign (a maximum of 10 pieces of work per campaign).
- For the Student Award - entry is FREE.

In the interests of all things being digital, payment is either by electronic fund transfer or by direct debit of the entrants/companies credit card.

The Awards Ceremony and After-Party

The Construction New Media Awards take place on the final evening of The 5th International Design Indaba.

Attendees will have the opportunity to meet the judges, view the finalists, the award-winning work and party afterwards!

For more information, visit www.constructionaward.com, or contact .