European Design Awards Explained

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] Further more, 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_(magazine), 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]

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]