UK digital designers: Express yourself in Vegas!

UK digital designers: Express yourself in Vegas!

Win an all expenses paid trip with the Y Design Awards

Deadline for submissions extended to 5th September 2007

Core facts:

• Overall winner of the Y Design awards People’s Choice Award will receive an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas courtesy of Microsoft® Expression® to visit the Mix conference 2008.
• The People’s choice Award is voted for by the online community from the 14 category winners from the Y Design Awards. For category information, please go to the Y Design Awards website.
• All category winners will receive Microsoft® Expression® and Microsoft® Vista® software and be automatically entered in to the public vote for the People’s Choice Award which opens for online votes on 19th September.
• Category winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on 18th September 2007 at the Front Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre.
• People’s Choice Award will be announced in November.
• The Y Design awards aim to recognise the best UK creative talent in the digital space and are run in association with London Design Festival which runs from 18th – 25th September 2007.
• The awards are open for entries until 5th September 2007 via the website.
• The People’s Choice Award was won last year by Rufus Leonard for their work for The Imperial War Museum.
• This year’s sponsors include: Microsoft® Expression®, Carrenza , Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive and realwire.

Quotes:

William Knight, Director, London Design Festival
“It’s fantastic news that the Y Design Awards are again being held as part of the London Design Festival this year. The Festival promotes and celebrates all forms of design, and today there is none more important than digital design. London is the creative capital of the world in part because of its world class digital community; the Y Design awards are an important part of recognising and rewarding this.”

John Allwright, Product Manager, Microsoft® Expression®
“We are delighted to sponsor this year’s Y Design awards and to be working with the UK’s digital design community. Our goal is to provide them with innovative tools to raise the bar for user experiences and deliver compelling, rich, immersive, highly usable applications and content across the Web, the Windows desktop, mobile devices and the digital home”.

Will Rowe, Managing Director at Rufus Leonard
“We were delighted to win The People’s Choice Award, as it represents the views of our peers in the industry. The Y Design Awards provide an excellent platform for digital designers to showcase their work and for the design industry to recognise good design in a digital medium”.

Dan Sutherland, CEO of Carrenza
“We look forward to even more inspired and imaginative entries and the opportunity to celebrate again the hard work, vision and innovation demonstrated by the UK’s top digital design teams. Last year’s Awards identified some highly creative pieces of digital work and captured the variety of ways in which people can use, view and interact online. The new categories will give the scope for exciting and innovative campaigns that are ethical, are on the move or are so popular that they exceeded expectation.”

Neil Hughston, managing director, Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive
“Now in their second year, the Y Design Awards have already established themselves as an important fixture in the design calendar. I’m hoping to see some truly inventive and engaging entries that push the boundaries creatively and inspire people to think differently about digital design.”

Notes to Editors

About the Y Design Awards categories
• Best Game Design
A game that is not only challenging and entertaining, but also uses web-based technology in innovative ways.

• Best Interactive Site
A work for any purpose which delivers an overall extraordinary user experience through interactivity.

• Best Application
Most innovative online application. Judges will look for strong usability, originality, and technical complexity.

• Best Online Campaign
Best overall on-line campaign.

• Best Not-for-profit Campaign
A campaign for a not-for-profit organisation.

• Best Viral Campaign
Best campaign utilising viral propagation. Judges will look for the design and creativity of the piece, not just how successful it was in terms of distribution.

• Best Video
Must be shot with a video camera, and then imported into Microsoft® Silverlight. Additional credit will be given for enhancing the experience with additional graphics or interactivity.

• Best Technical Achievement
A work for any purpose which successfully delivers the most innovative and challenging use of technology.

• The Ethical Campaign Award
A work for any purpose which has been bought to life online using an ethical approach. This could include the purpose of the campaign, how it ahs been designed, how it is delivered to its audience, its effect on its audience, the planet etc.

• Best Use of Wireless/Mobile
A work for any purpose which delivers an overall extraordinary user experience on mobile devices.

• The Community Award
A work for any purpose which delivers an overall extraordinary user experience as part of an online community, i.e. social networking sites, forums.

• Young Designer Award
An exceptional piece of work from a digital designer aged 25 or younger.

• The So Successful Award
A work for any purpose which successfully engaged a far greater online audience than expected through its innovative concept and design. Web traffic statistics will be required

• Best New Business Award
An exceptional piece of work from an agency in its first two years of business.

• People’s Choice for best overall campaign

The online community’s opportunity to select their favorite submission from the Awards’ category winners.
About the London Design Festival
Established in 2003, The London Design Festival is an annual international event to celebrate and promote creative diversity. The event takes place over the last two weeks in September and is attended by thousands of visitors from the UK and abroad. For more information, visit www.londondesignfestival.com

About Microsoft Expression
Let your Imagination Show
Microsoft® Expression® is a brand new suite of professional tools for creative designers, empowering you and your studio to take your imagination to the next level. Comprising four ground-breaking products, Expression Studio is incredibly easy to learn and use ensuring amazing results whether you are designing standards based websites, rich media experiences for the web and desktop or managing and post-processing digital assets and content. For more information visit www.microsoft.com/uk/tryexpression

About Carrenza
Carrenza provides technical consultancy, managed services and hosting for businesses with demanding communication needs. Its services include all aspects of network design, building testing and management. Founded in 2000, Carrenza has quickly built a solid base of clients, which include: ddB Worldwide, Fourth Hospitality, Saatchi & Saatchi, Arc Interactive and SDL International amongst others. For more information, visit www.carrenza.com.

About Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive
Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive is a next generation ideas agency which specialises in creative solutions that are workable across all platforms. Its clients include Toshiba, Toyota, Comet, T-Mobile, Dr. Martens and 3M. It is part of the Saatchi & Saatchi group of companies. www.saatchi-interactive.com