The rules

Rules of entering

01. Entries must be submitted online by 5pm GMT, 1 December 2026. After the deadline no further changes will be accepted. Late entries will not be accepted. There will be no deadline extension.

02. You must submit two versions of your entry.

1. An anonymous version (for judging)
2. A publication version (that will be published if you win)

02.1: The anonymous version – this is used for judging

• Must not identify the name of the design agency or in-house teams responsible for the design work.
• Throughout the entry, please refer to the design team who is making the entry as “we”.
• Any additional parties, such as other business units or design agencies, refer to as “they” or “Business 2”, “Business 3”, etc. respectively.
• Client names can be included.
• Must be made online and submitted in the form of an unlocked PDF report, black font on white background, font size 10, portrait, written in English and A4 in size.
• We encourage graphs and pictures which support the case to be included. However it is not required to spend studio time on extensive art working.
• A maximum of 6 images can be included in your entry.
• Anonymous entries must adhere to the specified page limits (9 pages in total, see pages 8 & 9 in the Entry Pack for more details). If the entry exceeds the page limits, the additional pages will not be circulated to the judges.
• If you have any confidential data in your case study, you must include the words ‘Confidential – not for publication’ clearly on the cover of your entry to indicate that it contains confidential data.
• This version must follow all the rules above regarding anonymity.

02.2: The publication version – this will be published if you win

The investment of extensive studio art-working time is not a requirement, however for your publication ready PDF:

• the page limit for this version increases to 12 A4 sides,
• image use is unrestricted,
• you are able to include company names / logos.

These are the only changes permitted. The ‘For publication’ version must otherwise be identical to the anonymous, non art-worked version you submitted for the judges.

Redacting confidential data

• If you need to remove confidential data in your publication version, you must write ‘REDACTED CONFIDENTIAL DATA’ within the entry in place of every instance of removed information throughout the version.
• You cannot delete whole blocks of text – this method can only be used to redact specific detail within a sentence – e.g. confidential numbers, information or similar.
• Alternatively, indices or percentages could be used to replace exact figures in publication versions.
• It is the responsibility of the entrant to ensure that no confidential data is included in your ‘For publication’ version and the DBA will not be held responsible for any errors.
• We advise keeping as much data publicly available as possible to help the clarity of your case when it is read post-publication.

Aside from these permitted changes, the copy in your publication version must be exactly the same as your anonymous entry: nothing removed, added or altered.

03. The project may have been launched at any time, however, your entry must include some up-to-date evidence, collated after 1 June 2024.

04. Separate to the entry PDFs, entrants must supply logos for both client and agency in addition to a minimum of three and a maximum of six images of the project. All logos must be supplied as SVG files in white only. All project imagery must be supplied as a RGB 72 dpi jpg file Once you have submitted your entry online, please supply the same images via WeTransfer to [email protected]. These files should be high-resolution, CMYK/300 dpi, TIFF, or jpg file formats. If you include any images which feature someone else’s work, you must have permission to use these images and they must be labelled accordingly. All images must be sent to [email protected] by Tuesday 8 December 2026.

05. Each entry must be finally approved, before submission, by the entrant’s principal / managing director or equivalent, and by an appropriate senior executive of the other party. The names of these individuals should be entered into the online form and included on the sign off sheet which can be found at the end of this pack. Once these names have been entered and the form has been signed, they have confirmed they have complied with these rules. DBA may ensure all these individuals have the necessary authority.

06. Entries submitted into the Awards should be honest and truthful and comply to the rules. Any entry that
 is found, subsequent to judging and / or the Awards announcement, to have included false or misleading information may be disqualified and / or have its Award withdrawn. By entering the Awards, entrants are confirming that the works they submit contain no personal data which would be governed by the Data Protection Act 2018. No works submitted should contain any libellous or obscene material, nor anything which infringes the intellectual property rights of others. All entry content is respected as the intellectual property of the entrants.

07. The decisions of the judging panels are final. Once the shortlist of winners has been announced in April 2027, unsuccessful entrants can apply for feedback. After the shortlisted entries are awarded Bronze, Silver or Gold at The Design Effect where the DBA Design Effectiveness Award winners are announced in June 2027, winners can then also apply for feedback. Feedback is free for DBA members and will be charged at £125+vat for non-members.

08. You will be notified in April 2027 if your entry has been successful or not. The level of award you have won 
will be announced at The Design Effect where the DBA Design Effectiveness Award winners are announced. There is absolutely no prior disclosure of this information.

09. The DBA reserves the right to disqualify an entry if the rules have not been strictly complied with. Fees are non-refundable.

10. Subject to Rule 3, by submitting written or artistic work each entrant guarantees that approval of their client has been obtained and entrants (on behalf of themselves and their clients) give the organisers (and any other third parties approved by the organiser as part of the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards scheme or PR / reporting covering them) the right to reproduce all or part of the publication version entry and supplied images at any time in the future. If for any reason they are unable to grant this right, each entrant indemnifies the organisers and the judges against all costs, claims and liabilities.

11. The organisers reserve the right to give permission to third parties to publish the whole or any part of the publication versions only of submitted material as part of the Awards or reporting thereafter.

12. Works submitted as part of an entry will not be returned. Unsuccessful entries will be deleted from our systems after 12 months from the entry deadline. Winning entries are kept indefinitely.

13. If entries submitted for the Awards are subsequently published, the authors must acknowledge the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards.