How to Submit
Submissions are welcomed from professional designers in Ireland and Irish designers overseas who are working in the broad field of communication design (graphic, editorial, type, brand, digital, motion…). Work should have been completed and published in the last year. Subscribe, €120 for a solo designer or €360 for a studio, to get unlimited submissions or pay €30 per submission. At the very least you’ll need the following to submit:
- Project title, client, names of all designers and suppliers involved in the project (everyone should consent to the work being submitted)
- Up to 6 images at 2000px on the longest side, JPG, PNG or GIF only
- Most importantly, a solid description of the project and what it involved. Be sure not to give your identity away within this as the assessment should be anonymous
You can also include:
- A video to be uploaded to the 100 Archive Vimeo page (or a Vimeo or YouTube link)
- Tags to help people find your project
- A website link only if the project was or included a website (portfolio links will be disqualified)
Any issues?
If you are unsure about anything relating to the submission process — eligibility, subscriptions/credits, using the site, what to upload — get in touch and we will do our best to help you. You can drop us a line at onehundredarchive@gmail.com.
How it works
The 100 Archive creates an annual selection of 100 examples of contemporary communication design, in all its forms, made by designers all over Ireland and Irish designers overseas. Work comes to the 100 Archive through an open submission process and is assessed by two panels of designers, educators, curators and commissioners of design. Assessment occurs each spring, with the panels reviewing approximately 400 pieces of work made in the previous year.
The criteria
To be eligible to submit…
- you must be a designer working in Ireland or an Irish designer working overseas
- work considered for the 2023 100 Archive Selection should have been completed and published between 1 January and 31 December 2023 and submitted by 31 January 2024.
- work should have responded to a professional brief (not a student brief) and been approved and made public by your client or commissioner. In the case of self-initiated work, it must have been legitimately publicly distributed by you to an audience.
- work should be your own, and everyone who contributed to it (fellow designers, other collaborators, the client) should be credited accordingly and should consent to it being submitted.
In terms of what type of work it ‘should’ be, we like to keep the criteria as broad as possible. We would like to see communication design projects submitted by designers at all levels of their career and for all types of clients. All types of outputs or media you are working in as communication designers will be considered, and anything that speaks to our industry’s ever-broadening remit, as well as its established core, is welcome.
When it comes to making their selections, the panels are generous and impartial, recognising that they have the influence to encourage emerging designers, to promote difference and to capture diversity. They identify work that deserves attention and further consideration, work that can be described as good, interesting, different, unexpected, simple, modest, clear, well executed, culturally relevant etc.
The process
Submit your work all year round and it will be assessed by our Professional Panel. If three or more panel members give it a thumbs up the project becomes live on the site.
After the annual deadline passes, the Professional Panel complete their assessment and our Archive Panel then begin their selection process, where each panellist creates a shortlist of 100–150 projects. The final 100 projects are those in receipt of the most votes from the Archive Panel, with two exceptions:
- No designer or studio can have more than five pieces selected for the Archive in any given year. In cases where someone has more than five pieces selected by the Archive Panel, the designer/studio in question decides which five pieces will be included
- In cases where there are more selections than spaces in the Archive, the decision as to what is included is made by taking into account the nature of the work being considered and the year of the Archive. For example, is the work similar or quite different to the other work in the Archive, or is it especially reflective of life/culture in the year in question?
The 100 Archive selections are revealed in spring of each year. Keep an eye out for updates, to attend the annual launch party and to see what work has made the cut...