Celebrating Decades of Innovation: Hong Kong Designers Association Global Design Awards 2021

The Hong Kong Designers Association (HKDA) announced the commencement of an international call for entries for its HKDA Global Design Awards 2021 in all award categories at today’s Press Conference cum Seminar.

The HKDA Global Design Awards (formerly known as the HKDA Awards) have widely been acknowledged as one of the most established multi-disciplinary design competitions in the Asia-Pacific region since the Awards were founded in 1975. In the HKDA Global Design Awards (HKDA GDA) 2018, over 2,000 entries were attracted from 40 destinations around the world, and a judging panel formed by 12 world-class judges selected the winners of different award categories, showing the global recognition of the awards. Riding on the 50th anniversary of the HKDA next year, the prestigious HKDA GDA held in 2021, which is supported by Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) as the Lead Sponsor, will be a momentous event for celebrating the HKDA’s golden jubilee.

To commemorate this special occasion, the Press Conference cum Seminar was held today to officially announce the details of the HKDA GDA 2021. It is the honour of the organiser to have the Under Secretary for the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the HKSAR Government, Dr. Bernard Chan, JP, to attend the event, and Mr. Victor Tsang, Head of CreateHK, as the Guest of Honour.

Mr. Victor Tsang, Head of CreateHK, expressed his gratitude to the HKDA for organising the HKDA GDA again and called on the design industry to actively sign up.

Calling for entries from international design talent until 17 September 2021

The HKDA GDA 2021 is currently accepting entries from global designers, design owners or users of design (clients), brand owners, designers or design consultants who may submit any number of entries without limits. There are eight design award categories (Digital, Graphics, Products, Spatial, Rising Creative, Experience, Impact and Design Clientele) spanning 50 subcategories, opened for entries from all pillars of the design industry. The HKDA GDA presents Gold, Silver, Bronze, Excellence, Hong Kong Best and Judge’s Choice Awards to recognise different levels of design excellence. In this edition of the HKDA GDA, the brand-new ‘Design Clientele Award’ is introduced to encourage good business support and promote business collaboration so as to provide opportunities for both the designers and their clients to demonstrate their works and promote innovative designs.

Submission of entries for the HKDA GDA 2021 will be closed on 17 September 2021. Entrants can sign up in the official website of the HKDA GDA 2021 as early as today (i.e. 18 June 2021) to play a part in escalating quality designs to the next level. 'I cordially invite all design talent to enter the HKDA GDA 2021. Let the global audience recognise your works which will be featured especially in diverse channels of publications, exhibitions, conferences, and see the press talking about your companies and brands,' says Dr. Anthony Kong, Project Coordinator of the HKDA GDA 2021. The HKDA also spreads the word through a 'Cultural Nature' visual identity and the social media campaign ‘46 Postathon’, where a collection of digital posters will be generated by 46 HKDA’s alumni winners of the HKDA GDA.

Entries of the HKDA GDA 2021 will be judged by a world-class panel of 12 top-notch representatives of the design industry from Hong Kong, the Mainland, Taiwan, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands. They will join forces in October 2021 for an intense judging process where they will go through each submission one by one to determine the winners of different awards. Please visit the HKDA GDA website (www.hkdagda2021.com) for the judging criteria.

46 years as esteemed awards for design excellence

Being the first multi-disciplinary global design award scheme in Asia, after 46 successful years, the HKDA GDA continues to celebrate the excellence of global designs. 'With the HKDA entering its 50th anniversary next year, the 46-year-old HKDA GDA has also become an iconic pioneer of its kind in the design history in Asia-Pacific. In its 2021 edition, the HKDA GDA serves itself as a significant brand, setting the benchmark for excellent global designs, while unveiling another new page of the design industry in the Asia-Pacific design history,' Mr. Karr Yip, Chairman of the HKDA, comments. 'More than a design competition to honour global design excellence, the HKDA GDA also acts as a pilot to link top-notch design elites around the world for the promotion, conservation and assurance of the esteem of design. Its yearlong campaign further aims to promote Hong Kong as one of the major creative hubs in Asia-Pacific.’

Full details of the HKDA GDA are available at its official website or the HKDA’s and the HKDA GDA’s respective Facebook pages  facebook.com/HongKongDesignersAssociation and facebook.com/hkda.gda/