The Czech Grand Design Awards are given out every year to help support and promote the best projects in the field of design, photography and illustration in Czechia, excluding exhibitions, interiors and fine arts projects. The Czech Grand Design Awards are industry-specific awards, not a competition, so it is not possible to register any project. The awards are awarded by the Czech Design Academy for exceptional projects over the given period, grouped under nine categories – Designer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year, Jewelry Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year, Photographer of the Year, Illustrator of the Year, Producer of the Year, Discovery of the Year and Hall of Fame. The Discovery of the Year category nominates up-and-coming talents under 35 years of age who have so far not been nominated in any of the other categories. Persons are inaugurated into the Hall of Fame based on long-term work and impact in the field of design, pedagogy, design theory, and can also be awarded for life-long achievement in the field of design. The Czech Grand Design Awards also award the title of Grand Designer of the Year.
The Preparatory Committee confirms the significance and prestige of the Czech Grand Design Awards by the authority of the institutions of which its individual members are part, solicits such persons for membership in the Academy and in the expert panels for the individual categories, and ensures the procedural validity of the voting process. Its efforts help develop the field of design in Czechia and procure ideational and financial support for the Czech Grand Design Awards from state institutions and private subjects. Members of the Preparatory Committee are: Helena Koenigsmarková, PhDr., professor emeritus of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague; Jiří Macek, creative director of Designblok and Profil Media – producer of the Czech Grand Design Awards; Jan Press, director of the Moravian Gallery in Brno; doc. PhDr. Filip Suchomel, Ph.D., art historian, Japanologist and director of the Regional Gallery in Liberec and Jana Zielinski, director of Designblok and Profil Media – producer of the Czech Grand Design Awards.
The Czech Design Academy consists of curators, theorists, writers and notable persons active in the field of design, photography and illustration. In case that an Academy member is active as both a theorist and designer, their career in theory ought to take precedence. By voting, the Academy members confirm that they do not have a conflict of interest. The Preparatory Committee invites individual persons into the ranks of the Czech Design Academy for the given calendar year and also sends them a nomination questionnaire which is part of the 1st voting round. The person confirms their membership by sending the CGDA organizers a filled-out nominations questionnaire. In case they do not send in their nominations to the organizers or fail to vote in at least one of the three rounds of the Czech Grand Design Awards, their name is not listed as part of the Academy’s membership roster for that year. The Czech Design Academy members vote only in the categories they have been following over the long term. The individual persons become members of the Czech Design Academy only for the purpose of voting in the Czech Grand Design Awards in the given calendar year. The activities of the Academy members are of an honorific and voluntary basis, and are not based in any legal relationship to the Awards’ organizers.
In the categories of Designer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year, Jewelry Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year, Photographer of the Year, Illustrator of the Year and Producer of the Year, the second round is judged by an expert panel composed of at least four members appointed by the Preparatory Committee from members of the Czech Design Academy for the given calendar year. The expert panels are composed of independent theorists, curators, writers and notable persons in the field of design who are selected by the Preparatory Committee of the Czech Design Academy, thus ensuring expertise, impartiality and far-reaching appreciation of the contemporary international design scene. The expert panels are responsible for the nominations’ factual and field-specific accuracy and reserve the right to expand or reduce the nominations in case the nominated party is not factually eligible for the Czech Grand Design Awards or does not correspond to their character.
First comes the nomination round in which members of the Czech Design Academy nominate a maximum of three subjects along with their one specific project for each category. The project ought to be exceptional and had to have been produced or first publicly introduced over the course of the reviewed period (the CGDA of 2023 followed the period from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023). The nomination must include a particular project by the nominated person, otherwise it is considered invalid and is not included in the final list of nominations.
Projects which receive less than 3 nominations are excluded and the Preparatory Committee hands in the final list of nominations for the second round of processing based on the following criteria. For the Discovery of the Year and Hall of Fame categories, the Academy members vote on the nominated projects from the nomination round. By selecting a maximum of three subjects in the respective categories, they determine the three names which receive the highest number of votes and which move on to the third round. If a nominated subject has already won in one of the previous years of CGDA, this is no reason to exclude them from the finals in another year. The nomination for Discovery of the Year is reviewed by all the expert panels. This category nominates up-and-coming talents under 35 years of age who have so far not been nominated for any other category. In case a producer has already appeared in a previous long-list for Discovery of the Year, their nomination is automatically carried over into their relevant category (i.e. Designer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year, Jewelry Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year, Illustrator of the Year or Photographer of the Year).
The respective panels for the categories Designer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year, Jewelry Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year, Illustrator of the Year, Photographer of the Year and Producer of the Year are selected by the Preparatory Committee from the ranks of the Czech Design Academy who take over the compiled list of nominations. The meetings of the individual expert panels then yield a short-list of three finalists who continue to the third round. The expert panels are also responsible for writing short texts (these are not bios) which substantiate the selection of the three finalists and their nominated projects, and serve as documentation for the third round of voting, finally being included as texts in the Czech Grand Design Awards yearbook for the current year. The individual expert panels also write short recommendations for those nominated parties in the Discovery of the Year category whose work relates to the given expert panel’s category.
In the third round, all members of the Academy bestow one vote to their preferred finalist in each category. The winner of each category is the finalist with the most votes. The votes cast in the third round are on a public, roll-call basis to ensure transparency. The Preparatory Committee gives the title of Grand Designer to one winner of the Awards’ creative categories – i.e. Designer of the Year, Fashion Designer of the Year, Jewelry Designer of the Year, Graphic Designer of the Year, Illustrator of the Year and Photographer of the Year. The title is given to the person whose winning project exceeds the limits of their particular category and reflects their overall impact over the course of the reviewed period.
This Charter is valid from 3 August 2022.