YCN (Young Creatives Network) competitions.....

Competition Briefs...

There are lots of different competition briefs within the Young Creatives Network website - 17 in total, one of which I would be unable to enter as it requires a video / film entry. Having read the extract of each brief, it appears that each competition is centred essentially around producing a creative campaign or promtional piece for either a product, service, movie or company (this includes rebranding several well known products - such as green and blacks chocolate). 

I can't say that intially any of the competition briefs appeal to me - brand identity is not a genre of illustration / design which I interests me (it seems that most of these competitions would be more applicable to a graphic designer rather than an illustrator - not that this means that they should not be considered merely because I am doing illustration). 

Upon first reading the abstracts of some of the briefs, the Green and Blacks design campaign competition appeals to me the most, however, I'm not really sure where I would even beign with this. I feel that my lack of experience within brand identity and promotion would be my downfall, although it would provide an opportunity to try something new.

Submission Details -

This year, all submissions for the different competitions are to be done online - the online submission facility goes live at the end of January, if appropriate, a handheld item or physical artwork piece can also be delivered.

Deliverables

Please adhere to the following guidelines governing the submission of work:

• Artwork should be mounted on boards.
• Interactive work should be on a Mac-readable format on a CD or DVD.
• If you upload any interactive work you should supply a full URL and details of any plug-ins needed to view the work.
• Radio scripts should be typed, and any recordings should be submitted as a Mac readable audio format on a CD or DVD.Any additional support materials, written or otherwise, should all also be clearly labeled.
• Any models or other potentially fragile submissions should be carefully packaged to avoid damage.
• You may submit as many items as you wish.

Competition deadline 

The deadline for all the competition briefs is the 6pm 25th March 2011

Illustrative practises deadline - 11 March 2011

The competition deadlines are just under two weeks after the illustrative practises module deadline. This means that if I were to enter any of the competitions then I think that by the time of the illustrative practises module deadline, I would need to be able to submit finalised draft visuals of my competition entry - I would not want to be doing any major reworking of my illustrations at this point. These competitions would provide a considerable workload in a reasonably short time as their nature means I would have to spend a lot of time researching branding / promotion of products etc. in order to ensure my entry was suitable.

Competition judges

Each competition will have it's own particular judges who are part of the company setting the competition design brief. There don't seem to be any available images of the previously commended entries making it difficult to have any sort of fixed idea as to what may be expected from an entry.

Competition prizes

The prizes for winning include work being commended by the comapny which set the initial competion brief at an awards ceremony, as well as inclusion with the YCN awards annual. I can't see any other sort of prizes available - I'm not sure as to whether work would actually be used by the companies setting the competition briefs or not.

The key prize here seems to be the exposure work would receive within the design world, and the possible contacts that could be made from being commended. Being commended for a design entry could lead to future career possibilities within the particular company setting the competition brief. Attending the awards ceremony with a commended entry would be an opportunity to expose work to creative individauls in the design industry, and a chance to create new contacts / begin networking.

I've read the full briefs of several of the competitions, and must admit I feel a little out of my depth - I don't think I would really know how to start creating a promotional campaign or rebranding a product. I also feel that my lack of experience within digital software could really hamper me with entering any of these briefs. 

I think that entering one of these competitions would involve a lot of creative problem solving, as well as a good knowledge of target audiences of a brand/product etc. and what appeals to them. If I were to enter one of these competitions, I think that research of the brand that competition centres around would be key - Who are the audience? - Is the brand they targeting a new clientele? - What is of key importance with brand design and or promotion? - How could this most successfully be communicated?

Entering one of these competitions could definitely result in moving away from 2 - Dimensional illustration, something which I don not know how comfortable I am with.