2015 Innovation By Design Awards: New 3D Design Category Thanks to Inside 3D Printing & Fast Company

Both Inside 3D Printing and Fast Company are making it possible for 3D printing challengers to come on board for this year’s Innovation By Design Awards contest. Entries will be judged on:

• Functionality
• Originality
• Beauty
• Sustainability
• Depth
• Cultural impact
• Business impact

The idea is, obviously, to impress the judges with 3D design innovation, but they are also definitely interested in how it applies to the business angle.

While the judges are knowledgeable in design, they have extended this to experience in business as well. Designers and businesses are being judged on their efforts at creating progressive products that work for today’s applications but also look to the future with strength and ambition. You must be engaged with a forward-thinking attitude upon entering this competition, now in its fourth year.

With a deadline of May 13, you’ll want to get cracking on entering your fabulous designs, which could earn you a place in the October issue of Fast Company magazine, which has a circulation of 725,000—as well as earning a highlighted spot on Co.Design, a site receiving 4.2 million hits a month. Winners will also be ‘celebrated’ in New York at the magazine’s 20th anniversary event this November.

Judges for the 3D design category will be:

• Bre Pettis of Bold Machines
• Carl Bass of Autodesk
• Andrew Dent of Material Connexion
• Noah Robischon, Fast Company’s Executive Editor

The general fee for entering is $125, but that is reduced to $50 for students ready to enter their groundbreaking 3D designs. Along with your fee comes a subscription to Fast Company, a value of $19. Files are uploaded to the contest entry site. Contestants are permitted to submit multiple designs, with separate entry forms for each design. You may also enter each design in multiple categories, if appropriate.

With 14 categories for innovative designs in total, other highlights are categories for mobile apps giving access to an interactive world on modern platforms, city solutions offering urban improvement, fashion designs, and smart home designs that allow our appliances and other home electronics to work with us on a more intuitive level. There is also a category especially for students, so that they are able to enter a project they’ve recently completed, or can even reach back to projects from as far as two years ago. See the video below for last year’s student winner.

Those are just a few, but they can often relate to 3D design and 3D printing as well. With the opportunity to enter in multiple categories, you may find inspiration from checking out what judges are looking for further in the competition details.

Is this a 3D design competition you are interested in entering? Tell us about it in the 2015 Innovation By Design Awards forum thread over at 3DPB.com.