In a rapidly changing and increasingly demanding marketplace, design is a critical source of competitive advantage. Embedded within, and throughout a business, design can impact across the total enterprise transforming its fortunes and tangibly realising its strategic intent.
From measuring success to sharing excellence and best practice, we work to build universal confidence in design investment, and to enable thriving partnerships between those commissioning and managing design and the agencies delivering it.
Through our work, and with the powerful collective voice of our membership, the DBA is uniquely placed to drive design ever further up the agenda in business and government.
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Design Effectiveness
The DBA champions the role of effective design in the creation of business growth.
We support the sector in articulating the value of design and work with business and government to achieve a marketplace where design’s full potential is universally capitalised upon.
The DBA Design Effectiveness Awards were established in 1989. They are the longest running, most robust effectiveness awards for design out there.
DBA Design Effectiveness Awards
If you want to convincingly demonstrate and prove the effectiveness and impact of the design work you and your team produce, the unique accreditation of winning a DBA Design Effectiveness Award gives you the ability to do this.
Independently, expertly and robustly peer reviewed by a panel of judges who sit within a wide range of design commissioning organisations.
Our judges are design leaders working in the environments you work in and who understand the challenges associated with meeting and exceeding the brief to create meaningful change and growth.
These awards recognise your success, whatever the sector or discipline of design you work within. Download an Entry Pack for the 2026 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards and enter by 5pm BST, Monday 14 July 2025.
Eligibility
Entered jointly by the agency or in-house design team delivering the work, and the organisation commissioning it, these awards celebrate the partnerships that deliver value – be that commercial, societal or environmental.
Entries from across the globe are welcome.
Design work in any context is eligible.
The only requirement is that you have the measured proof that design made a clear and significant contribution to the results achieved by the work.
“Evidencing the value of design is a critical part of our craft. We have to be comfortable finding ways to measure, monitor, assess and evaluate the impact our work is having on the world. We also need to make sure we’re measuring the right things, at the right time.” Andy Young, Former Group Director of Experience Design, Lloyds Banking Group
The effect of winning
A win provides independent, authoritative and unquestionable recognition of the impact of your work in the real world.
A win can help to make the case for design investment at board level, maintaining and growing budgets, and boost and motivate your team, helping to attract the brightest and best talent.
A win will powerfully demonstrate your ability to deliver competitive advantage through design, setting you apart from the masses and driving new business opportunities.
“Winning a DBA Design Effectiveness Award demonstrates the true value design can bring. It elevates design above simply the aesthetic or a cost and highlights the extensive value design can provide across any industry.” Paul Edwards, Head of Advanced Design, Airbus
Dates
February – July 2025: Call for Entries
Gather your data, speak to the DBA team if you would like help (either with the thinking, planning or pointers on the writing), and make your case.
Monday 14 July 2025: Deadline for entries, 5pm BST
Submit your entry at: effectivedesign.awardsplatform.com The deadline is never extended. Really, it’s not.
October 2025: Shortlist announced
If you’re in the shortlist, you are guaranteed to have won a Bronze, Silver or Gold award.
February 2026: Winners announced
We’ll celebrate together at The Design Effect; a full day event exploring and recognising the impact design has in business, society and the world.
The Gold, Silver and Bronze winners in the 2024 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards along with the coveted Grand Prix, were announced at the DBA’s The Design Effect event held at The British Museum on Tuesday 8 October 2024.
For more details about the 2024 winners and entering the awards, head to effectivedesign.org.uk where you can also access hundreds of winning case studies from across the years.
Deconstructing design effectiveness | Watch a recording of this DBA webinar
What makes design effective? Ultimately, it’s about impact – design that changes behaviours, transforms businesses, saves lives. Design that performs. What does that impact look like in reality and how can you measure it?
Watch the recording of the webinar for an unfiltered look at design that reshaped markets and shifted human behaviour.