Article
The four criteria, and what each one is really asking
Brief, idea, execution, outcome. Most lost points are lost on the first and the last.
2 min read
Article · March 11, 2026
Entrants tend to over-prepare the idea and under-prepare the brief and the outcome. Those are two of the four, and they are the two a juror cannot infer from a picture.
What the criteria actually measure
Every group is scored against the same four criteria: the problem the work was given, the idea it answered with, how well that idea was made, and what happened once it left the studio. A juror cannot substitute a fifth criterion of their own, and cannot score a piece on a criterion its category does not carry.
The scores are recorded per criterion rather than as a single impression, which is what makes a result explainable afterwards. When two entries finish level, the tiebreak reads the criteria in a fixed order before it reads anything else.
Why the tier is settled first
A student ranked against an agency is not a competition, so the tier a piece competes in is verified before any juror sees it. Verification looks at the entrant, not the work: enrolment, trade licence, the size of the studio that made it.
It happens before scoring for a plain reason: moving an entry after a jury has read it would either discard their work or carry a score across a boundary it was never given for.
Read this next
The criteria, the tiers and the six phases are set out in full under Awards. If a point here matters to an entry you are preparing, that is the page that governs it - this one only explains it.
