365: AIGA Year in Design Winners Announced for 2023

AIGA Celebrates the Innovation and Inspiration of the Design Community

New York, NY—AIGA, the professional association for design, is pleased to announce the winners of 365: AIGA Year in Design, a 360-degree view of design over 365 days. The competition celebrates designers, design teams, and their clients for effectively working together to design creative solutions for challenges presented by businesses and organizations during the calendar year 2023. This competition recognizes excellence and represents innovation across all categories of communication design, from print to web to service to spaces—both physical and virtual. 

With 506 entries from more than 26 countries around the globe, including the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Mexico, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Japan, United Kingdom, and more, this year’s jurors selected 54 entries that represent excellence in design.

Selections from this year’s jurors of the 2023 competition can be viewed in the Winners Gallery.

"The jury’s selections from the 365: AIGA Year in Design competition provides a snapshot about the state of graphic design. In the pluralistic context of design today it's difficult to pinpoint trends or to see what stylistic traits are popping up, much less any traces of regionalism. But the competition format still yields strong work happening in a lively mix of categories”, said Abbott Miller, 365: AIGA Year in Design Chair. “Brand design is by far the largest category and this year's results reaffirm the extent to which typography is playing such a defining role in building strong brands. The exhibition design category also had some outstanding and ambitious projects that show how graphics and spatial design can support one another. The jury conversations led us to formulate a strong criteria about evaluating craft and innovation and context in our decisions about which projects belonged in the final selections. Thanks to all the designers and organizations that submitted work in the spirit of getting a chance to see what we have all been doing and where we are headed."

AIGA thanks this year’s panel of esteemed jurors: Abbott Miller (chair), Partner, Pentagram; Dan Vlahos, Design Leader and Educator, Dan Vlahos Design, AIGA Boston and Merrimack College; Heather-Mariah Dixon, Partner, Creative Director, Overeasy; Jarrett Fuller, Partner, Assistant Professor of Graphic and Experience Design, North Carolina State University College of Design; Podcast Host, Scratching the Surface; Lucille Tenazas, Henry Wolf Professor of Communication Design, Parsons School of Design; and Anna Kulachek, Art Director, Graphic Designer, KULACHEK.

Read about some of this year’s winning designs: 

Levine Children’s Hospital, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Inc.
Environmental / Experiential Design
The Levine Children's Hospital aimed to transform the space into a place for healing. Collaborating closely with administrative and clinical leaders, our team curated a design focused on reducing anxiety and providing comforting distractions for patients and their families. Design elements include curving walls, circular seats, and undulating floor patterns, all thoughtfully designed to foster a calming atmosphere. Custom-illustrated wallcoverings and themed illustrations integrated throughout the facility offer a welcoming environment and engaging distractions for patients and family members. Elevator lobbies and waiting areas also feature themed designs, while the physical therapy corridor aligns illustrations with custom flooring to measure and celebrate patients' progress. Each floor is themed—City, Mountain, and Sky—creating a cohesive and immersive experience. The themed illustrations also serve as a hide-and-seek game for patients, enhancing their engagement with the space.

A Boy's Life on the Frontlines, The New York Times
Illustration / Photography
Lynsey Addario, the renowned photojournalist who has documented the war in Ukraine since February 2022, spent more than a week living with a mother and son in a town near the frontline in Eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2023. Earlier that year she met Yegor, 11, while he was learning to do sutures at a hospital. Yegor’s mother, Lena, worked at the hospital as an X-ray technician and assisted with treating soldiers. After shelling threatened their apartment, Lena and Yegor moved to a small, one-story house of a friend that was close to the hospital but had no running water and sporadic electricity. The decision of whether to stay or flee always loomed. Addario reported, wrote, photographed and filmed the videos for this report. She documents their attempt to carve out a fleeting sense of normalcy amid the horror of war and how Yegor's childhood is transformed by it. Addario gives an unflinching look at an aspect of the war that is rarely seen.

Sforza, Ampersand Type Foundry
Typographic Design
After visiting Milan in 2018, I stumbled upon the Sforza castle, and found some interesting type on a series of inscriptions on the inner courtyard castle walls. I became inspired by what I found, and researched the history behind the castle and restoration, and decided to design a typeface based off of the limited sampling of quirky letterforms. Thus Sforza was born, with ligatures galore, alternates, pictograms, and swooshes. Sforza is a Roman style typeface with an eccentric flair. It has loads of ligatures, nested letterforms, and tails and swooshes for endless combinations.

Black, Brown, and Berklee Bound, Vanessa Rossi Design
Promotional Design and Advertising
Design for Berklee College of Music’s new print and digital marketing campaign, "Black, Brown, and Berklee Bound," an inaugural summer program for talented young musicians of color from historically underrepresented and under-served communities in the United States. The program is free to all accepted participants including travel, housing, and meals, with the intention of reaching high school students who would not normally see themselves represented at a competitive music school or conservatory. The initiative includes a comprehensive social media campaign, digital and print materials, wayfinding, environmental graphics, and apparel.

See all of the 2023 winners in the AIGA Winner’s Gallery.

The competition was first launched in 1924 as "Contemporary Printing for Commerce." Since then, it has been called: "Printing for Commerce" (1925–1953); "Design and Printing for Commerce/Fifty Advertisements of the Year" (1954–1967); "Communication Graphics" (1968–2000); and "365: AIGA Year in Design" (2001–2011).

Design is at the heart of successful businesses, and AIGA is committed to creating and restoring pathways for designers and design teams to raise awareness of their work and its impact. Competitions are instrumental in identifying emerging and hidden talent within the design community, recognizing effective visual design solutions in the marketplace, and communicating the added value of design to adjacent industries. Work selected by jurors will chronicle the contributions of design and designers to business value and visual culture. 

Learn more about 365: AIGA Year in Design competition.

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