Merit Awards

In an effort to encourage, reward and celebrate excellence in industrial design education, IDSA encourages student chapters to nominate its best and brightest for the Chapter Student Merit Award Competition. Each student chapter holds a competition, juried by professional designers, to select the one Student Merit winner who will represent their school at the District Conference. The winner from each school presents at the District Conference, and a jury of professional designers select the National Student Merit Award winner for the district. Each year, the five National Student Merit winners are invited to display their work at the National Conference. This elevated recognition serves to connect undergraduate design students with the IDSA’s national scope while honoring them in a national arena for academic design achievement.

Guidelines to help you with this process are listed below and the evaluation form can be downloaded from IDSA’s website. Make sure your school schedules plenty of time for the jurying in advance of this years district conference! If there are questions, please contact Todd Corlett or Bruce Lee. Thanks and good luck!

IDSA Student Merit Awards

2008 Selection Processes and Requirements
Chapter Student Merit Awards

Only members of current Student Chapters (chapters that have paid their dues and whose Student Chapter Advisor is an IDSA member) may participate in the program.

The industrial design faculty nominates the candidates, and must contact the local Chapter Chair who will help develop the review committee.

The industrial design faculty selects the candidates, who meet the current criteria for grade point average, class standing, etc.; including at least a “B” grade average in all course work since entering the design curriculum. The candidate must graduate in 2008, which includes the fall semester/quarter.

The selected students should present their work to a committee of three professional members of IDSA who are invited to serve as jurors by the school. These professionals should not teach at the school. Only one industrial design major from each IDSA Student Chapter may be chosen for this award. Jurors should use the evaluation form provided by IDSA.

The District Education Representative is responsible for notifying IDSA of the Student Merit Award recipients in their district. A list of the winners for each school in the district must be emailed to Jill Richardson no later than two weeks before the district conference. Check dates for your district conference on IDSA’s website.

Each Student Merit Award winner receives a certificate and a one-year complimentary membership in IDSA, but they must complete and submit a membership application to Jill Richardson. Student Merit Award winner certificates will be presented at ceremonies at each of the five IDSA district conferences by an IDSA national officer attending the conference. A copy of the certificate will be mailed to the student chapter advisor.

Student winners are expected to remain at the conference until they are presented with their award.

National Student Merit Awards

Student Merit winners will give a brief presentation of their work at the district conference. Each will be given a time limit for their presentation and information on equipment available for visuals. Students are to show only their work in their presentation, but may include one visual of the school/ID program.

A review committee of practitioners will select the District’s National Student Merit winner from among the presentations at the district conference.

Each District’s National Student Merit winner will display their work at the IDSA National Conference, and receive a complimentary student registration to the National Conference. The National winner from each district will also receive an additional two year free membership.