Changes for NZ Sign Award Categories

With the signage industry evolving every year, the NZSDA Board look at the categories and descriptions to ensure they reflect the changing environment and also taking into consideration feedback received from previous entrants and comments from judges.  We need to ensure for all our users that the awards website is a user friendly experience and the categories are relevant and represent current signage outcomes, therefore with this said the NZSDA have implemented the following changes for the categories for 2022 and future:

• The Digital Signs category has been replaced with category “Brand Creation.” Since the Digital Signs category was introduced in 2018 it has been mostly used to enter marketing videos, which are usually a part of a broad range of marketing collateral for brands.  This new category is to recognise the diverse range of design and brand management skills required to produce an overall visual image for a client and can include digital imagery.
• The “Wayfinding and Navigation” category has been removed. All work that would have been submitted in previous years into this category will now go into a current suitable category.
• “Illustrations and Murals” is a new category that merges the two categories, which were “Hand Rendered Illustrations and Murals“ and “Digital Illustrations and Murals”
• A new category “Traditional Handcrafted Signs” has been created. This category is suitable for all techniques of hand-crafted signs that is considered traditional.
• The “3D modelling” category has been removed. All entries that would have previously been submitted into this category can now be put into “Dimensional Signs” or any other suitable category.
• The “Vehicles – Custom Wrapped” now requires you to provide a copy of the Content License Agreement for any use of any trademarked or copywritten imagery used within the work, if any.

Please make sure that when you enter your artwork into the NZ Sign Awards for 2022 and beyond that you have read through current categories and choose the most suitable for your work. The descriptions and judging guidelines along with the scoring criteria may be different than previous years.  A reminder that the same work can be submitted into more than one category if the work is suited to more than one.

For the full list of Awards Categories 2022, along with the Judging Guideline and Scoring Criteria see here:

Awards of Excellence Categories & Criteria 2022.

Submit your stand out creations on the Awards Website here:

New Zealand Sign and Display Awards (nzsda.net.nz)