4 Best practices for scoring creative competitions

Hosting a creative competition can be very rewarding – not just for the entrants themselves but also for the competition manager. It’s an opportunity to see the best of the best in a variety of pursuits — from music, videos, painting and writing to sculpting, drawing, and graphic designing. The options are endless.

Such prestigious contests naturally encourage expressiveness and individuality while fostering the spirit of healthy competition.  

And sponsoring or hosting a creative competition can prove to be a powerful way to build your fanbase, cultivate brand equity, gain consumer data and even engage with your audience.  

But with so many beautiful submissions to evaluate, how can you score them effectively and without bias? A proper and transparent judging system will provide integrity and respect for your competition, and help your judges find and elevate the best entries. 

How are creative competitions scored?

Here are some best practices for scoring your creative submissions fairly, consistently and effortlessly.

1. Plan the who and what in the scoring process

The first step in building out your scoring process for your creative competition is to plan who will be scoring what. It’s important to ask yourself a few questions, such as

• In what format will submissions be entered? (PDFs? Photographs? Video?) Be sure you can easily accept different formats that are easily viewable by your judges.
• What are the most important values of each submission? Creativity? Originality? Demonstrative artistic skill? 
• Who will be your judges? And what is their level of expertise? For example, you might want to invite respected artists or gallery curators in your community for a painting competition or local architects for a design contest.
• Will you invite the larger community for a public voting round? Consider different rounds of judging–a public voting round, a specialised judging round. Consider what works best for a holistic assessment of your submissions.

Deciding how and who will score your creative submissions will help you plan the exact criteria you will use to judge your competition.  

2. Create the scoring criteria 

Your scoring criteria will be the rubric used by your judges to assess each entry in your creative competition. It will also provide direction to your entrants on what judges will be looking for as they evaluate each entry. 

The type of creative competition you are hosting will obviously influence your scoring criteria. Let’s examine a few different types of creative contests and some various metrics you can use. 

a. Photo competitions:

The pointers for scoring a photo contest can include thematic consistency, overall composition, creativity, appeal, quality and innovation.

b. Musical competitions:

To evaluate musical competitions, the criteria might include musical literacy, creativity, thematic consistency, originality, delivery, technical quality and audio quality.

c. Art competitions:

Due to the diverse nature of art, art competitions include painting, sculpting, drawing and much more. Judging guides for such competitions can cover aesthetic value, coordination, colour scheme, artistry, composition, design, originality, creativity and thematic consistency. 

d. Writing competitions:

Evaluating writing competitions can include criteria such as creativity, diction, grammar, word count, fresh points of view, ideas, thematic consistency and originality. 

e. Drama or video competitions:

Yardsticks for judging drama or video competitions can include visual appeal, audio-visual quality, thematic consistency, clarity in the thought process, and motivational and educational content.

When creating scoring criteria, ensure that it’s tailored to suit your promotion plan. This demands carefully considering the weight attached to the various criteria to prioritise entries that excel in areas that matter to you.

Consider soliciting feedback from your judges on the criteria as you plan it. Their expertise will be invaluable.

And don’t forget to be transparent about how entries will be judged with your entrants from the very beginning to ensure they hit all the right notes in their submission.         

3. Prioritise consistency and objectivity

When scoring creative competitions, there’s always the risk of unconscious bias, even with a set of judging criteria. One way to guarantee that personal prejudices don’t interfere with the evaluation is to ensure that they have no bearing on the outcome. 

From managing conflicts of interest to anonymising the judges and entrants, there are clear steps you can take to minimise bias. 

Objectivity and a consistent scoring process for all entries will boost the integrity of the creative competition and improve your brand reputation.  

4. Use reliable creative awards software

Sure, there is a lot that goes into scoring a creative competition. However, it can all be a breeze with creative awards software.

A manual judging process can be time-consuming and fraught with the risk of human error.  But, a creative contest scoring software eliminates the loopholes that can characterise a manual set-up.

Award Force, for example, can help save time and money while impressing both your entrants and judges with an easy-to-use process. From accepting multi-format submissions and providing high-def video playback to high-impact visual galleries and a streamlined judging process, the judging software makes accepting, managing and judging creative entries a breeze. 

Also, creative awards software makes it easy to communicate with judges, randomise judging assignments, track judging status, shortlist the finalists and help find the best entrants in your creative competition. The list of benefits goes on and on. 

Scoring your creative competitions doesn’t have to be complex, nor does it have to be compromised by personal inclinations. Follow these best practices above to score your creative competition with criteria that will help you find the best submissions, every time.