The World Illustration Awards are a year-round celebration of the power and diversity of illustration being made today. Being part of WIA offers a host of significant benefits and opportunities from the call for entries stage right through to the winner announcements.
Being Longlisted, Shortlisted, Highly Commended or even a Winner is a fantastic achievement, giving you the opportunity to prove the value of your creativity to clients, business partners and customers.
This is followed by the announcement in May of 500 longlisted projects, and then the release of the 200 shortlisted projects which will feature in an Online Showcase on the AOI’s website launching in July.
In this blog post, we’re sharing five reasons you should enter WIA2024.
1. Awards And Prizes. The WIA rewards excellence, offering cash prizes to our overall winners. Our category winners receive a Trophy, AOI Membership and a detailed feature on our website and our overall winners receive a trophy, generous cash prize and more. All our Highly Commended Illustrators also receive a beautiful printed certificate.
Image Credits left to right: Paula Heister -WIA2023 Highly Commended, Beya Panicha – WIA2023 Category Winner – Publishing.
2. Exposure on the WIA Website, Socials and Newsletter. All our longlisted, shortlisted and winning artists will have a detailed entry feature on the AOI website, as well as Instagram, Blog and Newsletter highlights sent to our global industry list.
Image Credit: WIA2023 Overall Professional Winners Orit Bergman & Anat Warhavsky
3. Get involved in a wonderfully diverse community of illustrators, attend the awards night as well as networking events and meet-ups. Our Shortlisted, Highly Commended and Winning Illustrators also feature on our ‘Meet The Illustrator’ interviews on our WIA Showcase. You can explore the WIA2023 Showcase here.
4. Develop your work and explore new areas of illustration. Many illustrators use the World Illustration Awards as an opportunity to develop and create work for their portfolio, or to share projects in a new area of illustration that they would like to explore.
“It is a valuable chance for me to promote myself as an illustrator, and it encourages me keep working hard in illustration practice. For me, inspiration come when you go out and meet new things!”
Yuanyuan Liu, New Talent Site Specific Category Winner WIA2023
5. Increase your visibility to Commissioners and Agents. Being part of the World Illustration Awards is a fantastic way for you to to be seen by Illustration Agents and Commissioners. Many Longlisted, Shortlisted, Highly Commended and Winning Illustrators have had a range of exciting opportunities as a result of being part of the awards.
You can read our interview here with Carole Bouvier who won the Cross Category Society of Artists Agents (SAA) Award for New Talent in 2022.
“Winning the Society of Artists Agents Award was a game changer for me, as I had just finished my MA and needed [some] of guidance to start my career.… Being mentored by The Artworks has allowed me to experiment with types of illustration I was not used to, like editorial illustration and book covers. It has allowed me to figure out what kind of process and time frame I enjoyed for my work. My mentors have challenged me where I needed to be challenged, which led me to gain self-confidence and develop a body of work that looks like me.“
Carole Bouvier – WIA2022 Cross Category SAA Agents for New Talent Award Winner
If you’re feeling inspired to enter WIA2024, you can find out more about how, why, where and what to enter here.