Australian interior designers and architects - show off your color touches at the 2009 Dulux Colour Awards and you might join a stellar mix of Australia’s most lauded architects and interior designers to have taken out the Grand Prix prize.

The Dulux Colour Awards, which is celebrating its 23rd anniversary, is set to impress with over $25,000 in prizes. Projects submitted must be within Australia and only Australian residents can apply. All entries must have Dulux color and Dulux product applications. Categories include residential and commercial exteriors and interiors, sustainable interiors and a student category.

Deadline is not noted on site, but TAXI states work must be entered by 20 Feb 2009. Visit the site to learn more about entry guidelines, judges and rules.

Fire Mountain Gems and Beads is looking for entries that showcase your designer talents. There is no limit to the number of pieces you may enter. The same piece can be submitted in two different categories and, when appropriate, Fire Mountain Gems and Beads can assign a third category. However, each piece can take a winning placement in only one category.

Design entries must be comprised of at least 50 percent of products purchased from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads. Each entry must include at least 50 percent of the product in the piece of the category in which it is being submitted.

First Place Gold medal winning designs in each category will go on to compete for the Grand Prizes and may be showcased in and on the following:

• 2010-2011 Jewelry Maker’s Comprehensive Catalog
• On the Fire Mountain Gems’ website
• Full Page ads in top industry magazines
• Supplemental catalogs

Your designs will be seen by hundreds of thousands of beading enthusiasts, along with your name if you desire. All entries are mailed and must be received by 15 April 2009, so give yourself plenty of time to send your photographs (do not send actual jewelry until you are notified). This competition is open to all Fire Mountain Gems and Beads’ customers. Those entrants under age 17 must complete the Minor Entrance Packet. Visit the site to learn more.

The IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) program is the premier international competition honoring design excellence in products, ecodesign, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts. Entries are invited from designers, students and companies worldwide.

Winning entries are announced on BusinessWeek.com and receive coverage in hundreds of print and broadcast media networks around the world. IDSA has been honoring design excellence via the IDEA Awards since 1980. IDEA was formerly known as the Industrial Design Excellence Awards. The name changed in 2007 to emphasize the international reach and influence of the competition.

This competition is open to designs and designers - including students - worldwide. Entrants from Brazil must apply through IDEA/Brasil to take advantage of additional winner benefits. Designs may be entered in multiple categories, but each entry must be purchased and submitted separately. Awards will not be given to the same design in more than one product category (e.g. Medical/Scientific and Home Living); however, a design may win Awards in both a product category and Design Strategy, Interactive Product Experiences and/or Research.

This competition was open for entries on 1 December 2008, but the regular application deadline is 6 February 2009 and late application deadline is 20 February. Only the 6 February deadline will be noted on the calendar at this site. Visit the site to learn more about rules, categories, application processes, judges and more.

To facilitate a broad range of disciplines and artists, the American Design Awards has established an ongoing Monthly Design Contest, two Semi-Annual Design Competitions, as well as the newly established Student Design Contest in hopes of reaching out to thousands of graphic and web designers with varying levels of experience.

The monthly competitions center on Web site designs, and you can enter free of charge to see how you fare against the competition. The semi-annual design contest is geared toward other design categories, twenty-two in all from annual report design to Web design. The semi-annual design competitions have a six-step registration process that you might want to start now, even if you don’t have designs to submit right away.

Deadlines for the monthly competitions are open year-round. The summer and winter semi-annual design competition deadlines are 15 August and 15 February. Visit the site to learn more, especially with their new student design award category.

The Interactive Media Awards recognize the highest standards of excellence in Web site design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.

Created by the Interactive Media Council, Inc. (IMC), a nonprofit organization of leading Web designers, developers, programmers, advertisers and other Web-related professionals, the competition is designed to elevate the standards of excellence on the Internet and offer winners a boost in marketing and exposure. IMC serves as the primary sponsor and governing body of the Interactive Media Awards, establishes the judging system and provides the judges for the competition.

It is not easy to win a Web award from the IMA, but for those who survive the comprehensive judging process, a series of powerful tools await to help broadcast your success. In addition to the IMA Digital Award Icon linking your site to a unique and marketable award page on the IMA site, winners also have access to our winner tools, which allow winners to customize online awards, notify clients and colleagues and draft press releases.

The 2008 Call for Entries Q4 deadline has been extended through 15 January, so you still have a chance to enter. Visit the site to learn more about the list of categories and to read the competition rules for site eligibility requirements, international entry information and other details.

In 2009, the 3rd International Poster and Computer Animation Competition “AntiAIDS-Ukraine” will be held as a competition-satellite of the VII-th International Triennial of Ecological Poster «The “4th Block” to be conducted under the aegis of the International Council of National Graphic Design Organizations (ICOGRADA) and International Biannual Coordination Committee (IBCC).

Their goal is HIV/AIDS spread prevention by forming motivation to a healthy way of life. They do not want the posters and video to intimidate the audience with horrors of narcotic dependence and life of HIV-infected people. This is a passed stage in perception of complications of fighting HIV/AIDS. Instead, they want to eliminate dis-balance between the disease cause and consequences. The main thing is not why and when to die but how to live with dignity (with or without HIV status).

The topic, therefore, is “Sexual counterrevolution,” with works aimed at alternative outlooks on this disease. Professional artists and designers, students and anyone concerned with HIV/AIDS prevention are invited to enter. The deadline is 1 February and entries must be mailed, so give yourself time to complete and send your work to the Ukraine. Visit the site to learn more about this design competition.

The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, together with Metropolitan Arts Press, have organized The American Architecture Awards as away in which to honor the best, new significant buildings and landscape and planning projects designed and/or built in the United States and abroad by the most important architects and planners practicing nationally and internationally.

The American Architecture Awards gives an important overview of the current aesthetic direction of today’s commercial, corporate, institutional, and residential work in the United States to the real estate, banking, business, and corporate community, as well as to the press and general public. The program is one of the Museum’s most important public education outreach initiatives produced throughout the year—to both the Museum’s U.S. and international audience. The American Architecture Awards are dedicated to the recognition of excellence in architecture and urbanism in the United States.

All submissions must be the work of American architects and architectural firms either working nationally or internationally for projects both in the U.S. and abroad. International architecture firms headquartered outside the United States are eligible to enter projects built, or to be built, in the U.S. only. Criteria for submissions includes any commercial, corporate, institutional, or residential building type or urban planning project, built or unbuilt in the U.S., designed since January 1, 2007.

Application deadline is 1 February 2009. Visit the site for more details.

PRINT’s Regional Design Annual is the most comprehensive survey of graphic design in the United States and one of the biggest issues to hit the graphic design industry each year. All winning work will be organized by region and featured in the December 2009 issue of PRINT. The process of selection in all regions of the country remains stringent, and, as always, PRINT feels that the work they chose is first-rate, and that it represents the best design, illustrations, and photography being produced throughout the United States.

The deadline for the 2009 competition is March 2, 2009. You can enter the 2009 competition online, or download a PDF of an entry form.

The TITAN Illustration in Design Competition launches its 1st call for entries aimed at design companies in all sectors of business, freelance designers, illustrators as well as local or private organisations. TITAN is an award and a quality label with exhibitions in Portugal and abroad, as well as international conferences. In this first edition TITAN highlights and rewards a selection of the best work resulting from the collaboration between clients, designers and illustrators.

The TITAN welcomes illustrators and designers from all sectors of industry to exhibit their most recent and innovative creations. The products selected by the jury are awarded the “TITAN” label and proceed to form part of a number of exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. The awards of TITAN are defined by an independent jury of professionals and experts to the most outstanding illustrations.

Call for entries is through January 23rd, 2009. Illustration authors in published work within the past five years can enter the competition. Prizes in Euros. Visit the site to learn more.

When you’re a designer, corporate employee recognition programs just don’t cut it. But HOW can help you get the attention you deserve. Enter your best corporate work in their third annual In-HOWse Design Awards. If you win, they’ll highlight your work and your name in the February 2010 issue of HOW magazine. Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to have your creative projects judged along side the work of other in-house designers. And for get about those big-name design firms: This one’s just for you!

HOW accepts actual samples of annual reports, brochures, catalogs, direct mail, book and magazine covers and interior pages, invitations, announcements, greeting cards, letterhead, logos, packaging, posters, print advertising, calendars, wearables, 3D objects and other print projects. We also accept color print-outs of workspaces, signage and other environmental graphic design. They do not accept videos, CD-ROMs, DVDs, websites or other interactive work, or digital images or slides of print work. All digital work is eligible in their Interactive Design Awards. Designs may be entered in more than one category. Submit a separate entry and payment for each category. Work must have been created between Jan. 1, 2008, and May 1, 2009.

Entries postmarked after April 15 require a late fee of $25 per entry. Visit the site to learn more about categories, judging and other rules and regulations.