Innovation by Design introduces 3 new categories! Interior Design, Advertising, and Type Design

Fast Company’s annual Innovation by Design Awards celebrate the best of design across the world of design. Whether it’s user interface or artificial intelligence, retail or urban design, our journalists have worked alongside a team of esteemed judges for the past 13 years to dive deep into the nuance of design solutions all around us.

For our 2024 awards, we’re expanding our scope by introducing three significant new categories: Interior Design, Advertising, and Type Design. 

Interior Design

Aside from when we’re out in nature, everywhere we inhabit was designed by someone. Unique spaces and furnishings find their way into our honorees each year, but we’re excited to acknowledge Interior Design as its own formal category for the very first time. Technically, we’re describing this category as “accomplishments indoors, ranging from new furniture and fixtures to the design of complete interior spaces.” 

Advertising

While Innovation by Design has long celebrated accomplishments in branding and graphic design, the categories can feel confining in our current era of cross-platform multimedia promotion. A great brand system is different from a memorable Super Bowl commercial. Advertising is our category to specifically celebrate “marketing campaigns across all mediums in service of a product, cause, or brand.”

Type Design

Typography is the foundation of most visual communication, and we’re living in a typeface renaissance when individual creators and big brands alike are creating custom typefaces. Type Design is our new category to acknowledge the ongoing work in this ancient practice. We’re describing Type Design as “the latest in fonts and typefaces, as well as creative projects that feature type as the distinguishing element.” 

If you or your company would like to apply to Innovation by Design, submissions are due by February 23. You can read more and enter here.