JURY MEMBER
@GRANSHAN BLOOM AWARD
Agreement and Information Form 2025 – 2026
Dear Jury Member!
The GRANSHAN Bloom Award celebrates outstanding communication design across the world’s writing systems, cultures, and visual traditions. Jurors represent global expertise in typography, design, cultural knowledge, and contemporary media.
Serving as a juror means contributing to a fair, rigorous and culturally informed evaluation process that honours work across scripts beyond Latin and the full spectrum of communication design.
This document establishes your role as a Jury Member for the GRANSHAN Bloom Award 2025–2026 and collects the information necessary for your assignment, communication, publication, and administrative handling. All data will be used solely for the organisation of the award and stored in accordance with applicable data protection regulations.
We are very happy and proud that you have agreed to participate. It is a real contribution to the success of this international undertaking!
Best regards!
Boris Kochan
President
Award Overview & Jury Timeline
Competition Timeline & Jury Process (for jury members)
Thank you again for joining the jury of the GRANSHAN Bloom Award. Especially because the award is a community-driven project and your participation is voluntary, we want to keep the process as clear, simple and efficient as possible – while still allowing space for real discussion and shared judgement across cultures, scripts, and disciplines.
Submission Phase
The submission period is divided into several fee phases. As this is a new competition, we began with a soft launch in December 2025 and will intensify communications in January. The main peak of submissions is expected to begin mid-February.
Start of submissions: Soft launch in December 2025
Early Bird: December 2025 – 3 March 2026
Standard: 4 March – 19 May 2026
Late Bird: 20 May – 9 June 2026
Final deadline: 9 June 2026
Post-Submission Phase
After submissions close, our team will prepare the entries for the jury process (format checks, completeness, and quality control), so that you can focus on evaluation rather than administration.
Preparation & quality control / Administration: 9 June – 30 June 2026
Evaluation Phase (Multi-stage Judging)
The judging is designed as a structured, multi-step process – combining individual assessment with collective discussion and a transparent final decision method.
Within each Script Group, our jury is built to reflect the full breadth of the Bloom Award’s nine media categories: we work with a minimum of ten jurors, plus one or two voting Script Chairs. The Script Chairs, together with the GRANSHAN team, organise their Script Group, coordinate the workflow, and moderate the discussions in close collaboration with Jury Chairman Boris Kochan. Unlike regular jury members, Script Chairs may not submit their own work to the competition, ensuring maximum neutrality. In addition, a separate Top-50 Jury is responsible for selecting the “50 Best of the Best”: this final panel intentionally combines leading specialists from the beyond-Latin world with internationally renowned designers from the Western design tradition, so the awarded works are reviewed from multiple professional and cultural perspectives, on the solid basis of the winners selected in the previous stages.
Step A – Individual scoring (online tool)
Each jury member reviews entries independently using our online tool. You will score each work based on seven criteria, using a scale from 0 to 5 points.
29 June – 19 July 2026: Individual jury work via online tool
Step B – Script Group video sessions (moderated discussion)
Entries that meet a minimum score threshold move into moderated video sessions. The goal is not to “negotiate taste”, but to develop a shared understanding of strengths, context, and criteria – especially important in a global, beyond-Latin competition.
These sessions are led by the Script Chair together with the Jury Chairman
20 July – 2 August 2026: Online video sessions of the Script Groups
Step C – Final selection (Yes/No vote in the online tool)
After the group sessions, jury members have time to review specific entries again and decide through a Yes/No voting procedure in the online tool. An entry becomes a winner if it receives a majority of “Yes” votes from the eligible jury members.
3 August – 9 August 2026: Individual follow-up via online tool
Conflict of interest / recusal: If a jury member feels conflicted (e.g., personal involvement, close collaboration, or any other reason), they can opt out of evaluating that specific entry in the tool. This protects both the juror and the integrity of the award.
Each juror is entitled to submit their own work – but is then excluded from evaluating their own work.
Best-of-the-Best Selection (Top-50 Jury)
The separate Top-50 Jury selects the “best of the best” from the award-level works – also via an online tool workflow.
10 August – 23 August 2026: Top-50 Jury evaluation (best of the best)
Final Administration & Confidential Winner Information
24 August – 31 August 2026: Administrative follow-up and confidential individual communication to winners
Results & Announcement
Winners will be announced during the GRANSHAN Conference in Istanbul, accompanied by an exhibition of winning works.
24 – 27 September 2026: ISTANBUL – GRANSHAN Conference: Announcement of winners + exhibition
Jury Expectations & Evaluation Criteria
Jurors agree to conduct evaluations according to the official criteria of the GRANSHAN Bloom Award:
Concept & Innovation
Communication & Clarity
Visual & Aesthetic Quality
Typographic Excellence
Craftsmanship & Execution
Usability & Functionality
Cultural & Social Relevance
Detailed jury guidelines, scoring sheets, and full evaluation methodology will be provided before the evaluation begins.