Submission Information

Submissions for the 2024 Brilliance Awards are closed!

The 2024 Brilliance Awards will feature the following categories:

  • Large Scale Commercial (Scoring Criteria)

  • Medium Scale Commercial (Scoring Criteria)

  • Small Scale Commercial (Scoring Criteria)

  • Residential (Scoring Criteria)

  • Exterior (Scoring Criteria)

  • Custom Luminaire (Scoring Criteria)

  • Hospitality (Scoring Criteria)

  • Controls (Scoring Criteria)

  • Energy Efficiency: Sub-Category to Any of the Above

  • Lifetime Achievement Award


    Each category has its own scoring criteria as is linked above that will be given to the judges. Questions about which category you should submit under? Email us at info@brillianceawards.org.



    The Lifetime Achievement Award is returning in 2024, and nominations will also open on April 8th. This is the recognition of a person that has contributed to the betterment and advancement of the lighting community. Open to all involved in lighting – from the specification level to a local manufacturer representative to a manufacturer. You can find more information on the Lifetime Achievement Award submission page.

Category Descriptions

  • The Commercial category is generally qualified as buildings which have an industrial or commercial intent.

    • Large Scale: 50,000 square feet or more

    • Medium Scale: 30,000-50,000 square feet

    • Small Scale: 30,000 square feet or less

  • The Residential category is for projects which are solely for residential usage. There can also be part of the project for entertainment as many higher end residences are, however the majority purpose of the project must be living space.

  • The Exterior category includes both exterior façade and landscape only projects. A submitted design can be for one of these two types of lighting or both. The criteria has been designed to score each equivalently.

  • The Custom Luminaire category intent is to judge and award the creativity of a custom luminaire design for project needs.

  • The Hospitality category includes projects focused on Restaurants, Hotel, and/or Retail, or any other space that receives and entertains guests.

  • The Controls category is NEW! for 2022 and is intended to put emphasis on those projects that are extraordinary in terms of lighting controls complexity, energy efficiency savings, and integration with the lighting design itself.

  • The Energy Efficiency sub-category is applicable to all projects. It is an "additional entry" that any project can also enter at no additional cost. There is no judging criteria for the category, and the designer should describe how it excels in this area, and what guidelines it adheres to. You should only be entering in this category if the project excels in terms of energy efficient design.

For more information on the submittal process, guidelines, and rules, please see our submission guidelines below.

The Brilliance Awards will begin accepting entries in the second quarter of 2024. However based on submissions, we reserve freedom to not distribute awards in any category if deemed appropriate.

 

Submission Guidelines

General

  • There are eight categories, one sub-category (energy efficiency), and the lifetime achievement award open for awards in 2024.

  • To submit a project, visit the Project Submission Page, which will be available starting April 8th, 2024 when submissions open.

  • The intent of the Brilliance Awards is to recognize great lighting design happening in the Rocky Mountain region. Designers submitting projects should have done the majority of the design on the project while residing local to the region. The board reserves the right to exclude projects that don't follow this ideology.

  • Submission dates and prices are as follows:

    • 04/08/24 - 05/09/24: Early Bird Submissions - $40 per submission

    • EXTENDED: 05/10/24 - 06/17/24: Standard Submissions - $60 per submission

    • 06/18/24 - 06/24/24: Late Submissions - $150 per submission

    • No submissions accepted after 06/24/24, no exceptions.

  • Projects must have been completed within the last 2 calendar years (any project completed since January 2022 is eligible).

  • Projects which have been previously submitted to the Brilliance Awards can be resubmitted if they fit within the time frame and did not win an award the year they were submitted.

  • Award submittals will be handled through an online form.

  • Each project is submitted as a series of pictures and narratives:

    • Up to 10 pictures can be submitted per project, each with a corresponding text allowance.

    • It is not necessary to upload the maximum of 10 photographs.

    • Please include a general narrative, not to exceed 1200 characters, which will be read during the awards presentation if the project receives a Brilliance Award.

    • There is a 500 character limit to each photograph’s accompanying text. It is not necessary to be wordy in descriptions if other photographs and text address the point.

    • The narrative and additional text descriptions should cumulatively address all scoring criteria. No one text box needs to address any certain amount of criteria, it is simply recommended that all criteria be addressed at some point in the project submission.

  • The Brilliance Awards non-profit is not required to grant awards for categories; the board does so based on judging scores, feedback, and maintains the right to grant awards based on lighting design excellence.

    • Categories in general can receive a design of honor, or design of merit. While the Brilliance Awards judging committee generally will not give more than one of honor and one to two of merit, these numbers are not set in stone, and final awards are given out based on projects submitted and judged scores.

  • The Brilliance Awards Board has the final say in all matters regarding award granting and judging.

  • Lastly, in order to receive awards, a representative from the designing firm must be present at the award ceremony.

Photograph Uploads

For project images it is good practice to use JPEG compression format and keep file sizes 1 MB. Please try to adhere to this. Uploading 10 MB photographs is unnecessary and may crash your web browser when trying to submit, making the process difficult. All entries will receive a submission plaque of a project image, so please avoid submitting images that are too low in quality as well.

Sample Project

A sample project that has a description, project background, and scoring sheet are all included. This sample outlines different narratives, how each point in the scoring sheet was addressed, and includes project images. It is recommend reading through this before submitting.

At the end of this document is a note on photography. In short - we do allow HDR photography to better mimic the human eye, however with modern dSLR cameras sometimes that is not required. We do discourage the use of fill-light or heavily altered photos. We want the judges to see the beauty of the project, not an artificial re-creation of what the project could have looked like, and we appreciate respect in regards to this.