World Wide Whisky Design Award

[Piet]

Hi guy's. I am Piet (pronounced like, you guessed: Peat) not in particular a peat-lover.
Like many others I have been following this forum for a while but never came to participating.
My reason for not previously doing so is the fact that I run the Dutch-Belgium (Flemish) counterpart "Het Whisky forum" that keeps me very busy already.
Reason that I now take the time to register and post here is the direct result of a development on the "Het Whisky forum".

The Whisky Design Award. Give particular attention to the word Design in the name !

The Whisky Design Award is not about the content of the bottle, it is about the bottle and the packaging.
The inception of a Whisk(e)y (bottle) design contest named: Het Whisky forum Design Award 2010 was dated February 5th 2010, and was received with great enthusiasm on the Dutch/Flemish "Het Whisky forum". During the voting period of the second contest, 2011, the idea for an international version has matured.

And here it is: the World Wide Whisky Design Awards (http://www.whiskydesignaward.com)
Because this is the first time ever, it was decided to start with an "all time" contest in 2012.

After the all-time World Wide Whisky Design Awards (2012) we intend to have subsequent annual awards that will only accept bottles and packages that came on the market in the "running year".
Register as a member (required due to Spamming) and let your voice count !

[Piet]

Hi again, a brief update.

By now all contest-categories have an interesting set of nominees.

In case you have tried to register in the days after my first post here, and that did not work perfectly well for you, please give it another try.

Due to an overwhelming and unanticipated amount of SPAM and fake-user registrations by so called "rogue-spider-bots", I had to make substantial changes to the underlying technology end member registration process.
This caused problems in the days after going live but all works fine now.

So if you care about the looks, let your voice count.

[Piet]

A brief update. Unfortunately we have had some software problems with member-registration and with the forum software. To solve that we where forced to remove the forum part. For the purpose of nominations and discussions we now (miss)use an adapted "standard" Blog facility.

We have recently added an overview showing all category Top-10 's.
This unveils some interesting developments.

In Category 1 (Bottle, less than € 250) we find 4 Bruichladdich's. All of them in the top-5.

In Category 2 (Bottle, € 250 and more) we see 6 Macallan bottles. The first positions are taken by Yamazaki 50 Years Old, probably the most simple bottle, and The Macallan in Lalique III: 57 Years Old.

Category 3 (Special packagings) is led by a "natural look" Suntory Whisky Wood Box Collection.

In Category 4 (Label-series ) we see four out of seven series with a shared first place. This includes interesting contemporary art.

We get many visitors but unfortunately we see reluctance in registration. As we are 100% impartial and want an honest and transparent contest registration is required.

Cheers and let your voice count,

[Piet]

Good to see that the professional whisky world can appreciate a great initiative and quickly jumps into it.

In December 2011 I had posted the first text in this subject also on the Whisky Magazine forum.
When I looked a week later, it was gone, without any notice. So I posted a new version, saying that I guessed something went wrong. Later there was an update and a few replies.
All that has now been deleted without any notification. So I am surprised that my user-ID still exists.

I already knew that the Het Whisky Forum Design Award 2010 was well received in the professional whisky world A Dutch magazine proposed a Dutch/Belgium Whisky Design Award 2011 but that eventually was delayed.

Now in January 2012 Whisky Magazine came with this that I find, say "very striking", ....... a good initiative should be replicated but to just steal it without any contact, and then "invent" a commercial version ?
There is no one from Whisky Magazine who has ever contacted me before they announced this commercial version of my Whisky Design Award.

Whisky Magazine (January 2012)
Welcome to the World Whiskies Awards Design
The World Whiskies Design Awards are the new annual awards recognising
excellence and innovation in pack design. Judged by an international
panel of design experts, winners will be announced in London on Thursday 22nd March 2012.

The big difference is and remains in any case that the Whisky Magazine Awards are not by consumers but by a select few professionals and nominees that want to pay.

So, should you like I, find that an original initiative deserves attention and a chance to succeed in what surely has become a struggle, not to say a War, join WW Whisky Design Award (added later: The first and only original whisky DESIGN contest © 2010 – 2012 ) and spread the word in the international social media!

[Malt-Teaser]

Hey Lawrence, do you think we should suggest a packaging sub-forum

[Piet]

A brief update. After my question to Whisky Magazine, why my forum-post where removed, I got this reply:

Dear Piet

The posts were take down as we do not allow people to advertise commercial
activity on the forums. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Kind regards
Sophie Donovan
Awards & Tastings Organiser

After my response to clarify the misunderstanding of WW WDA being commercial, I am still waiting for further explanation.

Thanks for the answer Sophie but I really do not understand ..."commercial activity on the forums"
Apart from that it would have been a matter of politeness to inform me.

This is not at all commercial, and you believe me this is costing me !
Please see the About page for the background:

http://www.whiskydesignaward.com/about/
Taken as-is from the About page:

> This is a fully independent, independently owned and private initiative without any commercial, nor otherwise, involvement of the whisky-industry, producers, retail, importers and what have you. We are 100% impartial. WW WDA has no stake in the objects submitted. All comments have been written by the community and we will never allow preferential treatment or for-pay influence of rating or voting, one of the main reasons that registration is required.
>
> We are not open to bribery but we do keep open the possibility of future sponsoring that may involve some form of promotion other than the Goggle-advertisements. But then we would still keep the contest independent. Hence we have placed some ads in the hope for some compensation of the costs involved to keep this site up and running.

If it is about the Google-ads then I also do not understand as most of the sites on Internet, including those referred to from your forum will include some form of this. And again believe me this will not get even close to being commercial.

Could you please have a look and the elaborate on "..not allow people to advertise commercial activity "
when you still find this valid.
Thanks,

[Piet]

The all-time 2012 nominations are now closed.

There are still 3 months left to give your star-ratings for the best 10 finalists in every category.
For those who like statistics.

In total we have 114 nominees.
62 in Category 1
29 in Category 2
12 in Category 3
11 in Category 4

So far 1233 ratings have been given to those nominations. Taking into consideration the World Wide approach I think this is rather few. But then we have yet three months to go !

[C57]

all-time 2012 nominations

Qué

[Piet]

all-time 2012 nominations

Qué

From WW WDA About:

Because this is the first time ever, it was decided to start with an “all time” contest in 2012.

After the all-time “World Wide Whisky Design Awards (2012)” we intend to have subsequent annual awards that will only accept bottles and packages that came on the market in the “running year”. So the first annual edition is the 2013 contest that will then only accept bottles and packagings that came onto the market in 2nd-half 2012 and 1st-half or 9 months of 2013 (margins yet to be decided).
This first edition will be very special in that it can include very old and historical bottles until mid 2012.

Comprende?

[portwood]

all-time 2012 nominations

Qué

From WW WDA About:

Because this is the first time ever, it was decided to start with an “all time” contest in 2012.

After the all-time “World Wide Whisky Design Awards (2012)” we intend to have subsequent annual awards that will only accept bottles and packages that came on the market in the “running year”. So the first annual edition is the 2013 contest that will then only accept bottles and packagings that came onto the market in 2nd-half 2012 and 1st-half or 9 months of 2013 (margins yet to be decided).
This first edition will be very special in that it can include very old and historical bottles until mid 2012.

Comprende?

niet, piet

[Piet]

niet, piet

If this is a question you'll have to be less cryptic or more specific.

[C57]

"All-time" and "2012" just don't go together for me.
All time means, well All Time.
2012 means, well, in 2012.
They are mutually exclusive.
But I digress from the purpose of your thread - sorry

[Piet]

Only 27 days left to influence the nomination short list prior to the final voting starting September 1st.... tick, tick, tick, ...

[Piet]

The final voting has started for the World Wide Whisky Design Awards.

Each and every visitor can give one and one vote only per category. You can vote only once and a given vote is final so be careful. Per category: Select your winner and press the "Vote" button.

Today's Post Voting open for the 1st “all time” World Wide Whisk(e)y Design Contest

... This final round is based on the elected nominations that received a total of 1630 ratings from visitors around the Globe ...

[Piet]

We have seen interesting jumps lately.
This was how it looked on November 1st.

Now Bruichladdich Octomore range (category-1) is back into business and even Macallan’s six pillars (category-4) still makes a chance.

Only 23 days to go to vote http://www.whiskydesignaward.com/

[Nick Brown]

I looked at the website and was puzzled about how it is an independent competition when it relies on popular votes. You have no control over who voted. By way of example, let's look at the current voting for the Under EUR250 category:

Category 1 – Bottle, less than € 250
1 – Glenmorangie Signet Highland Single Malt (29%, 16 Votes)
2 – Bruichladdich Octomore range (21%, 12 Votes)
3 – Dalmore King Alexander III (14%, 8 Votes)
4 – Bruichladdich Micro Provenance-Series (9%, 5 Votes)
5 – Elements of Islay range by Speciality Drinks Ltd. (9%, 5 Votes)
6 – Bruichladdich Still series (7%, 4 Votes)
7 – Masterson’s 10 year old Rye Whiskey (5%, 3 Votes)
8 – Bruichladdich DNA series (4%, 2 Votes)
9 – The Spice Tree by Compass Box (2%, 1 Votes)
10 – Hibiki 12, 17, 21 and 30 year old by Suntori (0%, 0 Votes)

So who voted for the Glenmorangie? The Sixteen Men of Tain?

And for an all time competion, it has quite a focus on the present day. Four Bruichladdichs - really? But where are the wide necked Highland Parks? The wine bottle Balvenies? The Oban decanters? Where are the Buffalo Trace special bottles (the George T Stagg, etc.?). The Littlemill dumpies? Macallan Private Eye? Black Bowmore for pity's sake.

[dstirk]

Hi Nick,

I think its just a bit of harmless fun. No one is making a dime from it and the website looks good. Just vote or don't.

David

[Piet]

Hi Nick,

I think its just a bit of harmless fun. No one is making a dime from it and the website looks good. Just vote or don't.

David

Thanks David, that is precisely it.

... how it is an independent competition when it relies on popular votes. You have no control over who voted.

The latter is so true. No control at all. Any and every visitor can vote once. That is based in the visitor IP-adress. Not fully save but okay and used for almost any poll on the Internet.
And yes it is fully independent. It is me. No connection to any whisky-business what so ever. Just read the About.
And it is OPEN. Anyone and everyone could bring in nominations for 6 months and can rate and/or vote for an other total of 6 months. How open can you get ?

Category 1 - Bottle, less than Euro 250 ... So who voted for the Glenmorangie? The Sixteen Men of Tain?

Could very well be true. So what? Should a vote from a man of Tain have less vallue ?
Not for an open contest.
If you do not like that just bring in all your fiends to place a counter-vote.

And for an all time competion, it has quite a focus on the present day. Four Bruichladdichs - really?

Everybody had 6 months to bring in nominees. And from the total of 62, ten where shortlisted based on ranking during yet an other 3 months. The nominees prove that "present day" bottles are more popular. That's all.

But where are the wide necked Highland Parks? The wine bottle Balvenies? The Oban decanters? Where are the Buffalo Trace special bottles (the George T Stagg, etc.?). The Littlemill dumpies? Macallan Private Eye? Black Bowmore for pity's sake.

Just not nominated.
Because this was the first time it became an "all-time" contest. Next year only recent bottles and packages will be accepted.

As David stated it is just fun. The medal winners will gain immortality and yes, that may be YOUR preferred bottle or someone elses.

Just 11 days left to cast your vote .... and feel the fun of your bottle to gain focus !!!

[Mr Tattie Heid]

If you do not like that just bring in all your fiends to place a counter-vote.

You know Nick, don't you?

[Piet]

Just to let you know.
The count down to nominate whisky, whiskey or bourbon bottles for the 2013 contest is running.
In this first anual competition there will be only 2 categories. Category 1 - Bottle, less than €250 and Category 2 - Bottle, €250 and more.
No Special-packagings nor label-series.