The Fourth Annual Pcom (Portfolio.com) Creative Awards will showcase the most outstanding work of 2006 in the fields of Advertising, Broadcast, Graphic Design, Web Design, Photography and Illustration. Professionals and students are welcome to enter - you do not have to be a member of Portfolios.com to submit an entry. Entries must have been conceived between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2006 and must be submitted online at Portfolios.com on or before the 15 March 2007 deadline. Visit the site for details, past winners, and awards.

At right: 2006 winner, Wendell’s Restaurant, Westerville, OH.

Who do you think creates those great bathrooms? Well, it’s time to honor those folks who toil over toilets and tile patterns in public facilities. Do you like the style? Is it elegance? Is that restroom so clean you are almost ashamed to go home? All of these have been reasons cited for past nominees for the title of America’s Best Restroom Award, presented by Cintas. Nominations are now being accepted through 31 March 2007 for the sixth annual “America’s Best Restroom Award.”

This is the chance to express your taste as a designer and to honor the architect, interior designer, janitors, and business owners at the places that YOU frequent. After all, this is the pinnacle of interactive design! Visit the site to learn more.

Architects, artists, designers, and any creative professionals are encouraged to enter the GBD Art District Phase 1 Architecture ideas competition 500 m3. The industrial buildings of Gao Bei Dian (GBD), on Beijing’s east Fifth Ring Road will be renovated and rebuilt. Part of the GBD masterplan produced by the DCF, developer Boloni Kebao and Thinking Hands Culture invite you to produce innovative architectural and interior concepts in one or more units of 500 M3 for the factory area of GBD. Registration deadline: 30 March 2007. Visit the site for details.

New York City’s Department of Design and Construction, in partnership with the Department of Transportation, is pleased to announce an international design competition for a new streetlight for the City of New York. The City of New York has provided lighting for the city’s streets since 1762. New York City currently maintains over three hundred thousand streetlights within its five boroughs, and is seeking a new streetlight design for the city in the twenty-first century. The city intends to add the new design to the Department of Transportation’s Street Lighting Catalogue, continuing a tradition of innovative street lighting begun more than two centuries ago.

This is a two-stage, international design competition; Registration Deadline (the first of many deadlines): 12 March 2004; Visit the site for details.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s (DART) Art and Design Program announces a design competition for The Deep Ellum Gateway Project as part of the extension of DART’s Southeast Corridor light rail line.

The successful competition entry should possess the ability to be visually strong, physically accessible, contextual in the sense of architectural scale and sensitive in terms of human scale and interaction, constructible and maintainable. The possibilities are limited only to the imaginations of the design teams that respond to this opportunity, and the ability to match that sense of imagination with the realities of the existing budget and future maintenance. Entrants may propose on any or all sites including strategies for linking the sites with other artistic enhancement. If awarded to multiple teams, coordination of theme and materials will occur between the winners. The winning entrant or entrants will contract with DART to design, fabricate and construct their proposal(s). Budget: $1.5 million US. Preliminary proposals due 16 March. See PDF file for brief, including photos.

Entries for the eleven Award categories of the 2007 International Emmy® Awards are now open for submission online at http://www.iemmys.tv/entry.html. The deadline is 12 March 2007.

Presented by The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the International Emmy® Award was created in 1969 to recognize excellence in television programming produced outside of the United States. To be eligible for submission, entries must have been produced and broadcast for the first time outside of the United States between the dates of 1 April 2006 and 28 February 2007. Entries can be submitted in the following categories: Read the rest of this entry »