The Aiap Women in Design Award (AWDA), at its sixth edition, is a project curated by Cinzia Ferrara, Laura Moretti, Carla Palladino in collaboration with Aiap. It is a biennial international award open to women designers in visual communication. The main goal is to bring to light, within a framework of valorisation and gender equality, those female figures in visual communication design from the past, present, and future whom history, even in its recent accounts, does not always acknowledge. AWDA’s commitment is to foster a network among designers, researchers, and activists, keeping people at the centre of processes of change.

History over the years

AWDA 2023-2025

The fifth edition of the Aiap Women in Design Award introduced the AWDA for Rights! prize, which generated significant interest by highlighting the political potential of design, selecting projects that address social issues related to women’s rights and labour, and more broadly, gender inequalities across all fields.
The push towards internationalisation, supported by the Institutional Partner International Council of Design, was further strengthened through Collaborating Partners: Pan-Afrikan Design Institute, Lietuvos Dizaino Asociacija, Svenska Tecknare, BiCeBé Bienal del Cartel, Design Professionals of Canada, and GMK Grafikerler Meslek Kurulusu. The edition was also opened free of charge to Iranian women designers: AWDA remains committed to giving voice and representation to cultures and design practices from all continents, with particular attention to contexts marked by repression and the erosion of civil rights.
Over time, AWDA has evolved from an international award into a platform for exchange and dialogue, with a clear commitment to challenging lingering patriarchal and discriminatory structures, alongside a strong research-oriented approach to design and contemporary issues.
The award ceremony took place on 10 November 2023 in the Salone d’Onore of Triennale di Milano.
In 2024, the works of the selected and award-winning designers were exhibited in Milan during BIG, Biennale Internazionale Grafica. On that occasion, we launched MISCELA, a series of short, informal talks with activists, feminists, designers. These open sessions created a welcoming and stimulating environment for exchanging ideas and engaging in conversation.
In 2025, the volume How Many Women Are in the Room? was published as a co-edition by AIAP and Lazy Dog Press (under its imprint The Printing Office). The title poses an emblematic question, one that should be asked repeatedly whenever one “symbolically” enters a room, forms a jury, or writes a history.
https://www.aiap-awda.com/2023/

AWDA 2021-2022

The 70 projects identified as worthy of publication, together with those of the previous edition, have merged into a special volume, UNCOVER AWDA 3-4, distributed internationally and presented as part of the exhibition SIGNS II: Grafica Italiana Contemporanea during the Milano Graphic Festival held at BASE on 26 March 2022 and again in Florence on 22 October 2022, at the L'Eredità delle Donne festival, together with an exhibition of illustrations contained in the volume.
UNCOVER AWDA 3-4 is a collective project, which expresses a new challenge for AWDA and the curators of the award, welcoming new energies, visions and professional skills. The graphic design of the special volume AWDA is the result of the agreement with the ISIA of Urbino, and the collaboration with a group of young designers which have subsequently joined the AWDA team.

AWDA 2019

The main innovation of the fourth edition was the partnership with the International Council of Design, which, having recognised the award’s strong social and ethical value, became an Institutional Partner, supporting and promoting it globally. Starting from this edition, AWDA established specific agreements with a number of international design associations, which became Collaborating Partners, aiming to create a focus on women designers from their respective countries. In 2019, partnerships were activated with Asosiasi Desainer Grafis Indonesia in Indonesia and Grafill in Norway.
Shortly after the pandemic, the special volume UNCOVER was published, bringing together the projects selected in the third and fourth editions of the award, alongside theoretical reflections and interviews with activists working across a wide range of fields, including economics, politics, education, art, and the third sector.
https://www.aiap-awda.com/2019/

AWDA 2017

Participation in the third edition of the Award was open to women designers from all over the world: 186 projects were submitted from 34 Countries, selected by an international jury made up of 8 leading figures in the field of visual communication design.
The award-giving ceremony took place in Rome on 30th September 2017, in the framework of Aiap Design Per, International Graphic Design Week “Visible Cultures”, on the premises of Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, with the participation of many of the selected visual communication designers.
On that occasion 3 honorary mentions, a special mention and an AWDA 2017 first prize were awarded.
The 62 projects deemed worthy of publication were later brought together in the special volume UNCOVER, published at the conclusion of the 2019 edition.
https://www.aiap-awda.com/2017/

AWDA 2015

Participation in the second edition of the Award was open to women designers living or working in the European area and the MENA region (Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Djibouti, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia). The projects submitted were selected by an international jury made up of 5 leading figures in the field of visual communication design and were later included in the second volume of the series of the same name published by Aiap Edizioni, released in 2016). Among the works deemed worthy of publication, the jury chose the visual communication woman designer to be awarded the first Aiap Women in Design Award 2015 and given the Honorary Mention. The official award-giving ceremony took place during the following edition of Aiap DX, International Graphic Design Week, which took place in Milan from 4th to 8th November 2015.
In 2016, the projects awarded in the first and second edition of AWDA were exhibited at the XXI Triennale di Milano International Exhibition, ExpoGate, Milan.
https://www.domusweb.it/it/notizie/2015/11/10/aiap_women_in_design_award_2015.html

AWDA 2012

The first edition of AWDA, open only to Italian women designers, received submissions from 112 designers for a total 237 projects. The jury selected 25 designers for 30 projects for publication.
The award-giving ceremony took place during Aiap Design Per, International Graphic Design Week, which took place in Treviso from 26th to 29th September 2012. The AWDA catalogue, edited by Cinzia Ferrara and Daniela Piscitelli and published by Aiap, presents the winning projects as well those that received an honorary mention.
https://aiap.it/2000-2020/documenti/13798/67.html

AWDA Background

A story that started with the Stanze contest and related exhibitions at the Archaeological Museum of Gela (Sicily) and at the Florence Festival of Creativity and continued with the retrospective exhibition The unbroken sign. Graphics between art, calligraphy and design dedicated to Simonetta Ferrante, at Milan’s Galleria Aiap and the publication of the volume Il segno continuo published by Aiap.
Even earlier, this story began with the Manifestinno exhibition, which collects the posters created by 30 young Italian women designers on the topic of innovation and progress presented in Aosta and Florence, and with Singolare femminile, a series of seminars with four communication designers, organised in collaboration with AIAP in Rome.