The total prize pool is €52,000. When all submissions have been evaluated, the top 40 participants each win €300, and are invited to attend the Awards in Milan (or remotely). The top three rankings are revealed at the Awards. The highest ranking participant wins €20,000, the second highest wins €13,000, and the third wins €7,000. We transfer the prize money to the bank accounts of the winning participants within five working days of the Awards. Prizes are subject to taxes—see the rules for full details.

The goal is to identify the best 40 submissions so we can invite their creators to the Awards. There, we reveal the final rankings, and award the winners accordingly. To do so, we follow a two-phase process. First, a jury of suitable Bending Spoons team members scores each submission and passes the top 50 to the next phase. These 50 submissions are scored again by a jury of experts, composed of external judges. To minimize bias, the judges aren’t told the score each submission received during the first phase, and they perform their scoring without consulting any of the other judges. We then rank the 50 submissions according to the average scores assigned by the judges, discarding the previous scores of the Bending Spoons jury. We extend an Awards invitation to the top 40, and assign prizes accordingly.

The Bending Spoons jury and all of the judges score the participants on three criteria, weighted as follows:

• Usability (50%). The design must be intuitive and usable, so that art doesn’t trump usefulness. Usability is the most important factor, accounting for half of the total score.
• Creativity (25%). There must be a significant flash of the new, the different, the special, while the look remains tasteful and modern.
• Polish (25%). The technique and attention to detail must make jaws hit the floor.

We vow to ensure all submissions are judged objectively, with the minimum possible amount of individual bias. It’s impossible to eliminate subjective opinion, of course. So, to avoid unpleasant and useless disputes, our decisions are unappealable, and we won’t provide the judges’ scores or the reasons why a certain work is judged superior to another. TL;DR: Please only participate if you promise to be a good sport about it. 😉

You may use any tool, as long as you submit your work as a zip file containing a PNG (plus an mp4, if you choose to include one).

The contest doesn’t require your physical presence, and you may send your submission from 7 pm CET on October 8, 2021, to 10 am CET on October 11, 2021. The winners are announced during the Awards ceremony in March 2022, which will take place at the Bending Spoons HQ, Corso Como 15, Milan, or remotely, depending on safety guidelines closer to the event. Updates will be added to the website as soon as possible. The 40 top-ranked participants are invited to attend the Awards. We provide all travel and accommodation expenses, assuming it goes ahead in Milan as planned.

Designflows is completely free for all participants. If the Awards take place in Milan, Bending Spoons provides food, hotel accommodation (the night of the Awards, and either the night before or after), and refunds all travel expenses up to a maximum amount of €300 per participant. This is on top of the €300 won by every participant attending the Awards. If you’re traveling by train or by plane, we’ll book the tickets for you. If you choose to reach us by car, we ask you to send the related payment receipts via email to info@designflows.it after the event, and to provide a bank account for the refund according to the instructions set out in the rules. Refunds/expenses are paid together with the payment of the prizes.

We don’t use your work for any commercial purposes without your prior written consent. However, we reserve the right to display all submissions within the scope of this contest. For more details, please read the rules.

Applications remain open until 11.59 pm on October 4, 2021. You can apply using the big button above. We reserve the right to close the application window earlier and at any time, in case we receive more applications than we can handle. 😱 When applying, you’re asked to provide your full name, a contact email, your nationality, and a link to your portfolio (for example, your Dribbble or Behance profile page, but anything suitable works). This helps us reduce spam and cheating, and gives our recruiting department something to work with. Should any of the provided information look like a joke (for example, if your name is “Obi-Wan Kenobi”), you won’t be invited to take part in the contest.

To be eligible, applicants must either be European or resident in a European country (including Russia and Turkey). Designflows is all about stimulating and celebrating creative excellence in mobile UI design in Europe. It’s absolutely not compulsory to be an expert in UI design, although, of course, at least some experience within this field will probably help. Also, participants have to be at least 18 years old at registration date. We’re going to trust your word regarding your nationality, residency, and age. However, if we get suspicious, we reserve the right to ask for documentation. 🧐 Granting admission to the contest is at our sole discretion. See the rules for full details.

Bending Spoons is a tech company that specializes in developing and marketing mobile apps. Our apps are used by tens of millions of people all around the world, and get downloaded 300,000 times per day on iOS only. This makes Bending Spoons the number 1 European company by that metric, and in the global top 10. We sponsor and organize Designflows with the purpose of highlighting the beauty of mobile UI design, and making our brand as an employer more widely known (we’re hiring!). For more information on Bending Spoons, check out our website, as well as what Spooners say about working here.