Set the date

Choosing the right work, pulling together submissions, writing testimonials and remembering to pick up your black tie from the drycleaners… applying for industry awards is practically a full-time job.

The makers of new digital service T-Minus claim to have taken one problem off your hands however, saying their new product means ‘agencies and creatives need never miss an awards deadline ever again’.

T-Minus, a dynamic calender which covers 130 awards in design and the creative industries, has been developed by Steve Moss and Jo Finch at RKCR/Y&R, in collaboration with digital agency B-Reel.

Visitors to the T-Minus website can choose from all the awards and create their own personal calendar, which can be downloaded for free as a screensaver. The calendar tracks the awards entry dates and also the date on which work has to run in order to be eligible.

As individual awards deadlines get closer, their icons change colour, grow and become ‘more agitated’.

Moss and Finch say the project has been inspired by sheets of layout paper they would keep on their desks to list awards deadlines. Damon Collins, creative director at RKCR/Y&R, says, ‘Having been caught out in the past they used these calendars to remind themselves when they needed to pester me, the account team or the client, to make sure a particular piece of work was approved, made or had run.’

Collins adds, ‘We thought it would be great to create a digital version of those scraps of paper: a utility that anyone who has ever suffered from that last-minute panic of “Christ, it needs to have run by next week and it’s not ever shot yet!” could benefit from.’

RKCR/Y&R and B-Reel say there are plans to develop the service with functions such as an archive of past winners, an awards newsfeed and social networking functionality.