Awarding political writing in memory of George Orwell
To make political writing into an art
George Orwell is best known for writing 1984 (Nineteen Eight-Four) and Animal Farm. The Orwell Prize is a British literary prize for political writing in memory of Orwell and his own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. Four prizes are awarded each year for: fiction book, non-fiction book, journalism and Exposing Britain’s Social Evils.
The Orwell Foundation commissioned Doublesided to create a website where applicants can submit their writing and prize administrators to effortlessly access entries in an organised way.
Apart from book cover entries displayed in colour, all other photography is in black and white to focus on the subject and embody the profound emotions associated with political writing.
Services Strategy Branding Creative direction UX design Web design Development Ongoing support
Evolve the submission form from user feedback
Initially, the submission forms were multi-step with a ‘save for later’ option due to the volume of information requested.
With feedback from authors, it evolved into a long single form. Applicants preferred to view all the requested information at once, which helped them decide whether to complete the form now or wait until everything was compiled.
Create efficiency for prize administrators
Many writers label their book cover file ‘Cover.jpg’ and their headshots as ‘Photo.jpg’ making it difficult for prize administrators to match entries when adding to longlists.
We added custom code to rename image files after upload with the author’s name. This eliminates any room for error and saves time for administrators. Submitted forms are exported as a spreadsheet with links to epub files for judges to load onto their ebook readers. This makes the admin process seamless and efficient.
Keep the site dynamic over the prize cycle
The site dynamically adjusts throughout the prize cycle: call for entries, the announcement of judges, long lists, shortlists, award ceremony and winners. The back-end lets administrators toggle between the displays and reorder the homepage. The site looks significantly different between the award ceremony and call for entries stages.
After the awards ceremony, the homepage needs to display the four winners prominently. In the back end, we built a button to toggle the layout and dynamically publish the winners.
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