IES Ottawa Lighting Design Awards

Important Dates

• :: December 15, 2025: Submission period begins
• :: February 6, 2026: Project Deadline to submit your Project
• :: February 9 - 13, 2026: Local Section Project Review and Judging
• :: March 5, 2026: Award Gala (Tickets on sale starting January 12

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How to submit your project for this year's awards program

Download the Template

To align with the IES Illumination Awards guidelines, projects submitted for consideration must:

• have not been previously submitted in a prior program year.
• have been completed in the past 2 years. We are currently accepting submission for projects that were completed between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2025

This year, in an effort to simplify the process, you will compile you project summary, photos and photo narrative in a PowerPoint file using the template provided which you can download using the link on this page.

Note that you are not permitted to mention any identifying product names or the names of manufacturers in your submission. If selected for an award, provided you do so tastefully, you will be allowed to thank the manufacturer during your acceptance speech or recognize a product that help overcome a particular challenge.

The template consists of a collection of the following:

1. The first slide requres you to add some identifying information, namely your name, the name of the project, and the category under which you are entering it

2. This slide is used to enter your Project Summary, a written description of the project and why you feel it qualifies for recognition in our program. You enter your summary into the "Presenter notes" section of the slide - not the slide itself. The slide points you in the right direction.

   Important: There is a strict 300-word limit on the length of your summary. It is also useful for you to download the judging score sheet for your project's category and make sure that your summary and project photos inform the judges of how you met the scoring critera. The judges are instructed to judge based solely on the information provided and to avoid assuming that you satisfied the requirement.

3. - 12. These 10 slides are where you insert your photos. You are not obliged to include 10, but are not permitted to exceed that number. If you have fewer than 10 photos, simple leave the rest of the slides blank.

   The slides are sized to Standard Full HD (1920 x 1080) images. This is the resolution that we will be using to view your project during judging and to diplay any images from your project at the Awards Gala. It is very possible that your images are not widescreen 16:9 images but are likely formatted as 3:2 or 4:3 photographs. When you drag such photos onto the slide (or insert them using the menu : INSERT > PICTURE > FROM FILE, you should find that the image will fill the full height of the slide but leave magins on the left and right. This is acceptable. Don't attemp to stretch the image horizontally as you may distort its aspect ratio, or cut part of the top and/or bottom of the imaage from the slide.

   Slide narrative. Include a slide narrative in the Presentor Notes section below each slide that you include. Each image is permitted a narrative that is no longer than 25 words in length. That's one or two sentences.

4. Before you finalize your submission, please ensure that you have read the judging score sheet for the category that you will be submitting under. It is very important that your narratives address the criteria in the scoresheet. Judges are not permitted to simply assume that you met or exceeded a given criteria.
   Also note the points weighting multipliers to the right of each juding criteria. It is important to score well on all criteria, but especially on those worth pts x 3 or pts x 4.
   

   Download the Scoresheets (pdf)

14. You are just about done! On the final slide, we ask for your attestation that you are submitting in good faith and that the slides and narratives truthfully represent the project.

Once you have completed your Powerpoint file, save in PowerPoint's standard "pptx" format using your project's name. Please use lowercase letters for your filename and replace any spaces with the underscore character "_". You can shorten very long project names as long as we are able to recognize the project by the files's name.

Return to this site, complete the short form, and attached your file. You will see a confirmation on screen, which will be followed up with an email confirmation from us within 1 business day.

Our submission form has been configured to accept pretty large files. In the unlikely event that you do happen to get an error message stating that your file is too large, reach out and we can provide an alternative method of submitting.

If you have any problems at all, do not hesitate to email us at info @ iesottawa . ca

someone will help you out.