Clio Resources

The Judging Process

Each year, Clio appoints top creatives and marketers from around the world to serve on our distinct juries. Clio selects individuals whose own creative work epitomizes the best of their respective fields, ensuring that each juror has an in-depth understanding of the industry’s evolving marketplace.

The Clio judging process is known for its diplomatic approach to recognizing creative excellence. All jurors have an equal say in decisions, and the majority vote rules.  Judging criteria across all programs is creativity.

Some of the questions jurors are asked to think about include:

• Is this work bold? Innovative? Inspiring?
• Am I jealous of this work? Do I wish I had done it?
• How is this work propelling the industry forward? What do I want to signal to the industry by awarding this work?

Juries will review all of the entries submitted within their assigned medium types.  They participate in preliminary rounds of judging individually followed by a final round of judging to determine the awards given to each piece – Gold, Silver, Bronze, Shortlist. 

During the judging process there is no minimum or maximum number of statues that need to be awarded.  The jury reserves the right to award as many or as few entries as they see fit in a particular medium or category. This ensures that the work is not judged against each other, but simply by its own merit.

Abstaining

Jurors that have submitted work into a medium they are judging abstain from voting on that work in all judging rounds. 

Code of Conduct

Each of our jurors engage with the process as a service to the larger creative community. As part of this service, we ask each juror to be guided by two main principles of conduct in addition to our judging criteria and protocol:

• Impartiality – Jurors are obligated to remain unbiased in the judging process and abstain from showing preference to work submitted by entrants in their personal or professional network.
• Diligence – Jurors are required to ensure that all entries are judged fairly, considered equally, reviewed in their entirety and critiqued solely based on the information provided.

Grand Clio

The Grand Clio is Clio’s highest honor. The Grand Clio is similar to “Best in Show” but it’s more than just that.  It represents work that is considered head and shoulders above all other entries in a particular medium for that year.

Nominating a Juror

To recommend a juror, please submit a nomination here.