Awards let you recognize standout work beyond a simple accept/reject decision: a Best in Show, placements like 1st through 3rd, Honorable Mentions, or named prizes that carry a cash amount or a perk. Crafted Call's awards tools let admins define awards per call, let jurors vote on or nominate their picks, and let you confirm winners and reveal them to artists and the public on your schedule.
This article is specifically about awards. If you're still setting up the jury itself, the scoring rubric, or finalizing accept/reject decisions, see the related articles linked at the end.
Note: Awards build on top of your jury and acceptance decisions. The pool of work eligible for an award is your accepted submissions, so finalize your accept/reject decisions before you confirm winners.
How awards work, end to end
An admin enables awards for the call and defines each award (name, prize, number of winners, voting mode).
Depending on the voting mode, jurors nominate their picks, or an admin picks winners directly.
An admin reviews the nominations and confirms the winner(s) for each award.
When you're ready, you reveal the awards. Winners become visible to artists and the public, and you can notify winners by email.
For admins: configuring awards
Step 1: Enable awards for the call
Go to Calls → [Your Call] → Jury.
Open the Awards tab.
Turn on Enable Awards Voting.
When you first enable awards, Crafted Call seeds a starter set so you're not staring at a blank screen:
1st Place (1 winner)
2nd Place (1 winner)
3rd Place (1 winner)
Honorable Mention (up to 3 winners)
Keep, edit, reorder, or delete any of these, and add your own.
Step 2: Add or edit an award
Click Add Award (or the pencil icon to edit an existing one) and fill in:
Name (required) — e.g. "Best in Show", "Juror's Choice", "Emerging Artist Award".
Description (optional) — guidance shown to jurors about what the award is for.
Voting Mode — how the winner gets decided (see below).
Max Winners — how many works can win this award. Set higher than 1 for awards like Honorable Mention.
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Prize Amount ($) (optional) — a cash value for the prize.
Prize Description (optional) — a non-cash perk, e.g. "Solo exhibition slot" or "Gift certificate".
Use the up/down arrows on the awards list to set the order awards appear in for jurors and on public displays. Place your headline award (Best in Show, 1st Place) at the top.
Step 3: Choose a voting mode
Each award uses one of two modes:
Juror Vote — every juror nominates one submission for the award. You then confirm the winner from the tally of who got the most votes. Best when you want the jury's collective opinion to drive the result.
Admin Assigned — an owner or admin picks the winner directly, with no juror voting step. Best for curator's-choice or sponsor-named awards where one person makes the call.
Tip: You can mix modes on the same call. For example, make 1st/2nd/3rd "Juror Vote" so the panel decides placements, and make a "Director's Award" Admin Assigned.
Deleting an award
Deleting an award permanently removes it along with any nominations and confirmed winners attached to it. This can't be undone, so delete awards before voting starts if you can.
For jurors: voting on awards
If a call has awards enabled with Juror Vote, you'll see an Awards Voting section in your jury review interface for that call (alongside scoring).
For each award:
Read the award name, description, and any prize details.
Click Select submission to open the picker.
Choose the accepted work you want to nominate for that award. The picker shows you which other awards a piece is already nominated for, so you can spread your picks if you like.
Your pick is saved immediately and shown as Your pick.
You can vote on as many awards as you want. A summary panel at the bottom tracks which awards you've picked and which still need a selection, and confirms when you've picked all of them.
Changing or removing a pick: Click Change to choose a different submission, or the X to clear your nomination. You can adjust your picks at any time while voting is open.
Note: In v1, each juror makes one nomination per award. If the call uses blind review and identities haven't been revealed, you'll see work titles and images but not artist names — vote on the work, not the name.
For admins: confirming winners
Once jurors have voted (or for Admin Assigned awards, once you're ready), go back to Calls → [Your Call] → Jury → Awards. The Award Results section shows, per award:
Confirmed winners so far.
For Juror Vote awards, a Nominations tally — each nominated submission with its vote count and a Confirm Winner button.
For Admin Assigned awards, a prompt to assign a winner from the accepted pool.
A "X of Y winner slots filled" note for multi-winner awards.
To confirm a winner:
Find the submission in the nominations list (or pick one for an Admin Assigned award).
Click Confirm Winner and confirm in the dialog. This creates an official award record.
Repeat until you've filled the award's winner slots.
A summary at the top shows how many of your awards are confirmed (e.g. "3 of 4 awards confirmed"), so you can see at a glance what's left.
To undo: Click the X next to a confirmed winner to remove them. The award goes back to unconfirmed and the slot frees up.
Revealing winners and notifying artists
Award results stay hidden from artists and the public until you reveal them. This lets you finalize quietly and announce on your own timeline (for example, at an opening reception).
Set when awards go public
In the Announcement Settings card on the Awards tab:
Awards Announcement Date — set a date and awards become visible automatically on that day. Leave it blank to reveal only manually.
Reveal Awards Now — reveals immediately. Use this if you announced in person or want winners live right away.
The card shows whether awards are currently HIDDEN or REVEALED, and the reveal date once set.
Important: Revealing is one-way and can't be undone. Confirm your winners are correct before you reveal.
Notify winners by email
After awards are revealed, a Notify Winners via Email button appears. Click it to email each winning artist a congratulations note that lists the award(s) they won, the work title, and any prize amount or description. Crafted Call sends one email per artist (so an artist who won multiple awards gets a single combined message) and won't double-send to anyone already notified.
How winners are displayed publicly
Once awards are revealed, winning works carry an award badge that surfaces on public-facing artwork and exhibition surfaces. Placement awards get distinct styling — for example, 1st Place shows a trophy, 2nd and 3rd show medals, and other awards show a generic award icon. The badge can show the award name on its own, or expand to include the prize amount and description.
Before reveal, award winner data is stripped from public and artist-facing responses, so no one can see results early — even if they know where to look.
Best practices
Finalize accept/reject first. Awards draw from your accepted pool. Confirm acceptances before opening award voting so jurors see the right submissions.
Define awards before voting opens. Reordering and editing are easy, but deleting an award after votes come in throws away nominations.
Use prize fields for transparency. Filling in the prize amount or description means the winner's email and public badge carry the full detail automatically.
Reveal deliberately. Because reveal is permanent, do a final review of confirmed winners first. Pair the announcement date with your opening event.
Mix modes thoughtfully. Juror Vote for democratic placements; Admin Assigned for curator or sponsor awards.
Troubleshooting
"Jurors don't see an Awards Voting section"
Confirm awards are enabled on the Awards tab, that at least one award uses Juror Vote, and that the juror has access to this call's review interface. Admin Assigned awards never appear to jurors.
"A submission I want to award isn't in the picker"
The award pool is limited to accepted submissions. If a piece isn't there, check its decision status on the Submissions tab — it must be marked Accepted.
"I revealed awards too early"
Reveal can't be reversed. If winners weren't final, correct the winner records (remove/confirm as needed) and communicate the correction directly to affected artists.
"Winner emails didn't send"
Notifying requires awards to be revealed first and at least one confirmed winner. If a send fails for an artist, Crafted Call leaves them un-notified so you can retry; check the artist has a valid email on file.
FAQs
Can one submission win more than one award? Yes. A single work can be confirmed for multiple awards (for example, 1st Place and a sponsor's named prize).
Can an award have more than one winner? Yes. Set Max Winners above 1 (Honorable Mention defaults to 3). You confirm winners until the slots are full.
Do jurors see vote tallies? No. Nomination counts are visible to admins on the results view. Jurors see only their own picks.
Are awards tied to a specific jury round? An award can be scoped to a round or left at the call level. Most galleries run awards at the call level after final decisions.
