Why Cohesive Design Is Key To Supercharging Your Australian Web Awards Entry
Design plays a crucial role in how a website or app is experienced: good design guides a user to what they need, where bad design creates friction and frustration.
Every year in the Australian Web Awards (AWA), our judges see hundreds of entries that look beautiful but function badly, or look generic but function perfectly. Award winning entries find a balance between the two, creating a seamless experience that’s memorable and purposeful.
In this blog, we discuss why cohesive design is the key to boosting your AWA score and what you can focus on to improve the overall quality of the digital experiences you create.
What is ‘digital design’?
Digital design is different to other forms of design, like graphic design, because it focuses on the creation of visual content, interactive experiences, and user interfaces for electronic devices. That could be for websites, apps, and social media – anything that combines aesthetics with functionality that makes digital information accessible and engaging.
What do AWA design judges look for?
In terms of design, our judges are essentially aiming to answer this question for each entry: does every element on this site feel like it belongs together? Our 2025 Best in Show winners for Design represent an award-winning answer.
“The Colabs website design is inspired by the intersection of life science and systems thinking,” explains Lauren Crystal, Managing Director of Your Creative Agency. “It uses a digital-first palette drawn from living systems, with layouts that act as a canvas for possibility.”
“The user experience is enriched through art-directed photography of the ‘world as our scientific playground’, helping reframe how lab work, scientific space, and experimentation are perceived,” Lauren explains.
“We wanted the design to celebrate the magnetic beauty and curiosity of today’s scientists and researchers (the backbone of scientific progress). All is wrapped in a bento-inspired design system, where every element – from generous full-fold imagery to micro interactions – contributes to a cohesive and scalable digital platform.”
Keeping this in mind, here are three front of mind things AWA judges keenly look for when assessing entries in the design discipline that you can start to bake into your digital work today.
1. A strong, coherent and consistent visual identity
The sites that earned the highest praise from AWA judges weren't just visually attractive: they felt unified. Designs where typography, colour, imagery, spacing and motion all felt like they came from the same considered aesthetic scored higher than the inverse – mixing too many typefaces, inconsistent component styles, or layouts that didn't gel between pages.
2. Motion and interaction that genuinely elevates a digital experience
Motion on a website can either add to or take away from good user experience. When motion is done well, it doesn’t get in the way: it actually makes content clearer and the brand feels more alive.
AWA judges look for purposeful and well-timed microinteractions, scroll animations, hover states and transitions because they add personality and polish to a site. However, these moments need to feel crafted, not bolted on. Sites that overuse animation can get penalised in the awards, just as much as sites that ignore it entirely.
3. Design that clearly understands and serves its audience
This might sound obvious, but design needs to connect back to the people it’s for. When a site's visual choices come from a deep understanding of the brand's audience – the right tone, the right imagery, the right level of complexity – the overall experience isn’t just impressive, it’s genuinely impactful.
On the flip side, designs that feel generic, templated or expected (as if they could belong to anyone) can distract a user before they’ve even begun engaging with the site. These types of awards entries consistently scored poorly in the design discipline. Not necessarily because they were poorly executed, but because the design decisions that created them ignored the brand and what its users needed.
5 ways to improve your design score in the Australian Web Awards
1. Stop letting your typography be an afterthought
Poor type hierarchy is one of the most frequently mentioned issues in the design discipline feedback from AWA judges. This looks like random font sizes across site sections, too many typefaces mixed together, and inconsistent capitalisation (Title Case one one page, sentence case on another).
To increase your chance of scoring highly, pick two complementary fonts, establish a clear size scale, and apply it without exceptions. If an AWA judge has to work out what to read first, you've already lost points.
2. Make sure your animations help, not hinder
Scroll animations, transitions and motion effects score points when they guide attention, but are repeatedly penalised when they're choppy, trigger-happy, or make content harder to consume.
Every animation should have a job: if it's just decorative, cut it or dial it back. The sites that received the highest scores consistently had motion features that were considered and intentional.
3. Design for desktop as seriously as you design for mobile
In today’s multi-screen world, if your design only prioritises mobile, you’re going to miss out on valuable benefits, especially when it comes to SEO and content. In the AWA, sites that clearly favoured mobile left desktop users with oversized typography, awkward spacing, or 3D elements that dominated the screen uncomfortably. Your design needs to feel crafted at every breakpoint, not just optimised for one.
4. Don't let inconsistency quietly undermine all your good work
When it comes to design, details matter. To be a high scoring entry in the awards, take a fine toothed comb over your site before pressing ‘submit’. Small inconsistencies can drag your entry down and be the difference between ‘good’ and ‘outstanding.
A few details to keep an eye out for include:
Hover states that don’t match
Spacing that varies without reason
Buttons that behave differently across pages.
5. Give your content room to breathe – then use that space with purpose
There’s a sweet spot when it comes to balancing design and content and that’s determined by how you utilise white space. Too much and a site can feel bland and uninteresting; too little and it can be overwhelming and look cluttered, as if content is fighting design to be seen.
The winning balance is deliberate white space paired with at least one bold, memorable design moment: a striking hero, an unexpected interaction, or even a distinctive visual device. Don't fill every gap, but don't leave the design feeling empty either.
Better digital experiences need more than good design
To create an award winning digital experience, there’s more to it than just good design: and we can help you get the skills and tools you need to deliver. Consider joining AWIA to connect to your industry peers, learn from experts in other disciplines and contribute to building your creative industry.
Written by:
Dr Marion Piper Human, but also Creativity Coach & Copywriter
The Australian Web Awards recognise excellence across six core disciplines: Accessibility, Content, Design, Development, SEO, and User Experience. Subscribe to AWIA’s newsletter for 2026 awards updates, AWIA news and accessibility events as they’re released.
