At the 2009 New Designers show, award-winning architect Amanda Levete told an audience of design graduates and tutors that there might be a financial crisis, but there is no crisis in creativity in the UK.

This fighting spirit is what we have come to expect in design, with creative souls rising to the challenge and breaking the rules to achieve great work. It is the kind of line designers and enlightened clients take for projects that make a difference commercially or socially and that win the accolade of their peers.

If your work fulfils these criteria you have a right to be hugely proud. Achieving excellence is never easy, whatever the economic constraints. It deserves acknowledgment - and what better way to gain the recognition you and your team deserve than through the 2010 Design Week Awards. By entering the awards, you are measuring yourself against the best in the business for one of the world's most prestigious annual design prizes.

All awards entries will be assessed by a panel of eminent judges, purely on the quality of design and execution. Aesthetics and innovation, appropriateness of form and function, the creative use of type and texture, of colour and of space will all be considered.

If you win an award or are shortlisted for a prize, your designs will be published in the Design Week Awards supplement - a collectable in its own right. By also featuring on the Design Week website it will enter into the archive for all time. Your success will live on beyond the awards night as the work becomes part of our collective creative heritage.

Lynda Relph-Knight,
Editor of Design Week and Chairman of the Design Week Awards judges