Competition Judging

Welcome Judges!

SILA – The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles would like to sincerely thank you for being a judge of our 54th Illustration West competition.

Your participation helped us to receive over 1,200 entries and your final decisions will ensure that our annual competition is an exciting representation of contemporary illustration in 2015


The judging process is completed in 3 phases:

  1. First, all judges view each piece by category and vote YES or NO –  if the entry should be included in the exhibition or not. All judges votes will be counted toward the final included entries.
  2. Second, the included entries are judged for award eligibility. If an entry receives the highest number of votes, should it receive a Gold Award, Silver Award, Bronze Award, Honorable Mention or no additional award.
  3. Finally, of the entries Gold Awards from all the categories except Unpublished/Self-Promotional, Student or Gallery, which should get the Joseph Morgan Henninger Best in Show Award and which should get the Patrick Nagel Award for Excellence.

The first phase of judging should take about a week, the second a couple of days, and the final phase no more than one day.


Judging Instructions

  1. Log in to your account using the menu on the left.
  2. Update your profile
    – Click “Edit Profile” in the menu on the left.
    – Make sure your contact and other information is correct. (this information is for SILA only and will not be displayed to the public).
    – If you have received a temporary password, please update it to something secure.
  3. Begin browsing by category
    – There are 10 categories of entry in the competition. You can read the descriptions of these categories in detail at the top of each category page or on the “About the Competition” page.
    – All entrants have chosen the appropriate category by which their work should be evaluated.
  4. The menu on the left shows all available categories in the competition – click on the category name to begin judging that category.
    – Each category page displays a grid of thumbnails representing all entries for that category (note: some categories have more than one page)
  5. Click on any entry thumbnail to see the entry page with all the project details and the full artwork.
    – On an entry page you can click on the artwork to pop up a larger detail view, when available.
    – Feel free to judge in any order you’re comfortable with, but be sure to cast a vote on every entry.
  6. Judge an entry
    – Look for the voting icons below the details of the project on every entry page.
    – Select either “YES” or “NO” for the entry
  7. Return to the Category page by using the back button in your browser
  8. To change a vote
    – If you change your mind about an entry, you can revise your vote by returning to the Entry page.
  9. Verify your votes
    – Take a few moments to browse through all of the category pages to make sure you have voted for every entry and that your votes are accurate.
  10. Contact SILA at 800-799-6368 or info@illustrationwest.org to inform us that you have completed the judging process.