PARTNERS
OUR PARTNERS
CELEBRATING + RECOGNISING CREATIVE TALENT
The sixth free to enter visual imagery Awards in collaboration with D5 Render and HP
The Drawing of the Year Awards are the ultimate accolade in visual representation supported by Affinity creative software. Our mission is to support and inspire the creative community at all skill levels with no barriers to access. We’re very excited to bring you the largest and most inclusive drawing Awards of its kind. Delivering the free to enter Awards is only possible thanks to our partners who share our ethos for inspiring and empowering the creative community.
With special thanks to D5 Render, HP and Affinity, our 2025 Award Partners supporting creative talents Hayes Davidson, SketchUp, Bentley’s MicroStation, LEUCHTTURM1917 and Winsor & Newton and our prize partners!
D5 Render and HP are proud to support the Drawing of the Year Awards 2025. D5 Render and HP Z Workstations inspire creatives on their journey to keep evolving, providing industry-leading real time visualisation tools that empower the creative process and powerful hardware that is designed for creative and technical professionals.
Together, D5 Render’s innovative solutions and HP’s high-performance Z Workstation portfolio can drive creativity and efficiency in complex, multi-software workflows.
D5 Render are providing 180 Day PRO licences to the top 250 entrants to inspire and support their creative journeys. Across the six award categories, HP is offering 3x HP ZBook Firefly 16” G11 Mobile Workstation with Intel® Core™ Ultra 7, 3x HP Z2 G9 Mini Workstation Intel® Core™ i7 with 2x OMEN by HP 27” QHD Gaming Monitors, 5x Poly Studio P5 Webcams and 6x Poly Voyager Free 60 Series Earbuds.
An industry-leading real-time 3D creation tool that reshapes the way architects/ designers work and collaborate
Trusted by 2M+ designers worldwide
D5 was founded by a group of young innovators who were passionate about pushing the boundaries of technology and exploring the limitless power of human imagination.
D5’s goal is to create a seamless environment where creatives can fully immerse themselves in a state of creative flow. By combining their technical expertise with a deep understanding of what design and visualization professionals need, they strive to deliver products that inspire and empower creatives to bring their ideas to life.
Providing Real-time Feedback: D5 provides real-time ray tracing and realistic visuals, turning your vision into reality instantly. Designed to match human perception, this “instant feedback” lets you see your ideas come to life. D5 helps you stay fully immersed in your process, unlocking your creativity.
Streamlining Creativity: D5 simplifies the complicated creative process into clear, simple settings. With AI and procedural content generation (PCG) built in, you can spend less time switching between tools and learning complex systems.
Embracing Creative Freedom: D5 aim for more than just functionality—D5 want their tools to seamlessly connect with human intuition and thought, becoming an extension of imagination. Empower your team with an all-in-one solution and streamline collaboration.
Get D5 for Education for free: Unleash the powerful capabilities of D5 and transform your architectural projects now.
For decades, HP has been a trusted hardware partner for architects around the world. The HP Z Workstation portfolio offers high performance laptops, desktops, and solutions engineered to drive the most demanding professional workflows.
From conceptualization and 3D modeling to real-time rendering and simulation— Z Workstations are tested, optimized, certified and engineered to outperform standard PCs. The devices are highly reliable and undergo up to 360,000 hours of rigorous testing, maximizing productivity with solutions built to last.
Unleash productivity with pro-grade power and performance: Get the power you need to be productive and focused with high-performance computing solutions. With high-end graphics, advanced processors, and large storage and memory configurations, you can stay deeply focused on the task at hand.
Accelerate your workflow with the power of AI: Tap into the latest AI-driven applications and features with AI workstations engineered with a CPU, GPU, and NPU that efficiently manage AI workloads. Conceptualize new ideas and plans, iterate, analyze, and optimize your designs in real-time.
Work flexibly with tech that adapts to you: Experience more freedom and flexibility with solutions that can be customized and modified for where and how you work.
HP is offering special promotions throughout the Drawing of the Year. Check out the special promotions at your local store below.
The award-winning graphic design, image editing and page layout software used by architects around the world
SHORTLISTED ENTRIES RECEIVE AFFINITY V2 UNIVERSAL LICENCE FOR FREE
The top 250 entrants shortlisted will receive Affinity V2 Universal Licence for free. The Affinity V2 Universal Licence, worth £159.99, includes Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and Affinity Publisher 2 for Mac, iPad and Windows PC
Affinity is the only creative suite offering vector graphic design, image editing and page layout fully integrated across Mac, iPad and Windows PC.
Delivering accessible, lean, and collaborative functionality, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and Affinity Publisher 2 are being used by millions worldwide. Tailored to run optimally on the latest hardware and compatible with all major file types, Affinity’s speed, power and lack of bloat streamline your workflow, meaning you can do more, quicker.
Affinity is trusted by leading global architecture firms including Perkins & Eastman, HOK, Corgan, NORR, SCB, Quinn Evans, EUA, and MG2, in North America plus Schneider+Schumacher, Burckhardt+Partner, AS+P Albert Speer + Partner GmbH, Itten+Brechbühl AG, Broadway Malyan, Scott Brownrigg and Simpson Haugh in Europe.
Affinity is also being adopted widely in higher education, across disciplines including Architecture & Design to Science.
INTRODUCING THE AFFINITY AWARD 2025
Recognising standout works created using the Affinity creative suite as key software within the creative process. The Award spans all types of drawings and digital mediums recognising standout works across illustrative, collage, to digital hand drawings created in any style, showcasing those that have truly excelled with their use of Affinity creative software.
This medal will be selected by the Affinity creative team.
Supporting the Beyond Visualisation Award 2025
Hayes Davidson is one of the world’s leading visualisation studios. A leader in the field of visualisation, communicating architecture and the built environment.
Collaborative to its core, the studio partners with the most respected and visionary architects, developers, planners and agencies, to create exceptional ways to help them communicate their ideas and ambitions.
Widely acknowledged as one of the founding forces of the industry, the studio's ensemble team of creative specialists continues to embody the original values of creativity, innovation and fresh thinking. The studio’s purpose is to help their clients visualise a better world, translating great design concepts into beautiful and compelling images, films and visual experiences that engage, inspire, and influence. They explore all the possibilities inherent in a brief, guiding a visual strategy for every stage of a project’s life. Creative in both ideas and outputs, the studio is unconstrained by a house style, drawing on experience to offer the most appropriate visual responses for an individual brief.
Hayes Davidson is passionate about democratising the built environment and supports a number of initiatives designed to encourage broad participation, inclusive decision-making and informed debate.
Supporting the Digital Drafting Award 2025
Bentley’s MicroStation
MicroStation is the instrument professionals rely on to design, model, and manage infrastructure.
It’s more sophisticated than a tool – it’s an accessible instrument that offers power, control, efficiency, and security. It excels at enabling innovative design and creative visualizations and consolidates critical project elements in a single environment for effective, secure project deliverables. It’s built to scale from the smallest to the largest of infrastructure projects that can span days, months, or years. And it’s the foundation that supports the entire Bentley modeling ecosystem.
• Interoperability – Work with native DGN and incorporate legacy data and file formats like DWG, and point-cloud data without conversions.
• Reliability – Work collaboratively on any size project without size restrictions, crashes, or complications, knowing your system will always be on.
• Visualization – Analyze and perform data visualizations on models based on their geometry or underlying attributes.
• Standards – We’re an industry standard which means your documentation is always standards compliant.
• Real Data – Design with accurate real-world context, automatically, with geospatial information from hundreds of systems.
For Students
Bentley Systems has also opened the doors to students who are considering a career in infrastructure and to those who like to explore the many options in this ever-changing industry. Get access to learning licenses of over 60 Bentley applications at no cost and grow from there! Register here
Supporting the Visualisation Award 2025
From 3D concepts to full-blown photorealistic renders, Trimble SketchUp has been helping creatives worldwide bring their ideas to life and tell a richer story with intuitive, powerful design software for 25 years. Your vision realized with SketchUp.
Supporting the Hand Drawn Award 2025
We write and understand, learn, see, and think – with the hand. Writing by hand is thinking on paper. We allow our thoughts to run free. This empowers us to step back. The resulting distance helps us to objectively view plans and projects. By writing our thoughts down, we bring them to life. By putting our plans on paper, we increase the chances of actually putting them into practice. Make lists to hold control in your hand. Write down in order to let go. Draft a plan to analyse it. Take a rough thought and put it into words until an idea appears on the page! Writing things by hand is the method used by people who are intent on putting their ideas into practice. They’re your ideas, plans and projects. It’s in your hand!
Characterised by a love of the product, LEUCHTTURM1917 has developed a brand philosophy which is that everyone discovers and develops their character and their own ideas through writing by hand. The result of this conviction is the guiding principle of LEUCHTTURM1917: Thinking with the Hand.
Founded in the year 1917, LEUCHTTURM can now look back on over 100 years of experience in the manufacture of high-quality stationery. The family firm is now in its fourth generation, with Axel and Max Stürken managing this Hanseatic company since the 90s. We are guided by the idea of producing well thought-out notebooks and planners which meet our customers’ high standards of quality and are a pleasure to use. Characterised by a love of the product, functional details, outstanding quality and a wide range of colours, what LEUCHTTURM1917 stands for – above all – is a clear design language, which has won many awards.
Supporting the Hand Drawn Award 2025
The artists’ ally since 1832, Winsor & Newton is always innovating to help creators develop and flourish, with one of the widest portfolios of art materials in the world. We believe that the creative process helps us grow, and our vision is for every artist to experience the rewards of that growth. That’s why every product we make is planned, developed and created ‘through the eyes of the artist’, with the insight, desires and needs of creators at its core.
PROUD SUPPORTERS OF THE AWARDS
Tala
The creators of beautiful, sustainable lighting.
Tala create high-quality, sustainable LED lights for homes, offices and every space in between. Founded in 2015 by a team who believed great design was the fastest way to a low-carbon world. Since then Tala has become one of the leaders in design-led, sustainable lighting: proud to be creating lights that are gentle on the planet, make homes look great and make life feel brighter.
As designers we naturally want to create the best looking lights on the planet, but that’s just half the story. Through every product we make, we want to use the power of design to show how brilliant low-carbon living can be. The low energy revolution is happening. We’re proud to be leading the change.
Supporting the move to low-carbon, one light at a time.
