Art Submission Form: How to Run a Call for Entries

An art submission form collects the artist's details, information about each work (title, medium, dimensions, year, price if for sale), image or media files, an artist statement, and the artist's confirmation that the work is theirs and that you may use the images to promote the show. Publish it alongside a clear call for entries that states eligibility, deadlines, judging criteria and what selected artists receive. This guide covers what to collect, how to handle file uploads, the rights questions to ask, and a judging workflow that stays fair, with templates for art, music and speaker submissions.

What to collect on an art submission form

Section	Questions	Notes
Artist	Name, email, phone, city or country, website or portfolio, social handle	Ask for the name exactly as it should appear on labels
Artwork	Title, medium, dimensions, year completed, edition (if a print), sale price or "not for sale"	One block of these per work
Files	Images of the work, detail shots, audio or video	State formats and size limits in the question
Context	Artist statement, description of the piece, how it responds to the theme	Give a word limit
Eligibility	Age, location, membership, whether the work has been shown before	Only what your call actually requires
Rights and consent	Confirmation of authorship, permission to use images for promotion, AI use declaration	Required yes/no questions
Logistics	Can you deliver or ship the work? Is it ready to hang?	Only for physical exhibitions

You don't need all of it for every call. A school art contest needs far less than a juried exhibition with sales.

Write the call for entries before you build the form

The call for entries is the page that explains the opportunity. The form is only the last step of it. A complete call answers these questions:

Who can enter? Age, location (local, national, international), student or professional, members only.
What kind of work? Accepted media and disciplines, size limits for physical pieces, creation date limits, digital formats and lengths for audio or video.
How many entries? Maximum works per artist, and whether a series counts as one entry.
Is there a fee? How much, what it covers, and whether it's refundable.
What are the deadlines? Submission deadline with a time zone, notification date, delivery dates for selected work, exhibition or publication dates.
How will work be judged? Who the jurors are and the criteria (theme, originality, technical skill).
What do selected artists get? Exhibition, prize money, publication, commission rates on sales.
What rights do you need? How you will use the images and for how long.

Answering these up front saves you dozens of emails and makes judging easier, because the criteria exist before entries arrive. The call-for-entry platform CaFÉ (CallForEntry.org) has a useful checklist of essential elements for an art contest if you want a second reference.

File uploads: sizes, formats and file names

Files are the heart of a submission, and they cause most of the support questions. Plan for them.

Size limits

On FlowyForm, each upload can be up to 10 MB on the free plan and up to 100 MB on Premium. For still images that is usually plenty: a high-quality JPEG of a painting or photograph exported for screen viewing is typically a few megabytes. Large originals (TIFF, RAW, layered PSD files) often won't fit and aren't needed for judging anyway.

Tell artists exactly what you want, for example: "JPEG or PNG, at least 2000 pixels on the longest side, under 10 MB." Asking for a minimum size keeps images sharp enough for judging, and a maximum keeps uploads fast on phones.

Audio and video

Uncompressed audio is large. CD-quality stereo WAV runs at about 1,411 kbps, which works out to roughly 10 MB per minute, so a three-minute WAV won't fit under a 10 MB limit, while a good MP3 of the same track usually will. Video is larger still. For music and film, the practical approach is to ask for:

An upload of a compressed file (MP3 for audio) where the size allows, and
A website question for a streaming or private link (SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube unlisted, Vimeo with a password, or a cloud drive folder).

Several works per artist

If artists can submit up to three works, add a set of questions per work (title, medium, dimensions, upload) and use a question like "How many works are you submitting?" with logic to skip the second and third sets when they enter one. It keeps every file next to the right title.

File names

Ask artists to name files with their surname and the work's title (Okafor_RiverStudy.jpg). It sounds fussy, but it makes downloading and sorting a few hundred images much easier.

Rights, consent and permissions

Submission forms deal with other people's creative work, so be precise about what you ask for and keep it reasonable.

Authorship: "I confirm this is my original work and I own or control the rights to it." Make it required.
Promotional use: "May we use images of the work to promote the exhibition, with credit, on our website and social media?" Keep the permission specific to the purpose and time period. Artists generally keep their copyright; you're asking for a limited license, not ownership.
Credit line: Ask how they want to be credited, which is often different from their legal name.
AI-generated work: Decide your policy before opening the call and state it. Then ask a direct question, for example "Was generative AI used to create any part of this work?" with a follow-up asking how. It is easier to judge fairly when the policy and the declaration are both on record.
People in the work: If photographs or videos show identifiable people, ask whether the artist has their permission. For photography contests you might require a model release; see our guide to model release forms with e-signatures.
Minors: For youth contests, add a parent or guardian section with their name, email and a drawn signature using the signature question. FlowyForm's help center explains collecting digital signatures.

If your contest involves a large prize, sales or international entrants, have your terms reviewed by someone qualified. The same goes for entry fees, which can change how a contest is treated in some places.

A judging workflow that stays fair

A good submission form is half of fair judging. The other half is how you handle entries afterwards.

1. Screen for eligibility

Before jurors see anything, check entries against the rules: deadline, eligibility, number of works, file quality, required declarations. With every submission arriving as a row in Google Sheets, you can add a "Screened" column and filter.

2. Anonymize for blind judging

If you want jurors to judge the work and not the name, make a copy of the sheet with only an entry number, the title, the medium, the statement and the file links. Keep the copy with names separate until scoring is done. Ask artists not to put their names on the work or in the file itself if you judge blind.

3. Score with a rubric

Share the criteria from your call as a rubric, each scored on the same scale. A simple judge scoring form works well here: a separate form with an opinion scale (1 to 5 or 1 to 10) for each criterion and a long text question for comments. Add hidden fields for the entry number and the juror (?entry=042&juror=maria) and send each juror one link per entry, or let them type the entry number. Every score lands in its own sheet, ready to average.

4. Run rounds if you need to

For large calls, a first round of yes / maybe / no narrows the pool, then a full rubric score picks the finalists. Discuss close calls together, and record the final decision and the reason.

5. Notify everyone

Tell every applicant the outcome, not just the selected artists, on the date you promised. Rejected applicants who were treated well apply again.

Music, writing and speaker submissions

The same structure works for other creative calls with a few changes.

Music submissions for labels, radio, playlists, blogs or venues: artist or band name, contact, track title, genre, a streaming link, an upload of the track, release date, location, social links, a short description, and a required rights question ("Do you own or control the rights to this music?"). The music submission form template has all of these.

Writing and poetry contests: title, word count, category, the text as an upload (PDF or DOCX) or in a long text question for short pieces, a previously-published declaration, and a short bio for the anthology.

Calls for speakers and proposals: a short bio, links, talk title, abstract, format (talk, workshop, panel), audience level, attendee takeaways, a link to a past talk and a headshot upload. The call for speakers form template is ready to use and works for conference, meetup and festival programming.

How to build an art submission form in FlowyForm

Start from the art submission form template. It includes artist details, portfolio link, artwork title, medium, dimensions, sale price, an image upload, an artist statement and a promotional use agreement.
Add your eligibility questions at the start, with logic that sends ineligible entrants to an ending explaining why, so nobody fills in the whole form for nothing.
Add per-work question sets if artists can submit more than one piece, and the AI and authorship declarations.
Write size and format guidance into each upload question.
Add a statement screen with the key rules and a link to the full call.
Schedule the form to close at your deadline, with a closed message that gives the notification date.
Connect Google Sheets for screening and judging, and Slack or email notifications to see entries as they arrive.
Use answer recall on the ending ("Thanks, Lena, we received River Study") so artists can see exactly what they submitted.

Conversational, one-question-at-a-time forms suit creative calls, because an artist statement or a detailed description is easier to write when it's the only thing on screen. Themes, fonts and background images let the form look like part of your exhibition, not a generic web page.

Entry fees

FlowyForm has no payment field. If your call charges a fee, on Premium you can redirect artists to a payment link (Stripe, PayPal, Square or similar) from the ending, then match payments to submissions by email. If fees vary by number of works, logic can route each choice to its own ending with its own payment link. Platforms built for juried calls handle fees, jury access and scoring in one place, and may suit very large or recurring calls better.

Premium also raises the upload limit to 100 MB and adds confirmation emails to entrants, a custom domain and removal of FlowyForm branding. See pricing for details.

FAQ

How do I make an art submission form?

Write your call for entries first (eligibility, media, deadlines, judging, prizes, rights). Then build a form that asks for artist details, artwork information, image uploads, an artist statement and the authorship and promotional use confirmations. Start from an art submission template, set it to close at your deadline and send entries to a spreadsheet for judging.

What file formats should I accept for art submissions?

For judging, JPEG or PNG images are enough for visual art and photography. Specify a minimum pixel size and a maximum file size. For audio, MP3 uploads or streaming links work best; for video, ask for a private link.

How large can uploaded files be?

In FlowyForm, each upload can be up to 10 MB on the free plan and 100 MB on Premium. For larger files, add a website question and ask for a cloud drive or streaming link.

Can artists submit more than one piece?

Yes. Add a question asking how many works they're submitting, then a set of questions for each work, with logic to skip unused sets. State the maximum in your call.

How do I do blind judging?

Remove names from the copy of the submissions that jurors see, replacing them with entry numbers, and ask artists not to sign or name their work in the file. Reveal names only after scores are final.

Can I charge an entry fee with the form?

FlowyForm doesn't take payments directly. On Premium you can redirect entrants to a payment link after they submit, or you can invoice selected entrants. Check whether entry fees change how your contest is regulated where you run it.

Should I accept AI-generated art?

That's your decision, and either choice is reasonable if you state it clearly in the call. Ask every entrant to declare whether and how they used generative AI, so jurors can apply the policy consistently.

How to organize a creative contest with an art submission form