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Are you going to create a design?

Yup! 0.2 20.0% [ 4 ]
jus' bumpin' 0.6 60.0% [ 12 ]
gold 0.2 20.0% [ 4 ]
Total Votes:[ 20 ]
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Contents
+ What You'll Do
+ What You Can Win
+ What I Need
+ How to Submit
+ Get a Feel For My Tastes
+ Rules, Tips, Tricks



What Is this?

It's a Web Site design contest! For some really awesome prizes! Like these:

User ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser Image
What You'll Do

You're going to design a web site.

The site will host several serial prose works ( stories in "chapters" ). There should be a unified theme to the site as a whole, but it should be easily riffed on (that is, customize) to give each work its own feel within the design. Initial designs should include variations on the main theme for an autobiography and a science fiction work.

In short, I need a main theme for the site, with three variations:
* Standard: for the front page or site-wide content
* a variation for the autobiography
* a variation for the science fiction story
What You Can Win

The awesome thing about this contest? YOU GET TO CHOOSE YOUR PRIZE! blaugh
Here are some of the things on the list!

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User ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser ImageUser Image

Go ahead. CLEEK THEEEM. They will take you to the marketplace to show you what they're worth.


I really recommend you look over the full list. You get to put together the prize you want, selecting multiple items from ANYTHING that ANY of my old accounts own.

There's a lot of stuff, there. and some of it's awesome (ok, not all of it). I haven't been here for a few years, so I'm not super familiar with what people want most.

A note about how I put that list together:
I made screen shots of my inventories, ran them through Acrobat's OCR program to convert it to text, put the list into a text editor to fix errors the OCR made, sorted it in Excel, then combined lines for the same item. There's a lot of room for error there. To make up for it, when you submit a bid, I will check the inventories to visually verify that your bid can be paid accurately. If it can't, I'll let you know about my error and ask you to adjust or withdraw the bid (your choice).
What I Need

Here are the requirements for the site you'll be desiging:
Don't feel restricted by the terms I use here, these are typical conceptions of WordPress blogs, but if you have a creative arrangement, I'll look at it.

In no particular order, here are the elements I need:
* main content zone - Should be the biggest, most eyecatching area. what this is depends on the page being viewed, could be a single article/blog post, could be search results, could be an image, could be a list of intros to articles, could be several full articles.
* banner image
* site name
* site tagline
* Main menu - variable number of items, multiple menu locations are fine
* several blocks of small content - variable in number
---twitter feed, last.fm, polls, article tags, that kind of thing
---an about area with a picture or icon, biographical information, point of the site, etc. can be broken into smaller parts
---copyright info
---creator/designer credits
* A mechanism for moving between stories
How to Submit

1. You read the description of what I need.
2. You look over the list of the items I've got.
3. You decide on a bid: that is, which and how many of my items you think making a design is worth to you.
4. You post a bid, either by private message or on this forum thread.
5. You submit your design as a graphic (.psd, .ai, .jpg, .png, .svg, .tiff, whatev), either by private message or on this forum thread.
* You can also include a text description if you need to explain a feature or feel that text will help me understand something. Designs do not necessarily have to be digitally created, but it probably makes it easier for me to grok your design.
6. on Oct. 22 (deadline subject to change) I get all the submissions together and make a decision based on both the design and the bid.
7. The winner will be announced by October 26
Get a Feel For My Tastes

I LIKE:
pink. I've taken to using this icon for much of my online presence:
User Image - Blocked by "Display Image" Settings. Click to show.

I also like superheroes and science fiction and fantasy and steampunk and all that stuff.
Music is awesome. Themes dedicated to specific bands, not so much.
in-jokes and offbeat humor.
Bunny girls, angels, fairies, and dragons

My DA page is at http://aldessa.deviantart.com - You can use that to see my journal (proving how bad a designer I am) and also to get a feel for the art I like and have made. Note that I'm quitting DA, but the stuff's still there.
Rules, Tips, Tricks

Tip #1: If you enter, be sure you've read this whole dang page. Seriously. I'm not going to be held accountable for your inability or unwillingness to read.

Some formalities:
* I will never use any design I do not trade the items for. If you do not win I will delete the entry from my computer so that I cannot use your design.
* All entries remain property of the submitter/creator until such time as they accept a trade for the design.
* If you do win, once the trade is complete the design becomes mine. I have every right to use it in anyway I want. You no longer have a right to use it for anything other than a portfolio piece.
* I will leave the designer's name and a link to the destination of the designer's choice on the site for as long as I use the design or a derivative of it.
* Assuming there are enough designs I like and I have the items for it, I may buy more than one design. I hope to, but I don't know if I will be able to.
* At least one entry will be deemed best. However, it's conceivable that I will not get any designs I feel are worth the price. In that even, the winner will receive a random item worth at least 100,000 gold, as determined by the average sell price in the Gaia Marketplace "average buy price" on October 22. The winner may opt for a different item of equal or lesser value to the randomly determined item.

Keep in mind:
* your bid is part of your entry. You're perfectly alright with saying you want everything listed. And if your design is amazing, I'll pay that. However, if your design is not quite amazing but it's pretty good, and I can get someone else's design, or two designs of similar quality, I'll go with the other(s).
In other words, the VALUE of your design is what I'm judging.
The value of your design is personality, ease of use, ease of development, and creativity (both in visual design and user experience) compared to COST (how many items of what value your asking for.

* flip side of the above: NEVER ask for LESS than what you think your design is worth. That's a good rule for the rest of your life. For the record, the total value of all the items on the list is around $450 according to Tektek.
* You do NOT need to code the site. I will do that. Probably making a WordPress theme out of it.
* if you have a lot of custom graphics that I can't make using HTML and CSS, giving me your design in Photoshop or Illustrator is going enhance the value of your submission. Using other formats will never disqualify you, though
* Be creative, both in arrangement and functionality. If you have an idea for an awesome way to navigate, put it in.

Tip #2: I really do recommend looking at my Deviant Art page. It's the best way for you to learn the types of things I write, enjoy, and look at.

For those who have never designed a web site, Here are some examples of site designs I've worked with in the past:
link 1a | link 1b
This was a design for two different functions of a web application. It was given to me as an illustrator files so I could extract the graphics (the ovals, the tabs, etc) directly from the file and didn't have to recreate them. That also gave me the information for fonts and sizes and color codes. Because I was familiar with the application requirements, I understood what the various functions were. There was a lot of accompanying documentation for how the back end worked.

link 2a | link 2b
This was an early design for a blog site. A lot of the original ideas survived to the final product. The first picture was given to show possible color schemes (these were not used). The designer, aware development might come out of this, provided font/color information in text right on the image. It was only a partial design, because it was understood what the basic layout would be. The second image was a mockup to show how expanding menus might look like.

In spite of those examples, I'm not expecting anything really technical. If you put down a basic layout, label what goes where, I can figure it out. The only explanations would be for non-obvious functionality. However, if there are changes to buttons when you click on them, or when you hover over something, it would be worthwhile to mention it.
Services and Associates

Here are some bumpers that are/will be helping with my thread:

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Bumpaliscious Bumps (not banner I could see)


OK! GO DESIGN AND WIN! heart

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