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.