New Website Launched

It is official. The new website for Design Contest has been launched. It has been a work in progress for nearly two months now, and today it is viewable to the public.

With some amazing headers from our designers -- the site is simplified with new features such as a forum login, latest news down the side, and integration of new contests and their details. Over the next couple of weeks past winners of our contests will also be notified, asking permission to be displayed in the contest gallery (coming soon).

Along with a new look, the website also brings some changes to our guidelines and rules. They are as follows:

ADMIN FEES
Starting now, all new contest holders will need to pay a $30 administration fee on top of the prize amount. The majority of this will go toward Paypal fees, but will also go towards new initiatives and promotional items to be put forth by Design Contest. We would like to start offering our members more, and this seems like a logical step to do so. Step 2 of the "Start a Contest" form will bring all potential contest holders to a second form, at which point the $30 is applied to their prize amount and then sent to Paypal.

GUIDELINES
New guidelines have also been put in place for Designers. First and foremost, we would like to limit the number of entries the designers have been putting forward. Unless otherwise requested by the Contest Holders, Designers are limited to only 5 entries in each contest. As more designers begin to join and enter the contests, this will step will be important to ensure that the Contest Holders do not become overwhelmed with what is sometimes unnecessary entries.

Further modifications have been made to the Guidelines, so I would suggest that everyone read them thoroughly as soon as possible.

DESIGN TEAM
Finally, from this point forward Paypal is now a requirement to join the Design Team. It has become quite a problem trying to find alternative payment methods for some Designers, and this unfortunately will become worse when more Designers join us. Any designer who has currently worked out another payment method with illumina may continue to use that method.

You can visit out new website at: http://www.designcontest.com

That looks great! Random images at the banner

New rules regarding fees sound good and I hope these will help a lot for improving DC more and more. About the 5 entries issue: Are designers limited to a total of 5 different concepts, or a total of 5 posts within a contest? Maybe that should be cleared.

And again, the site looks great

seawise, those random images are the winners of the DC header community contest. It was a great contest, too bad not many of the Design Team members took part in it

I know that these are the winners, that's why it's great . I thought only one of them would be placed in the banner, however it's a lot better in this way.

Love the new banners for the site! Folks on here did some great work! I was a bit confused when I typed in the URL, thinking that I had gotten it wrong since I had been here about an hour beforehand. haha. Love it though!

I agree with seawise on clarifying the rules about the number of entries. I questioned whether it meant 5 intial concepts, 5 revisions per client request, or 5 posts altogether within a contest.....


Thank! Great work everyone!

looks nice! will you be altering the design of the forum to match?

Thanks everyone.

Just to clarify, we mean 5 designs total. This doesn't include modifications, however we do only want modifications to be done if they are asked for. Recently many designers have been posting 10+ entries with numerous variations for each entry, and to be honest its just too much. What we want to encourage is the development of only your *best* concepts. So if you come up with 10 designs, use your skills to select only the best ones and perfect them.

I will try and write some more details with the guidelines about this subject soon.

Also, we are working on a forum skin to match -- although it may not be until 2006 that we see it.

Top notch work guys! I am sorry I didn't get to participate in the banner contest, been completely booked with work and school. Feel free to let me know if you need any help with the forum design.

Best of luck,
Naveed

Mm, sorry to be a damp rag, but I don't really like the new front page. *blush* I mean, it's alright, but it's a bit blah, you know? When people come to the site, they look for some 'wow' graphic design, and the front page doesn't really stand out from all the other websites out there.
That's actually what I think about the forum design too, just a suggestion, but maybe hold a contest to create the template for designcontest.com? (I'm not saying that I could do better than what you guys have done, I'm not so much a webpage designer, but I've seen lots of great template-designer-talents here!)

Mm, sorry to be a damp rag, but I don't really like the new front page. *blush* I mean, it's alright, but it's a bit blah, you know? When people come to the site, they look for some 'wow' graphic design, and the front page doesn't really stand out from all the other websites out there.
That's actually what I think about the forum design too, just a suggestion, but maybe hold a contest to create the template for designcontest.com? (I'm not saying that I could do better than what you guys have done, I'm not so much a webpage designer, but I've seen lots of great template-designer-talents here!)

That's alright, we can't please everyone. The new frontpage will look alot better once I can get the design gallery working (the central point of the website, which is currently only "coming soon!"). The gallery will bring in alot of colour and focus towards the great designs that have been created here.

The forum is getting a new skin that matches the new website -- I have been working on it the past couple of days, and it should be ready this weekend.

Yes, to each his own.
But awesome, can't wait to see the changes!