$1000 Web Design Contest

kirby145 · # 1 (**permalink**)

We haven't had a proper design contest since we started this site about a year ago.
Our hosting sponsors, OpenReaction Hosting Solutions, Inc. wish to have their site redesigned, and are sponsoring a contest on OpenDesigns.

The wining design will be used by our hosting sponsor, and the rest will be released to the public here on open designs. When you specify a license when uploading a design, please note that that license will apply only if your design does not in. If you win, your design will be full and sole property of OpenReaction Hosting Solutions, Inc.

The deadline for the contest is December 12th 2007, 12:00 AM GMT
The form for uploading your contest entries will be in place in a day or two, and instructions will appear here.

And for the prize...

OpenReaction needs a new website and we are looking to the OpenDesign community to help us out. In
exchange for your help we are going to do two things. First, we are going to extend the free hosting to
OpenDesigns by one year and ensure that they have a home for all their great designs. Second, we are
going to reward the winner of the contest with their pick of one of three fabulous prizes with retail
values up to over $3600. The contest will run for one month and once all the entries are in
OpenReaction will select the winner. All the other designs will be added to OpenDesigns for free
download by the community.

Here are the prizes to pick from:

1. One Year Free Enterprise Hosting With OpenReaction* Valued at $3629.87
This package includes one years usage of a Dual Core Dual Xeon 3.0Ghz server with 2GB of ram and two 250GB SATA drives. This is a top of the line server and includes 10Mbps Unmetered Bandwidth for over 3TB of monthly transfer and an abundance of upgrade options.

2. 13” Apple MacBook – Valued at $1,099
The 13” inch Apple Macbook is a fine selction from the top of the line laptops from Apple. It features a blazing fast 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1GB ram memory and a 80GB hard drive. This makes a great tool for any designer on the go.

3. Cold Hard Cash – Value $1,000
Instead of a prize you want to go pick out your own stuff? No problem! Just pick option three as your prize and you will get a check from us for $1,000 cash.

As any usual, All designs must be valid XHTML.

Here are the details of the design that OpenReaction need:

Quote:

The following should be the layout for the top menu on the site. The
items with the asterisk* are the top level items in each part of the
menu with the items listed under it as the sections content.

Home *

Servers *
Entry Level-
Business -
Enterprise Systems -
Limited Specials -

Solutions *
Self-Managed Servers -
Managed Servers -
Load Balanced Clusters -
Enterprise Systems -
Disaster Recovery -
Colocation -

Services *
Network Services -
Hardware Services -
Security Services -
Backup Services -
Software Services -
Monitoring Services -

Support *
Self Help Wiki-
Network Operations Center-
Customer Community-
Contact OpenReaction-

Company *
About Us-
Testimonials-
Support-
Network & Data Center-
Guarantees-
Contact-
Affiliates-

We are looking for two main sets of pages. The first type of page is a
general page that can fit most of the content above (other then the
following section on servers) and be somewhat generic. We would like
it to include links for live chat as well as list our toll free phone
number and an email link for sales (so that those are included on
every page.) The page should be easy to edit and include a footer with
the standard copyright and links.

For the other pages we are looking for a page that will display the
server stats and allow the customer to move into ordering a server
they like. We should be able to edit the content with relative ease
and display all the valuable information about each server. We would
like to be very detailed in our server descriptions (including things
like cpu cache not just the cpu speed, etc) and have plenty of room to
expand our server listings. These pages should also include the sales
contact links and the other basic parts of the other general pages.

Please note! Not all those pages need to be designed, only 2 templates. The list of pages is there just for you too keep i mind when designing the pages.

Please make sure you read the Contest Rules set by our sponsor

kirby145 · # 2 (**permalink**)

OpenReaction Hosting Solutions
Open Design Community
Contest Rules
Contest Source

More information:

I think a poll would be fine to determine what design the community likes best but as for the award and what design will be used on our web site we will have an internal committee make that selection once all the designs are in. If Sean and the rest of the admins wish to make an office poll or just have a thread for votes we really do not have a preference on that.

As for the design we are looking for four major factors. Those include file size/speed of loading, browser compatibility, standards compliance, and lastly flexibility. We are looking to have the site setup so that we can add and remove sections as needed to both the menus and, if possible, the pages themselves.

Javascript is really up to the designer as far as our terms go. Depending on how you use it and what limitations it may place on us it may or may not impact our views on your design. Sean and the other admins may not allow javascript in the designs as that is fine with us since we really have not preference one way or another on that issue.

The design should have generic logos and texts in them when submitted to OpenDesigns since only the winning design will need to be converted. Please keep in mind our current logo and brand design. We are currently not looking to change our logo unless you can blow us out of the water with something new. Just know that in order for us to change our logo we are going to have to reprint 10,000 or so business cards so make sure you push our wow factor if you are going to attempt it.

As for images for text I think we would prefer you stick to the OpenDesign rules on that. We are looking to have the site flexible when it comes to updating and changing the menus and minor layout changes and with text as images that would make such changes harder to make. Of course, this does not apply to the logo of the web site as the text is part of the image.

I think I covered all the main bases that where brought up here. I am glad to go over anything I may have missed or that is brought up at a later time.