Team Photoshop Site Design Competition Thread!

OK... As anyone that reads these forums regularly is probably aware, we are looking to redesign TPS, seeing as this is a Photoshop forum and there are loads of talented people on the site already it has been suggested that we open the re-design up to our members and have a competition.

Please find below an outline of what is expected for your entry, the prize on offer and the closing date.

1) Specifications

We are looking for a .psd (or similar) layout for the homepage. Your entry should incorporate two banner ad spaces (728x90 and 120x600). And the TPS logo (the T image with the dot). Please be aware of the user experience, a fluid design which looks good on both 800x600 and 1024+ x 800+ screen sizes is encouraged

The new site will be focused more on adding new content so a space to showcase what has been recently added would be advisable. New content would include standard news articles and tutorials.

From the best homepage designs I will pick a winner. The winner will then need to slice his/her design and provide the original psd, the sliced images and a html coded page. They may also need to provide two internal page examples if I don't feel I can adapt the winning deisgn myself to incorporate our site's content.

2) Prize

We have two prizes on offer for the winner of the competiton.

First of all they will get a Apple 20 GB iPod Photo (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000932AKQ/qid=1126170247/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-4796829-3031816?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846)

If the winner already has an iPod, the winner can opt to receive the Bose SoundDock System for iPod (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006VX1G8/qid=1126170484/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_unbuck_1/103-4796829-3031816?v=glance&s=electronics&n=541966) instead.

In addition, the winner will get a text link from the bottom of their winning homepage design to their own website (no adult/casino etc... links! ), for as long as their design is in use (the link will only be from the homepage).

The downside is, if there are no entries which I think are good enough I reserve the right to not pick a winner and cancel the competition. I doubt this will happen as I'm pretty easy going, but I have to put this line in case we just get noob entrants.

3) Deadline Monday 26th September 2005
All entries should be in by the above deadline. Special allowances will be made if an entrant expresses an interest but for some reason cannot make the deadline (for example family holiday etc...).

So, there you go, this brief is subject to change in case I have missed anything out. If you are interested in entering the competition please register your interest by replying to this thread. If the turnout is low (less than 5 people expressing an interest within a week) I reserve the right to cancel this competition and outsource the work, but I really hope we get entries from the members of this site as it will be a great testament to the quality of our userbase.

As you also may know, I run a number of other websites so if I think my users would be interested in this competition I may tell them that I am running this in the interest of finding the best design for TPS.

I'll comment on the entries as they come in.

Rich

Im definitely interested.


I already played with a few screenshots (before this thread).

Also if you can, make the rules as specific as possible. I know you've expressed interest in a white background, so if you feel strongly about that it'd be good to know.

I didn't really want to restrict anyone in terms of colour usage. I just want the design to look as professional as possible. If people can do that with colour great! If a design comes back which is skinnable to any colour - even better, if the design just looks soooo damn sexy with a light colour scheme then that would be great too.

Colours are not important to me at the moment, I am interested in the overall feel of the site.

Thanks for expressing interest anyway!

would it be possible to have a vector copy of the TPS logo avaliable, I know one around here somewhere oh i know! *looks* oh right the splash page thingy is gone :/ heh nm! but yeah if you could hook a brotha up, that be cool yo.

Hey Zy,

Here are the URLs for a PSD and an AI. I'm not bothered about keeping the teamphotoshop text as it is now, just the logo image to keep the same concept.

http://www.teamphotoshop.com/rich/logo.psd
http://www.teamphotoshop.com/rich/logo.ai

Anything else, please let me know.

Rich

maybe to prevent people from getting "inspiration" from other peoples entries maybe all entries should be emailed to you rich ? and then you can post them on sept26 I dunno.. just a thought

Alright... I have a few questions. I remember talk about the site being built on a CMS system... correct me if I'm wrong because a design with CSS in mind is slightly different than a sliced HTML page ;). I personally think that, if it is going to be CMS, that instead of making it a contest, have an option of using multiple style sheets. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't mind owning an iPod, I've been wanting one for a long time, but I think that some visitors of the site like the extravagent look that teamps always seemed to have, whereas others might like something simplified/clean and text driven.

I think the site should be built as a community for the community instead of one person taking all the credit. Just my 2 cents I guess. :p Of course it's up to everyone else to decide what happens. :p

If anyone feels more comfortable e-mailing entries to me, thats fine (richard@webmedianetwork.co.uk) - likewise if you want to post publically, that is fine also. If you are going to e-mail me with an entry just post 'e-mailed entry to Rich' in this thread so people know who they are up against.

There will be a CMS system, but that won't affect the layout. If anyone wants to submit an entry based on css that is fine also. There will only be one winner and whether or not we go for an extravagent design or something simple and functional, depends really upon the quality of the entries and what I think will be best for TPS.

Those are some rediculously huge banner Ads... where are you getting those from? Would it be possible to maybe do something where a place buys an Ad space... and then we design something that goes better... kindof like what they have going on over at www.macthemes.net

I thing that would make the site look MUCH cleaning and give it an overall better look.

They are just the industry standard sizes, which have been around for years. I need to incorporate those sizes - sorry. Pank used to too until I removed them from the main site - currently only have the 120x600 now. But previously he had the 728x90, 120x600 and 300x250 on some pages.