Challenge Summary
New member profiles are coming soon to Studio. You will be able to personalize your profile by selecting a banner to be displayed top and center, with the option of superimposing a quote on the banner. These personal banners will be 470 by 90 pixels in size, and are intended to reflect a broad range of styles and interests among the Studio membership. Right now we need your help to create a whole bunch of personal banners for the initial launch. We are looking to purchase a large number of quality designs, so we encourage you to submit early and often.
Prize structure
Beyond the top three prizes, we will pay $30 for each additional banner that meets our criteria. We will potentially buy dozens of banners if we receive a sufficient number of quality submissions.
Technical requirements
Please download the attached storyboards to see where the personal banners will be placed and how banners will be selected. Note that all banners will be 470 by 90 pixels in size, but they may have any color scheme and any visual appearance. However, you may not use photography, clip art, logos, or any other work that is not your own.
Observe that members will have the option of superimposing a brief piece of text on the banner in lettering of various colors. Members will also be able to choose the location of the text. In designing your personal banners, you are not required to take into account whether or where any text will be displayed. We may purchase a few submissions based on their suitability for the display of text in some portion of the banner, but in general that will not be a deciding factor. We intend to purchase many submissions without considering the superimposed text at all.
Visual themes
The purpose of the personal banner is to give members a way to create a Studio identity for themselves. Among other things, we are interested in purchasing banners that represent the core areas of Studio activity:
- graphic design
- wireframing
- idea generation
Those are some but certainly not all of the themes we want to see. For example, consider a member who participates in multiple areas of Studio and can therefore be considered something of a Renaissance person, also known as a Jack or Jill of all trades. We would like to see some banner designs capturing that kind of identity.
Other personality types that could be represented by banners include the following:
- night owl
- self-taught
- eager beaver
- code monkey
- artistic temperament
- designing machine
You may come up with any idea that relates to Studio participation and express it in a banner design.
Target audience
The primary audience consists of you and your fellow Studio members, who may have competitive interests and personal styles that differ from yours. The secondary audience is Studio customers who may be browsing the member profiles.
Judging criteria
We would like to see fun, creative, professional-quality banners that cover a wide variety of member styles and interests.
Branding guidelines
Your banner design must be completely your own work and may not contain any photography. No logos, clip art, stock photos or any other photos are allowed.
What to submit
Submission Zip: A zip file containing a single 470-by-90-pixel PNG image.
Source Zip: A zip file containing all fully editable original source files of the submitted design as required by the contest under "Source Files" in the side bar.
Preview JPG/PNG: Please create your preview image as one 470-by-470-pixel PNG file in RGB color mode at 72 dpi and center the banner within it.
Final fixes
If you win a prize, you may be asked to complete one round of minor changes to ensure that your submission meets the stated requirements of this contest. See more information about Final Fixes.
Please read the challenge specification carefully and watch the forums for any questions or feedback concerning this challenge. It is important that you monitor any updates provided by the client or Studio Admins in the forums. Please post any questions you might have for the client in the forums.