Design Contests Forum Rules For Designers - READ BEFORE STARTING OR ENTERING A DESIGN CONTEST

RJ · 04-18-2007 until 05-19-2015

Designers:

ALL WORK MUST BE ORIGINAL, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED BY CONTEST HOLDER

Watermark Your Entries
All Designs MUST be watermarked. This is more for your own benefit than anyone else’s. 99% of all contest holders are unlikely to try and "scam" your design, however, people forget this is a PUBLIC forum and thus, anyone can potentially see your design. With Billions of web pages on the net, there's always that chance someone will lift it and use it. Please make sure you watermark it properly. To assist you with this, please see : http://www.namepros.com/design-conte...c-designs.html

Don't Critique Unless You're The Contest Holder
When a contest is posted, ONLY Designers and Contest Holders should post in the thread until it has finished. It is great to support other designers and offer them feedback, however, please make sure this is done by PM's. I DO NOT want to see people commenting on the designs and submissions if they do not fit into one of these 2 categories. I will remove the post immediately.

Let Contest Holder Know...
IF, for any reason you will not be around for longer than 24hrs AFTER the contest has finished, please drop a quick note in your submission. This at least lets the contest holder know, should you win, that you will be back and that you have not ignored them. This is pure common sense and courtesy. This applies to Contest Holders as well!

Rules for both Designers & Contest Holders

NO PM ENTRIES
Under NOOOOOOOO circumstances should ANY entries be submitted or accepted by PM. The reason you are holding a public contest is so people can enter, and see the competition. It also opens up the whole possibility of "Rips" and "Copied" material. If I find this happening, the contest will be closed immediately.

Electric-Shadow · 01-22-2007 until 01-22-2025

Rules For Contest Holders
Designers, please see second post in this thread

Membership Posting limits

Free Members up to 2 active Marketplace threads at a time
Supporters up to 4 active Marketplace threads at a time
Business Members up to 6 active Marketplace threads at a time

An "active" thread is defined as any marketplace sales thread that you wish to keep open and visible to marketplace visitors. You can keep your thread active by adding a reply yourself before the 30 day period. UPGRADE YOUR ACCOUNT

If you run a design contest there, then there must always be a winner from within NamePros.

We feel that there is enough design talent on NamePros that if the offered prize is reasonable, then there will be several good entries. If we allow contest holders to specify that a winner does not have to be selected from within NP, then it would open up the forum for abuse by others who run contests merely to get fresh logo and design ideas, without actually intending to pay.

----------------------------------------------------------

Inline with the new advancements were making within the DC Forum, please could ALL NEW contests posted include the following format.

Step 1 - The Thread Title

Please define what type of contest it is. Initially, we'll break this down into 4 formats.

1) [REQ-LOGO]
2) [REQ-BANNER]
3) [REQ-TEMPLATE]
4) [REQ-OTHER]

The reason for this is that there are some designers who specialize in certain areas.

Therefore, the title to the post might be:

[REQ-LOGO] - Financial Forums Logo Required

Adding the value of the contest is optional at this point. Some people will insist that it will get more people looking at the contest, others will say it makes little difference. The choice is yours.

Step 2 - The Contest Description

As with any form of contest, the more information the better for all involved. I know it adds a little more time implementing this for a contest holder, however, it should also increase the chances of you receiving designs that match your requirements quicker.

All elements MUST be covered (ESPECIALLY the end date/time).

Type of Contest :
Prize :
Contest End Date & Time :
Size Requirements :
Color Requirements :
General Requirements :
Additional Information :

So, to give you an example of how the post layout would be with the relevant information :

Type of Contest : LOGO Design
Prize : $25.00
Contest End Date & Time : 9.00PM GMT : 2nd October 2006
Size Requirements : 250px x 100px
Color Requirements :
I would like the design to be inline with the present site. View the site here: http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com/index.php - The background MUST be white and ideally the use of greys and blues for the logo, however, I am open to other color formats.

General Requirements :
The site is about football and tennis. I would like to have a symbol or two that are relevant to each sport within the logo if possible. If shouldn’t however look crowded. Ideally it will be clean and corporate. The domain extension is not required within the design, but the name MUST be in it.
Additional Information :
No Additional Info.

Clearly, the objective is to give as much information as possible. By doing this when you initially post the thread, it will make designers lives a lot easier and should return better examples of what you want immediately.

Heres a VBCODE version of it to make it easier for contest holders (thanks Jaynesh)

PHP Code:

  [B]Type of Contest :[/B] [FONT=Arial Black][U][I]LOGO Design[/I][/U][/FONT]

 
[B]Prize :[/B] [COLOR=Red]$xx.00[/COLOR]

 
: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=
[B]Contest End Date & Time :[/B] [I]date here[/I]

 
[B]Size Requirements :[/B] [I]250px x 100px[/I]

 
[B]Color Requirements :[/B][I] color requirements here[/I]

 
[B]General Requirements : [/B][I]general requirements here[/I]

 
[B]Additional Information :[/B] [I]No Additional Info.[/I]

Any contests which do not include these requirements may be closed or deleted, even if they are live.

All Contests Must Have An End Date
All contest held within the DC Forums MUST have an end date. This CAN NOT be longer than 10 days. It is VERY unlikely, if it is a thought out contest, that you will not find a good design here in NP over that period of time. To maximize the response, we would suggest you post the contest with a longer, rather than shorter, time frame. This gives the designers ample time to put together quality entries.

General Rules & Guidelines For Contest Holders and Designers

Please Update Your Thread
While not required, designers greatly appreciate thread starters who offer feedback on entries. Feel free to tell them what you like and dislike about their entries in public so your likes can be narrowed down.

Extending The Deadline
The contest holder is allowed to extend the competition by 48 hours maximum IF there are less than 4 design entries from 4 different members. It is unlikely that you will not get a design that reflects your budget within this time period.

Canceling A Contest Thread
If you would like to cancel a thread before it has been approved and is live, please contact any member of NamePros staff.

IF your contest thread is live and a post has been made WITH an entry, then it is a running contest and you must select a winner. If the Contest Holder for any reason bails on his/her commitments, then a negative feedback will be given and an official warning. If it is repeated, irrelevant of your feedback, status or community status, you may be banned from NamePros.

NO PM Entries
Under NOOOOOOOO circumstances should ANY entries be submitted or accepted by PM. The reason you are holding a public contest is so people can enter, and see the competition. It also opens up the whole possibility of "Rips" and "Copied" material. If we find this happening, the contest will be closed immediately.

Entries By Banned Members
In the VERY unlikely situation where you have narrowed the contest down to 2 winners, and one of them has been "removed" from NamePros due to illegal activity, you will have the option as the CH of 1 of 2 options.

Option1 : Select the "joint" contest leader at the due End time of the contest or...
Option2 : Extend the contest by 48hrs.

This is a rare occurance and can only be authorized by the DC Forum Leader or a NamePros member of Staff.

Announcing winner

From now on ALL contest winners MUST be announced in your contest thread so everyone knows who has won and doesn't have to waste their time. There have been numerous instances where contest holders have chosen their winner via PM but not announced winners publicly and left entrants wondering who has won.

Also you may not start a new contest until the winner from your previous contest has been announced and paid

Closing a contest early

You may at any time close a contest early if you have found a design that you really like and want to pick it as a winner but a contest may not be closed early for any other reason.

Abandoned Contests

We understand that sometimes things happen in life and you can't get online for some reason, so we have set the abandonment time to 7 days from the time of contest close date. In the event that a contest is abandoned, the contest holder will receive an infraction and lose the ability to hold a contest in the future.

Prizes

Although you are free to choose whatever prize you whish for your contest we suggest setting a prize which would reflect on the quality of entries you would like to receive as your prize will have a direct impact on the quality of entries submitted.
: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=

Use of Stock Images

The use stock images (including google images) or any other image you do not own the rights to use IS NOT ALLOWED unless you can prove to a member of staff that you do own the rights, so please check you're licenses carefully whether you have bought one or not, even paid licenses sometimes have restrictions.

If you suspect anyone is using stock images please hit the report post button, violation of this rule will result in a copryight violation infraction being issued or you may even be banned and there are NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

Stealing artwork

Please DO NOT steal each others designs or artwork, partially or otherwise. It's not cool, it wont get you any friends and if you're caught doing it you will receive a copyright violation infraction and if you're caught doing it more than once you will be banned.

You have been warned people, so get creative and create your own work.

Disqualifications

If you are caught using copyrighted material in your entries or caught breaking any of the rules Namepros Team members may disqualify you from the contest at their sole discretion.

If you enter the contest again after being disqualified you can and will be banned. Breaching copyright laws will not be tolerated at namepros. You have been warned!!!

Deleted Entries

Any or all entries removed by designers / NP Team members are considered null and thus may not be picked as a winner so an alternate must be chosen even if the contest is already over.

Posting Comments / Reporting Threads

If you have any issues regarding a contest / contest thread please report the thread rather than making a comment. Posting comments rather than reporting them may result in an infraction.

NP Team / Moderator decisions are FINAL

We review every situation or issue on a case by case basis this may result in different actions being taken than what would normally be taken under some circumstances, nevertheless all decisions are final.

04-18-2007 until 05-19-2015
RJ NamePros Webmaster Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 12,930 Follow @DomainBuyer	Design Contests Forum Rules For Designers - READ BEFORE STARTING OR ENTERING A DESIGN CONTEST Designers: ALL WORK MUST BE ORIGINAL, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED BY CONTEST HOLDER Watermark Your Entries All Designs MUST be watermarked. This is more for your own benefit than anyone else’s. 99% of all contest holders are unlikely to try and "scam" your design, however, people forget this is a PUBLIC forum and thus, anyone can potentially see your design. With Billions of web pages on the net, there's always that chance someone will lift it and use it. Please make sure you watermark it properly. To assist you with this, please see : http://www.namepros.com/design-conte...c-designs.html Don't Critique Unless You're The Contest Holder When a contest is posted, ONLY Designers and Contest Holders should post in the thread until it has finished. It is great to support other designers and offer them feedback, however, please make sure this is done by PM's. I DO NOT want to see people commenting on the designs and submissions if they do not fit into one of these 2 categories. I will remove the post immediately. Let Contest Holder Know... IF, for any reason you will not be around for longer than 24hrs AFTER the contest has finished, please drop a quick note in your submission. This at least lets the contest holder know, should you win, that you will be back and that you have not ignored them. This is pure common sense and courtesy. This applies to Contest Holders as well! Rules for both Designers & Contest Holders NO PM ENTRIES Under NOOOOOOOO circumstances should ANY entries be submitted or accepted by PM. The reason you are holding a public contest is so people can enter, and see the competition. It also opens up the whole possibility of "Rips" and "Copied" material. If I find this happening, the contest will be closed immediately. __________________ @DomainBuyer facebook

01-22-2007 until 01-22-2025
Electric-Shadow CactusLoverâ„¢ Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,764	[For Contest Holders] Design Contest Rules (Read before starting or entering a contest) [UPDATED!!!!] Rules For Contest Holders Designers, please see second post in this thread Membership Posting limits Free Members up to 2 active Marketplace threads at a time Supporters up to 4 active Marketplace threads at a time Business Members up to 6 active Marketplace threads at a time An "active" thread is defined as any marketplace sales thread that you wish to keep open and visible to marketplace visitors. You can keep your thread active by adding a reply yourself before the 30 day period. UPGRADE YOUR ACCOUNT If you run a design contest there, then there must always be a winner from within NamePros. We feel that there is enough design talent on NamePros that if the offered prize is reasonable, then there will be several good entries. If we allow contest holders to specify that a winner does not have to be selected from within NP, then it would open up the forum for abuse by others who run contests merely to get fresh logo and design ideas, without actually intending to pay. ---------------------------------------------------------- Inline with the new advancements were making within the DC Forum, please could ALL NEW contests posted include the following format. Step 1 - The Thread Title Please define what type of contest it is. Initially, we'll break this down into 4 formats. 1) [REQ-LOGO] 2) [REQ-BANNER] 3) [REQ-TEMPLATE] 4) [REQ-OTHER] The reason for this is that there are some designers who specialize in certain areas. Therefore, the title to the post might be: [REQ-LOGO] - Financial Forums Logo Required Adding the value of the contest is optional at this point. Some people will insist that it will get more people looking at the contest, others will say it makes little difference. The choice is yours. Step 2 - The Contest Description As with any form of contest, the more information the better for all involved. I know it adds a little more time implementing this for a contest holder, however, it should also increase the chances of you receiving designs that match your requirements quicker. All elements MUST be covered (ESPECIALLY the end date/time). Type of Contest : Prize : Contest End Date & Time : Size Requirements : Color Requirements : General Requirements : Additional Information : So, to give you an example of how the post layout would be with the relevant information : Type of Contest : LOGO Design Prize : $25.00 Contest End Date & Time : 9.00PM GMT : 2nd October 2006 Size Requirements : 250px x 100px Color Requirements : I would like the design to be inline with the present site. View the site here: http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com/index.php - The background MUST be white and ideally the use of greys and blues for the logo, however, I am open to other color formats. General Requirements : The site is about football and tennis. I would like to have a symbol or two that are relevant to each sport within the logo if possible. If shouldn’t however look crowded. Ideally it will be clean and corporate. The domain extension is not required within the design, but the name MUST be in it. Additional Information : No Additional Info. Clearly, the objective is to give as much information as possible. By doing this when you initially post the thread, it will make designers lives a lot easier and should return better examples of what you want immediately. Heres a VBCODE version of it to make it easier for contest holders (thanks Jaynesh) PHP Code: `[B]Type of Contest :[/B] [FONT=Arial Black][U][I]LOGO Design[/I][/U][/FONT] [B]Prize :[/B] [COLOR=Red]$xx.00[/COLOR] : NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t= [B]Contest End Date & Time :[/B] [I]date here[/I] [B]Size Requirements :[/B] [I]250px x 100px[/I] [B]Color Requirements :[/B][I] color requirements here[/I] [B]General Requirements : [/B][I]general requirements here[/I] [B]Additional Information :[/B] [I]No Additional Info.[/I]` Any contests which do not include these requirements may be closed or deleted, even if they are live. All Contests Must Have An End Date All contest held within the DC Forums MUST have an end date. This CAN NOT be longer than 10 days. It is VERY unlikely, if it is a thought out contest, that you will not find a good design here in NP over that period of time. To maximize the response, we would suggest you post the contest with a longer, rather than shorter, time frame. This gives the designers ample time to put together quality entries. General Rules & Guidelines For Contest Holders and Designers Please Update Your Thread While not required, designers greatly appreciate thread starters who offer feedback on entries. Feel free to tell them what you like and dislike about their entries in public so your likes can be narrowed down. Extending The Deadline The contest holder is allowed to extend the competition by 48 hours maximum IF there are less than 4 design entries from 4 different members. It is unlikely that you will not get a design that reflects your budget within this time period. Canceling A Contest Thread If you would like to cancel a thread before it has been approved and is live, please contact any member of NamePros staff. IF your contest thread is live and a post has been made WITH an entry, then it is a running contest and you must select a winner. If the Contest Holder for any reason bails on his/her commitments, then a negative feedback will be given and an official warning. If it is repeated, irrelevant of your feedback, status or community status, you may be banned from NamePros. NO PM Entries Under *NOOOOOOOO* circumstances should ANY entries be submitted or accepted by PM. The reason you are holding a public contest is so people can enter, and see the competition. It also opens up the whole possibility of "Rips" and "Copied" material. If we find this happening, the contest will be closed immediately. Entries By Banned Members In the VERY unlikely situation where you have narrowed the contest down to 2 winners, and one of them has been "removed" from NamePros due to illegal activity, you will have the option as the CH of 1 of 2 options. Option1 : Select the "joint" contest leader at the due End time of the contest or... Option2 : Extend the contest by 48hrs. This is a rare occurance and can only be authorized by the DC Forum Leader or a NamePros member of Staff. Announcing winner From now on ALL contest winners MUST be announced in your contest thread so everyone knows who has won and doesn't have to waste their time. There have been numerous instances where contest holders have chosen their winner via PM but not announced winners publicly and left entrants wondering who has won. Also you may not start a new contest until the winner from your previous contest has been announced and paid Closing a contest early You may at any time close a contest early if you have found a design that you really like and want to pick it as a winner but a contest may not be closed early for any other reason. Abandoned Contests We understand that sometimes things happen in life and you can't get online for some reason, so we have set the abandonment time to 7 days from the time of contest close date. In the event that a contest is abandoned, the contest holder will receive an infraction and lose the ability to hold a contest in the future. Prizes Although you are free to choose whatever prize you whish for your contest we suggest setting a prize which would reflect on the quality of entries you would like to receive as your prize will have a direct impact on the quality of entries submitted. : NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t= Use of Stock Images The use stock images (including google images) or any other image you do not own the rights to use IS NOT ALLOWED unless you can prove to a member of staff that you do own the rights, so please check you're licenses carefully whether you have bought one or not, even paid licenses sometimes have restrictions. If you suspect anyone is using stock images please hit the report post button, violation of this rule will result in a copryight violation infraction being issued or you may even be banned and there are NO EXCEPTIONS!!! Stealing artwork Please DO NOT steal each others designs or artwork, partially or otherwise. It's not cool, it wont get you any friends and if you're caught doing it you will receive a copyright violation infraction and if you're caught doing it more than once you will be banned. You have been warned people, so get creative and create your own work. Disqualifications If you are caught using copyrighted material in your entries or caught breaking any of the rules Namepros Team members may disqualify you from the contest at their sole discretion. If you enter the contest again after being disqualified you can and will be banned. Breaching copyright laws will not be tolerated at namepros. You have been warned!!! Deleted Entries Any or all entries removed by designers / NP Team members are considered null and thus may not be picked as a winner so an alternate must be chosen even if the contest is already over. Posting Comments / Reporting Threads If you have any issues regarding a contest / contest thread please report the thread rather than making a comment. Posting comments rather than reporting them may result in an infraction. NP Team / Moderator decisions are FINAL We review every situation or issue on a case by case basis this may result in different actions being taken than what would normally be taken under some circumstances, nevertheless all decisions are final. __________________ \| I proudly useTheHiveDesigns for my quality site designs*\| !! StorageSystems.in ~ Accepting offers

Design Contests Forum Rules For Designers - READ BEFORE STARTING OR ENTERING A DESIGN CONTEST

[For Contest Holders] Design Contest Rules (Read before starting or entering a contest) [UPDATED!!!!]