To keep this all together, the journal entry is just being updated...

Also, we're changing the plan for phase 3...

-=Initial Announcement of Contest=-
Guess who needs a website redesign again?

The next item on our (the Inkscape team's) infrastructure todo list has been to move the website over to Drupal. We're getting ready to make the switch, so next we'll need a Drupal-ified website theme.

This contest will actually be all about competing AND collaborating. Collaboration in a contest? Oh yes... you read right. Inkscape and open source is about community just as deviantART is about community, so... it's time to try something new and fresh within these communities. In the interest of openness and collaboration, all people participating need to give permission (and full license) for others to modify their work. Why would that be? Read on:

This is going to be a THREE (3) Phase competition.

Phase 1
This is a 4 week conceptual design contest during which everyone submits their entries. You may submit 3 different designs, but please make them as varied and different as possible (it's only phase 1 after all). We then have a round of voting in which the top 10 (yes... 10) are chosen. The top ten 10 then move on to Phase 2. NOTE: Phase one is more about concept than polish or bling.

Phase 2
Here's where the fun begins! People can select any 1 of the 10 finalists of the entries from Phase 1 to use as a base to start with. They can be as bold in their changes as they wish. The end goal should be something highly polished and well suited for turning into a drupal theme. Then comes another round of voting in which the top 5 are chosen. The top 5 then move on to Phase 3.

Phase 3
This phase switches gears from design to implementation. People take one of the five finalists *previous submissions* from Phase 2 and turn it into an actual functioning Drupal 6 theme. Entries will be judged on how closely they're able to approximate the finalist's submission and produce a nicely functioning, efficiently implemented site theme. Of the five themes from Phase 2, the three implementations with the highest votes will win: The first will become the new primary theme on the Inkscape website, and second and third will be available as alternative themes to visitors of the site.

Basics:
The goal is to show off what inkscape can do when put to use in the area of Web Design.
Upload a mockup image of your submission to your gallery or scraps on DeviantART and post a link below.
You MUST make the SVG available online by the Phase 1 deadline below. If we don't have the SVG by that time, those entries will be disqualified.

Design Guidelines:
You can look at inkscape.org to get a feel for the type of stuff that'll be in the new website, but don't get too hung up on it. We plan to reorganize/revamp the content a lot, so we want fresh ideas. We wouldn't hold a contest for this if we didn't!
Main functions of the site currently are a) news blog, b) downloads, c) screenshots, and d) links to other places (bug tracker, etc.)
Internationalization is extremely important; avoid designs that could make translation difficult.

Rules:
Any images that you create for it need to be done 100% in Inkscape. We will require all original SVG files to use to make this contest work. Also we will need them in case something needs to be tweaked down the road. And last but not least to allow us to potentially serve up SVGs for the browsers that support it (however this probably won't happen initially).
It must be a very clean and professional design, we would also prefer to not have the design be a fixed width (so please take scalability into account). The design needs to be flexible enough for us to port to our wiki as well (compare our main website and wiki now to see what we mean).
It must include the Inkscape logo and motto in the site header.
Work must be provided licensed under CC by-sa.
Any submissions using copyrighted materials (unless appropriately licensed for our use) or offensive/inappropriate content will automatically be disqualified.
People can compete in as many of the 3 phases as they wish and participate in whichever ones of their choosing.
Have fun!

Prize:
Having your design be our new look and feel for the website... whether the primary or an alternative theme, it's pretty exciting! Of course credit to all participants of said designs for all of their hard work.

Deadline:
Phase 1 ended April 16, 2008
Phase 2's ended June 4, 2008
Phase 3's tentative deadline will be July 4, 2008... however it may be extended to the 15th, but don't count on it.

Judging:
Judging will be done by the Inkscape community on DeviantART. Judging will take place in all three phases (read above for details). Judging was not necessary in the first or second phases, all entrants have moved forward. Judging will happen at the end of phase 3. Please note that when Phase 3 is complete and the top three have been decided, the developers may have requests for minor modifications.

Relevant links:
Inkscape Website (where you can go to reference the current site)
Inkscape downloads page (so you can get equipped with the latest and greatest version, development builds are recommended at this point)
Drupal Website (if you're not familiar with Drupal, it's a good place to read up)
Drupal 6 Theme Information (even if you've used Drupal, the theming has changed greatly in version 6 and this is the place to read)

Submissions:
We're in Phase 1. We're only looking for mockups at this point. Please upload an image of your submission to your gallery or scraps on DeviantART and post a link below. Good luck to all who enter!

We're now in Phase 2. Please select from the existing mockups and modify away! You aren't limited to the number of submission, but we would prefer that if you submit more than one modified mockup it is noticeably different from your others. As before, please upload an image of your submission to your gallery or scraps on DeviantART and post a link below. Good luck to all who enter!

We're now in Phase 3. Due to less participation in the contest than we had hoped, we've modified things. At this point we'll be happy to see three functioning themes come out of this. Please select from the existing mockups and code away! You aren't limited to the number of submissions, but we would prefer that if you submit more than one theme that it is noticeably different from your others. Please upload a screenshot of your functioning theme as well as the theme itself (and all source graphics, etc) to your gallery or scraps on DeviantART and post a link below. We prefer if you would submit a zip, tar, or 7z file containing the theme and all source files (including svgs, etc). Good luck to all who enter!

Note, any of the entries below in the comments prior to June 4, 2008 are fair game to use. Thanks to all who have participated and continue to do so!

on behalf of the Inkscape Developers