Link to the contest: http://abux.info/viewtopic.php?p=79705

The competition started on 16th January and will end on 7th February 2008

The winner will get “an amazing prize of up to 1000 refs”

What i don’t like in that are the 2 tiny words: “up to”. One of my ISP’s slogan is: “achieve speeds up to 2mb/s on the web” . Yeah right, if i would go and start yelling at them that i never get that speed they would explain as this:”that speed is available only in ideal circumstances”

The judging is split in 2 parts: 40% - user votes and 60% - judge votes

Here is an overview of what counts:

- Extremely creative and undeniably unique (20%)
- Perfect colour combination and typography (20%)
- Easy navigation and accessibility (20%)
- Clean, neat, properly-indented with no additional whitespace XHTML Strict / CSS standard-compliant with cross-browser compatibility. (10%)
- Table-less web design (i.e. CSS) that is non-graphic-intensive. Tables usage only when appropriate. (10%)
- Overall impression (20%)

By this time you should realize that any percentage counts and those 1000 referrals can bring you some great cash!

This means that you will have to invest a great deal of work in your design and ask designers to review it before you start coding it, because if your design sucks you will make a BIG mistake if you code it.

So the competition’s requirements are pretty clear: use photoshop to design how you would like bux.to to look like. It’s all about creativity and imagination, you just have to put your ideas on paper(photoshop in our case).

Basically what you need to provide is a sleek design with a web 2.0 feel. Do not implement useless elements in the design like links/content that don’t have their place there.

Make sure you respect the submission guidelines!(use the given pattern) or you will have a big chance of getting Disqualified!

Here’s the submission pattern in case you didn’t see it on the forum:

Submission Format -
Name: …
Username: …
Design Screenshot: …
Design HTML Preview: …
XHTML Strict / CSS Compatible: Y/N

The guys over @ bux.to decided to make the contest instead of hiring an external designer. Its cool of them to interact this way but i don’t think it’s the best solution judging the designs i saw so far.

If you have a bit of creativity and know some web 2.0 terms and you’ve got photoshop than you can easily win the competition.

MAKE SURE THAT THE DESIGN WILL BE WEB 2.0 ! This means no ugly gradient usage, no excess usage of images, and most importantly NO BEWEL AND EMBOSS!

If you will make a design like: http://i11.tinypic.com/6tvids3.jpg than your chances to win the competition will be somewhat close to 0.00000000000000001

A guy from DP wanted to hire me to design him a winning design with a great accent on the winning word. When he told me he wants to pay 100$ for a job like this i was like: “okay, lets forget about it” and said good bye.

As a designer i checked the submissions and to be honest you have quite good chances to win the contest, if your smart that is.

Use any resource you can! but don’t be a dumbass! DO NOT COPY an existing design/website because sooner or later they will figure it out that the design isn’t original.

Notice that the header image from this design: http://nlhu.kooit.net/buxto/ is a copy of a wordpress design’s header image which is sold on Template Monster.

I say it again:Keep it original!

Here are a few resources that can come really handy:

www.dafont.com - Free fonts site

www.dezinerfolio.com - You will find packages of photoshop gradients and styles

www.famfamfam.com - The well known website of FAMFAMFAM’s icons.

www.pixel2life.com - Photoshop tutorials

www.tutorialized.com - Photoshop tutorials

Which designs are in front so far?

As said above i checked the submissions and so far i think these guys lead the competition:

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=080119123152msie60windoyn8.png

http://www.masteringyourdesign.com/buxto1/

http://www.masteringyourdesign.com/buxto2/

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r139/anthony_phan/buxtopng.png

All of the designs look good but they could require improvements.

A special compliment goes to

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/7964/buxtobf3.jpg

along with a suggestion:

The design is great, it really looks pro, the only problem is that i don’t think that a trashed design(its a design type) would quite fit a website like bux.to

Good luck to all of you who participate, i’m crossing fingers for all of you

If you want me to review your design or just share something with the readers about the problem feel free to email me at tom@thaslayer.com