We haven't had a proper design contest since we started this site about a year ago.
Our hosting sponsors, OpenReaction Hosting Solutions, Inc. wish to have their site redesigned, and are sponsoring a contest on OpenDesigns.

The wining design will be used by our hosting sponsor, and the rest will be released to the public here on open designs. When you specify a license when uploading a design, please note that that license will apply only if your design does not in. If you win, your design will be full and sole property of OpenReaction Hosting Solutions, Inc.

The deadline for the contest is December 12th 14th 2007, 12:00 AM GMT
This is how you can upload contest entries.

And for the prize...

OpenReaction needs a new website and we are looking to the OpenDesign community to help us out. In
exchange for your help we are going to do two things. First, we are going to extend the free hosting to
OpenDesigns by one year and ensure that they have a home for all their great designs. Second, we are
going to reward the winner of the contest with their pick of one of three fabulous prizes with retail
values up to over $3600. The contest will run for one month and once all the entries are in
OpenReaction will select the winner. All the other designs will be added to OpenDesigns for free
download by the community.

Here are the prizes to pick from:

1. One Year Free Enterprise Hosting With OpenReaction­ Valued at $3629.87
This package includes one years usage of a Dual Core Dual Xeon 3.0Ghz server with 2GB of ram and two 250GB SATA drives. This is a top of the line server and includes 10Mbps Unmetered Bandwidth for over 3TB of monthly transfer and an abundance of upgrade options.

2. 13” Apple MacBook – Valued at $1,099
The 13” inch Apple Macbook is a fine selction from the top of the line laptops from Apple. It features a blazing fast 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1GB ram memory and a 80GB hard drive. This makes a great tool for any designer on the go.

3. Cold Hard Cash – Value $1,000
Instead of a prize you want to go pick out your own stuff? No problem! Just pick option three as your prize and you will get a check from us for $1,000 cash.

As any usual, All designs must be valid XHTML.

Here are the details of the design that OpenReaction need:

The following should be the layout for the top menu on the site. The
items with the asterisk* are the top level items in each part of the
menu with the items listed under it as the sections content.

Home *

Servers *
Entry Level-
Business -
Enterprise Systems -
Limited Specials -

Solutions *
Self-Managed Servers -
Managed Servers -
Load Balanced Clusters -
Enterprise Systems -
Disaster Recovery -
Colocation -

Services *
Network Services -
Hardware Services -
Security Services -
Backup Services -
Software Services -
Monitoring Services -

Support *
Self Help Wiki-
Network Operations Center-
Customer Community-
Contact OpenReaction-

Company *
About Us-
Testimonials-
Support-
Network & Data Center-
Guarantees-
Contact-
Affiliates-

We are looking for two main sets of pages. The first type of page is a
general page that can fit most of the content above (other then the
following section on servers) and be somewhat generic. We would like
it to include links for live chat as well as list our toll free phone
number and an email link for sales (so that those are included on
every page.) The page should be easy to edit and include a footer with
the standard copyright and links.

For the other pages we are looking for a page that will display the
server stats and allow the customer to move into ordering a server
they like. We should be able to edit the content with relative ease
and display all the valuable information about each server. We would
like to be very detailed in our server descriptions (including things
like cpu cache not just the cpu speed, etc) and have plenty of room to
expand our server listings. These pages should also include the sales
contact links and the other basic parts of the other general pages.

Please note! Not all those pages need to be designed, only 2 templates. The list of pages is there just for you too keep i mind when designing the pages.

Please make sure you read the Contest Rules set by our sponsor

Peace and bakies for all

sweet...

Great news! And great prizes, too. I'm sure there'll be some wonderful designs. As usual, though I haven't a hope of winning, I can't wait to throw my hat into the ring just for fun!

Yes, that's one of the options.

Great!

I will think up of something and definitely spread the word. :D

Want to help spread the word? Digg it

This is great news for this site. Glad to see it.

I am available to help with judging if you need anyone.

Maybe
OpenReaction Hosting Solutions! = OpenDesigns Design Contest!

Posted By: Mike WeissAny chance of getting this stuck on the front page?

It's there

This is a great idea, and it will most likely see a hell of a lot of entries, maybe even one from myself. I've always had the intention to do a few designs and put them on OD but I've never got around to it - seems like now is a better time than ever.

Just a question - are you allowed to submit multiple designs? Or will only your first entry count, etc.?

Are we ODer's going to have a chance to have a vote/poll as which one we like the best?

That's how i understood it too, which is why I was wondering if there will be a way 'we' can have a members vote if for no other reason than to see who the people's choice was compared to the academy's choice ;) That way it will give all us non/wannabe-designers a chance to be a part of this in our own little way.

I really, really agree with Sean on this. Members are sure to be able to voice their opinions, but it's OpenReactions' site, they should have the ONLY say.

I think you've miss understood me Sean, I understand the winner will be determined by the OpenReaction owner, and I'm not suggesting this be a part of the contest as such.

All I was alluding to was an idea of involving the whole OD community to have their own vote (outside of OpenReaction choosing the winner) to see who 'we' think is the best design, as opposed to who the winner of the contest is (if they are indeed different!). Like I said, "if for no other reason than to see who the people's choice was compared to the academy's choice ;)".

@perthmetro: I wasn't trying to stir the pot or anything. I understand were you are coming from, I just opened up the discussion for Open Reactions to chime in and give us some clarification... and now back to the bakies yay!

As I see it, you are understood. Sean is simply saying that he doesn't think it would be valuable for us to vote on the designs. I think as the designs are released we can comment on them in the forums and if you wish we can all say "Mike's is the best" there.

I think a poll would be fine to determine what design the community likes best but as for the award and what design will be used on our web site we will have an internal committee make that selection once all the designs are in. If Sean and the rest of the admins wish to make an office poll or just have a thread for votes we really do not have a preference on that.

As for the design we are looking for four major factors. Those include file size/speed of loading, browser compatibility, standards compliance, and lastly flexibility. We are looking to have the site setup so that we can add and remove sections as needed to both the menus and, if possible, the pages themselves.

Javascript is really up to the designer as far as our terms go. Depending on how you use it and what limitations it may place on us it may or may not impact our views on your design. Sean and the other admins may not allow javascript in the designs as that is fine with us since we really have not preference one way or another on that issue.

The design should have generic logos and texts in them when submitted to OpenDesigns since only the winning design will need to be converted. Please keep in mind our current logo and brand design. We are currently not looking to change our logo unless you can blow us out of the water with something new. Just know that in order for us to change our logo we are going to have to reprint 10,000 or so business cards so make sure you push our wow factor if you are going to attempt it.

As for images for text I think we would prefer you stick to the OpenDesign rules on that. We are looking to have the site flexible when it comes to updating and changing the menus and minor layout changes and with text as images that would make such changes harder to make. Of course, this does not apply to the logo of the web site as the text is part of the image.

I think I covered all the main bases that where brought up here. I am glad to go over anything I may have missed or that is brought up at a later time.

Yes, I think it's very clear. You want a poll so we can see which design OD users likes best. That sounds reasonable. Then we might see two winners - although only the one singled out by Open Reactions will have the Award

Whoo hoo! exactly, I wasn't meaning anything more than that. Just an idea thrown out there to get us all excited about it.

I can see i'm flogging dead horse, so I'm going to try to find install a little php script to do just this. Anyone wanna help?

Thanks, i've found a few scripts, I'll try them out over the week. I'l let ya know how it goes.

As far as we are concerned you can do as many designs as you want.

Wheres the submission form?
And do we get to see the entries before the last date?

How are we supposed to create the navigation without javascript? I guess it'll have to be a drop down menu because of the description of the menu given by open reaction's admin. And I still cant find the upload form

Oh I cant get mine to work in IE. But with JS it wud be better...cuz thats wot it was made for...css wasnt made for drop downs or stuff.

... and I want to submit a design for the contest in the next days. But where!? Time is running...

I have decided for a split menu. This way no drop down menu is required. But still no option to submit it?