And the winners are...

Posted by Byrne Reese on July 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (19)

As I awaited the email announcing the winners, I worried about what I would say in my post to make the official announcement. I composed in my head one post after another, and then proverbially crumbled each one up and tossed into the trash already overflowing with all my previous attempts.

But then I realized that there is not much I need to say. In the end, the winners speak for themselves.

Before we announce the winners, a quick reminder of how the judging process worked. The judges went through a laborious process of evaluating each design on a variety of criteria. The result of that process was a list of Grand Prize Finalists composed of the winner from each of the seven categories. The judges then had the onerous task of selected from that final seven, the one contestant who would receive the Grand Prize.

And without further ado, here are the winners.

The Finalists

Each of these contestants will receive $1000 in cash, their choice of one Adobe point product (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks) valued from $300 to $700, and a free copy of Style Master (valued at $100) from Westciv.

Grand Prize Winner

The winner of the Grand Prize Package will receive $4000 cash, the Adobe Web Bundle and a free copy of Style Master from Westciv. Congratulations!

The Late Show

Category: Entertainment & Media
Designer: Liz Lubowitz

Thanks

A big round of applause is due to our sponsors - all of whom participated because they believed in what the organizers all believe in: "design matters." The organizers were honored to have Adobe, whose tools are widely considered the industry standard by designers, contribute to this contest. Not to mention West Civ who was the first to agree to contribute to this contest. Thank you for your vision and for an amazing tool: Style Master.

I fear that Six Apart will have taken far too much credit for this contest when all is said and done. While we were involved, this contest is really the result of literally countless hours of hard work from members from our esteemed Professional Network community. Without Arvind, Elise and Jesse this contest would have never happened. They were the ones that brought this idea to Six Apart, and without them this contest would never have happened. If you could see me, I am standing up at my computer giving them a standing ovation.

And let's not forget the judges: John Allsop, Douglas Beach, Derek Powazek, Joelle Reeder, Jason Santa Maria, Kathy Scoleri, and Lilia Ahner. I am not sure they were fully aware of what they were signing up for. I am sure they were all like, "sure, I can judge a few styles. How much time would that take?" Well, a lot. With 146 styles submitted to the contest, three browsers and multiple platforms, at least 2 pages and on average 3 layouts per style -- well, you do the math. That's is a lot of work. Thank you judges!

And last, but definitely not least, I would like to thank all those who contributed to this contest. I consider a great honor to be associated with this contest, and no matter how great the sponsors and organizers were, I could not say that if I wasn't flat out amazed by the overall caliber of all the designs submitted. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Comments

simoneplebani
July 3, 2006 11:53 PM

I'm Italian, so I can't write my feeling..

Congratulations to all ;)

Liz
July 3, 2006 11:58 PM

I'm... genuinely shocked right now. I'm going to have to come back and make a coherent response later when I recover, but I just want to thank everyone who had any involvement in this!

Dan Wolfgang
July 4, 2006 12:07 AM

Congratulations to all!

Byrne, I'm dying to know: when you were at your desk giving the standing ovation, did everybody come to poke their head in, wondering what you were carrying on about?

Sana
July 4, 2006 2:36 AM

wow, i must say congrats to everyone!

My question to you though, will only the winner's become official styles? Or will you be using some of the other ones as well? There were so many amazing designs that it would be a shame to use only the ones above.

I'm a little dissapointed my favorite desinger didnt win anything, so this is just my mini "I love you're stuff, you're so awesome" out to Carrie. ^^ You really inspired me alot, and still do with your designs and talent.

Byrne Reese
July 4, 2006 2:41 AM

All styles will be made available through one mechanism or another in all of Six Apart products. And a large percentage will be integrated with and made available to LiveJournal, TypePad and Movable Type. How could we possibly not include them when there are so many amazing designs.

And yes, I feel your pain. My favorite did not win either. I think (and this is a separate blog post) those of us that elect to use any of these designs owe to the designer to donate generously to their cause, to support their work and at the very least to say 'thank you!'

Sana
July 4, 2006 2:47 AM

Sorry, one more question I forgot to ask;

How do we get our coupons? :D

Byrne Reese
July 4, 2006 2:49 AM

Duh - I can't believe I forgot to mention that. All participants will be contacted via email in the coming days (after the holiday weekend) with specifics on how to claim your prizes.

Sana
July 4, 2006 3:00 AM

cool, thanks!

VasOK
July 4, 2006 4:22 AM

At all results are nice, but I think it could be better to give all prizes to different people, not 2 prizes to the same Liz ;-) I like her works but I think to give prizes to more people is better to make people more enthusiastic. Just imho so far ;)

The Style Archive: For Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal