AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - AnimeSuki Banner Contest - July 2007

***NightWish*** · 2007-07-06, 18:16

Welcome to another...
AnimeSuki Banner Contest
Finally...

Closing Date for Entries:
Friday, July 27^th 2007 at 23:00 (UTC)
~20 days at time of posting...

Our banner contests always have a theme and in recent times we've given you the option of sticking to it or including our mascot in the entry. You will have the same options this time: as I have hinted before the theme for this contest will be "Sky". In other words, your banner must: convey "sky" to us, contain actual images or elements from anime/manga that relate to the sky in some way, or include depictions of Kairin our mascot.

In the first instance I'm going to ask that everyone submits (up to three) banners using the supplied "day time" gradient¹. In other words, one gradient for all, just as we have in past contests. Some of you may remember I was going to run the contest with different gradients for different times of the day. This idea has not been dropped completely and when you submit your banner(s) I would like you to clearly indicate whether or not you are interested in creating some "extra" banners for other times of the day².

As usual, banners may contain anime artwork from any source, including your own art. They must be anime related and appropriate for our forum though. Feel free to use your imagination, but I will invalidate anything that I think doesn't fit the theme, unless it contains an image of Kairin of course! Hopefully we'll see lots of original artwork of our lovely mascot. Lastly, as NoSanninWa has said in the other contests³:
Many people use fanarts in their banners and while we encourage you to ask the artist for permission many times this is just not possible even with the best googling skills. Consequently we wish all artists to know, if you see a banner that contains your fan-art and you haven’t given prior permission for its submission and would like its removal, please contact us.
If you want to know more about the previous contests, please look them up in the General Chat Thread Index.

Good Luck!

What happens next?
Submission Stage
This will be the longest part of the contest. First, you will need to post your submissions in this thread, which is to be used for entries ONLY. When you do, please indicate if you would be interested in participating in an extended contest where you will need to create a set of banners that with change with the time of day, as described below².
Note: Any nominations in this thread will be ignored. However, you can (and we suggest you do) discuss with each other which banners you like, what works and what doesn't. You can also discuss the how you might create sets of banners and show samples/ideas.

Nomination Stage
After this thread closes, a new thread will be created in which everyone will nominate their favourite banners. Nominations will run for exactly 7 more days, i.e. until August 3^rd, 2007 UTC at which time the nomination thread will be closed. If there is enough interest, I will open another thread for sets of banners to be posted.

Vote Stage
The 10 most popular banners will be selected from the Nomination Stage and put to a poll. Everyone who joined the forum before the contest started will be eligible to vote. The poll will close on August 10^th, after exactly 7 days of voting.
Note: Each contestant will only be listed once regardless of how many banners entered. Also, be aware that polls close automatically, so please check the poll for information concerning when it will close in your time-zone.

Announcement of the Winners
The three most popular banners will be put in a priority rotation at the top of our forum. The over-all winner is the entry that received the greatest number of votes and shall, in recognition of the accomplishment, receive a gift worth $50, from me. As noted below, if the "set of banners" idea takes off, we may alter the way banners rotate. If we do, the winning banners from this part of the contest will still be given their due prominence, within the new scheme. The resulting rotation will just be a little slower!

Terms and Conditions
All entries must have Kairin or a Sky theme.

Banners are 760x100 and a maximum of 60KB in size.

Banners must blend into the supplied "day time" gradient¹ as it will form the background of the whole top bar.

Entries must be static and in GIF, PNG or JPG format.
No animations will be accepted in this contest.

Each member may submit a maximum of 3 banners.
If you submit more than three, you must specify which banners are to be used or we shall select the last three posted. Don't confuse me!

Members will only have until July 27^th 2007 at 23:00 (UTC) to create banners in this stage.
You can also check World Time Server or Time Zone Converter to help you work out what time this is near you.

We may disqualify any banner deemed to be offensive or inappropriate and as such reserve the right to veto any entry.

No staff member will be allowed to win the grand prize.
If by some stroke of brilliant artistry one of us does win, the prize will go to the first non-staff runner up.

All banners submitted shall become property of AnimeSuki and may be used now or in future years without asking your permission.

1 Template Gradient

2 Possible Contest Extension
Some background to this contest, and notes about how the "extra" banner contest will work...
Originally, because the sky has a habit of changing with time, I was going to ask everyone to use four different gradients for this contest: one for dawn, one for day time, one for dusk and one for night time. The idea was to allow us to rearrange how we show the banners. Right now they cycle every few seconds. If you've not noticed it already, refresh the page a few times and you'll see what I mean. Ideally I wanted to have each person submit four banners, all with a common theme or element that changed subtly with each gradient. A scene changing from morning, to day, to evening, and then to night. This would be synced with the local time of the person viewing the forum. However, not everyone will want or be able to create a consistent theme across each of the gradients. Some people have a hard time with just the one, (and creating a number of really good gradients has been hard for me!) To be as inclusive as possible, therefore, I thought about allowing people to post up to two banners for each gradient. Unfortunately, I have been made aware of just how complicated it will be trying to keep track of who votes for which banner and how skewed the entries would be if half the people entered for one gradient and the other half for another. It would simply break down quite quickly if I left the rules that loose... So... I needed to approach it in a different way...

So, I've gone for a simple contest like before with the option of expanding into an extra stage if enough people sign up to the idea. While some sample gradients are linked above, I think I will allow you to suggest your own, for the times of day. If the extended stage happens, only the daytime gradient will be mandated. If I get a good enough response (i.e. lots of people say "yes we want to submit more!"), I will open another thread (during the nomination stage of this contest) in which people can submit banners for at least three other time periods (for a total of four). You will need to submit all or none, either a full set of four+ banners OR don't participate. When the nominations/votes start for the sets, you will be nominating/voting for the whole set, not specific banners in a set. I'm thinking I will allow up to 12 banners with backgrounds of your own design (to let us show a different banner every couple of hours) but no less than 4. This should give a lot of scope for those who want to really show off The details are fuzzy at the moment and will be agreed and finalised if and when enough people (15 or more people) show an interest in such an endeavour... comments/suggestions are welcome.

3 Though, as wao's sig just reminded me, you might want to read Online Fanarts Protection if you're going to use fan art... just a thought

PS. I posted this in a bit of rush after spending some time re-working it from my original idea, so PM me if you notice any glaring errors

2007-07-06, 18:16	Link #1
*NightWish* …Nothing More Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Age: 44	AnimeSuki Banner Contest - July 2007 - "Sky" Welcome to another... AnimeSuki Banner Contest Finally... Closing Date for Entries: Friday, July 27^th 2007 at 23:00 (UTC) ~20 days at time of posting... Our banner contests always have a theme and in recent times we've given you the option of sticking to it or including our mascot in the entry. You will have the same options this time: as I have hinted before the theme for this contest will be "Sky". In other words, your banner must: convey "sky" to us, contain actual images or elements from anime/manga that relate to the sky in some way, or include depictions of Kairin our mascot. In the first instance I'm going to ask that everyone submits (up to three) banners using the supplied "day time" gradient¹. In other words, one gradient for all, just as we have in past contests. Some of you may remember I was going to run the contest with different gradients for different times of the day. This idea has not been dropped completely and when you submit your banner(s) I would like you to clearly indicate whether or not you are interested in creating some "extra" banners for other times of the day². As usual, banners may contain anime artwork from any source, including your own art. They must be anime related and appropriate for our forum though. Feel free to use your imagination, but I will invalidate anything that I think doesn't fit the theme, unless it contains an image of Kairin of course! Hopefully we'll see lots of original artwork of our lovely mascot. Lastly, as NoSanninWa has said in the other contests³: Many people use fanarts in their banners and while we encourage you to ask the artist for permission many times this is just not possible even with the best googling skills. Consequently we wish all artists to know, if you see a banner that contains your fan-art and you haven’t given prior permission for its submission and would like its removal, please contact us. If you want to know more about the previous contests, please look them up in the General Chat Thread Index. Good Luck! What happens next? Submission Stage This will be the longest part of the contest. First, you will need to post your submissions in this thread, which is to be used for entries ONLY. When you do, please indicate if you would be interested in participating in an extended contest where you will need to create a set of banners that with change with the time of day, as described below². Note: Any nominations in this thread will be ignored. However, you can (and we suggest you do) discuss with each other which banners you like, what works and what doesn't. You can also discuss the how you might create sets of banners and show samples/ideas. Nomination Stage After this thread closes, a new thread will be created in which everyone will nominate their favourite banners. Nominations will run for exactly 7 more days, i.e. until August 3^rd, 2007 UTC at which time the nomination thread will be closed. If there is enough interest, I will open another thread for sets of banners to be posted. Vote Stage The 10 most popular banners will be selected from the Nomination Stage and put to a poll. Everyone who joined the forum before the contest started will be eligible to vote. The poll will close on August 10^th, after exactly 7 days of voting. Note: Each contestant will only be listed once regardless of how many banners entered. Also, be aware that polls close automatically, so please check the poll for information concerning when it will close in your time-zone. Announcement of the Winners The three most popular banners will be put in a priority rotation at the top of our forum. The over-all winner is the entry that received the greatest number of votes and shall, in recognition of the accomplishment, receive a gift worth $50, from me. As noted below, if the "set of banners" idea takes off, we may alter the way banners rotate. If we do, the winning banners from this part of the contest will still be given their due prominence, within the new scheme. The resulting rotation will just be a little slower! Terms and Conditions All entries must have Kairin or a Sky theme. Banners are 760x100 and a maximum of 60KB in size. Banners must blend into the supplied "day time" gradient¹ as it will form the background of the whole top bar. Entries must be static and in GIF, PNG or JPG format. No animations will be accepted in this contest. Each member may submit a maximum of 3 banners. If you submit more than three, you must specify which banners are to be used or we shall select the last three posted. Don't confuse me! Members will only have until July 27^th 2007 at 23:00 (UTC) to create banners in this stage. You can also check World Time Server or Time Zone Converter to help you work out what time this is near you. We may disqualify any banner deemed to be offensive or inappropriate and as such reserve the right to veto any entry. No staff member will be allowed to win the grand prize. If by some stroke of brilliant artistry one of us does win, the prize will go to the first non-staff runner up. All banners submitted shall become property of AnimeSuki and may be used now or in future years without asking your permission. 1 Template Gradient 2 Possible Contest Extension Some background to this contest, and notes about how the "extra" banner contest will work... Originally, because the sky has a habit of changing with time, I was going to ask everyone to use four different gradients for this contest: one for dawn, one for day time, one for dusk and one for night time. The idea was to allow us to rearrange how we show the banners. Right now they cycle every few seconds. If you've not noticed it already, refresh the page a few times and you'll see what I mean. Ideally I wanted to have each person submit four banners, all with a common theme or element that changed subtly with each gradient. A scene changing from morning, to day, to evening, and then to night. This would be synced with the local time of the person viewing the forum. However, not everyone will want or be able to create a consistent theme across each of the gradients. Some people have a hard time with just the one, (and creating a number of really good gradients has been hard for me!) To be as inclusive as possible, therefore, I thought about allowing people to post up to two banners for each gradient. Unfortunately, I have been made aware of just how complicated it will be trying to keep track of who votes for which banner and how skewed the entries would be if half the people entered for one gradient and the other half for another. It would simply break down quite quickly if I left the rules that loose... So... I needed to approach it in a different way... So, I've gone for a simple contest like before with the option of expanding into an extra stage if enough people sign up to the idea. While some sample gradients are linked above, I think I will allow you to suggest your own, for the times of day. If the extended stage happens, only the daytime gradient will be mandated. If I get a good enough response (i.e. lots of people say "yes we want to submit more!"), I will open another thread (during the nomination stage of this contest) in which people can submit banners for at least three other time periods (for a total of four). You will need to submit all or none, either a full set of four+ banners OR don't participate. When the nominations/votes start for the sets, you will be nominating/voting for the whole set, not specific banners in a set. I'm thinking I will allow up to 12 banners with backgrounds of your own design (to let us show a different banner every couple of hours) but no less than 4. This should give a lot of scope for those who want to really show off The details are fuzzy at the moment and will be agreed and finalised if and when enough people (15 or more people) show an interest in such an endeavour... comments/suggestions are welcome. 3 Though, as wao's sig just reminded me, you might want to read Online Fanarts Protection if you're going to use fan art... just a thought PS. I posted this in a bit of rush after spending some time re-working it from my original idea, so PM me if you notice any glaring errors Last edited by NightWish; 2007-07-08 at 17:49.