Slashdot is launching a new css design contest that could throttle any qualified designer, here’s some sad tidbits:
Topic Icons – So we have 150+ topic icons. Your design needs to incorporate our existing icons, and not require that we rebuild all of them. That means most likely that the icons sit on a white background. The icons themselves vary from around 50×100 to 100×50 but most float around 64×64. I’d strongly suggest that a winning entry is submitted using our existing topic icons as examples…
Well now, isn’t that your fault for not using icons in your CSS instead of your html? They serve no semantic meaning; your recent redesign should have included this.
Retains some sense of visual continuity with Today’s Slashdot – This one is the real challenge I think. From the Slashdot ‘Shade of Green’ (#006666) to the curve on the upper left hand corner of the page & article headers, to the use of the Coliseo font, I really think that many of these design elements need to persist. You are welcome to ignore me of course. But I’m being totally up front about this point: the winning entry ought to echo the current design. How loud of an echo is up to you.
Translation: I’d like you to redesign it… but keep the same design style.
Sure. If you’re a programmer, the term ‘garbage in, garbage out’ should take new meaning here. What Slashdot is known for is not design quality — and if you’re about to tap into the innards of a whole design community, your poorly sighted vision dressed up as a contest entry to ‘update’ rather than ‘overhaul’ is a shame.
I have to like it. Design something pretty. Design something high-tech. Design something minimal. Design something elaborate. I don’t know what the winner will look like. I’m excited to see what you guys come up with.
Good design does not always mean you’ll like it — but it can still reflect the content.
What I see here is a non-designer with little design experience spearheading a campaign to design. In our industry, it is understandable to appease our clients — this is common for many projects for young designers (though as we gain experience, we can pick and choose our clientele a bit more liberally to avoid disasters); but not at the expense of creating. Requesting a redesign but forcing old design elements means you are artificially stemming potential talent by nothing else than your limited vision. We tolerate this with some clientele who choose to ‘art direct’ our work if we are paid well for our talent, gain industry knowledge, or gain a quality portfolio piece… but in this case, where’s the pay off other than a diluted prize pot that judged by the same people who know nothing about design? No signature piece, no artistic merit, little pay. Sounds quality.
Some people write papers for their professor to appease them — others write for belief or potential or art.
While I think it’s an interesting take to bring a well known community into 2006, I find the belief that design management without design knowledge to be well beyond flawed.