CURRENT COMPETITION THEME
"chocolate"
Updates
30 December 2003
by
Rosie
All new theme, starting now! This theme's host will be A.Undomiel (otherwise known as Mel) so email your banner submissions to her! Festival is officially open for entries now :)
30 December 2003
by
Rosie
The votes are in! Check out the three banners judged best of the theme on the "Winners" page. Congratulations to all of the participants and thank you to the judges!
25 December 2003
by
Rosie
All right, project Mermaids is underway :) The entrance is closed, but check out "Current Competition" if you want to send in your votes!
13 December 2003
by
Rosie
Hurrah, the site is up now! We'll be starting this competition really soon, provided we find some judges... I'll be adding the banners on the due date, which will be determined, again, once we find some judges :)
About the Festival
The Non-Lord of the Rings Banner Competitive Festival is a series of themed banner-making competitions (where the themes are not Lord of the Rings-centric). It is an outlet for artistic expression and a way to advertise and showcase work with the motivation of competition. There are also numerous other banner and avatar competitions with different purposes listed on RingQuest, and they are all worthy of participation. Banners can be used in forum signatures, websites, or artistic portfolios. To enter the current competition, review the rules below and check out the details by clicking the "Current Competition" link on the menu, and email your banner or banners to the host.
Rules
1. Anybody (except for the judges) can compete.
2. Each participant must submit their own work (I don't anticipate problems in that department!)
3. Each participant may submit up to two banners (although they are not obligated to do so).
4. All banners should be sized either 400x100 or 400x125, although there is no penalty for a submitted banner of different dimensions.
5. Only banners may be submitted; no avatars, please!
6. There must be at least four participants, four judges, and one host in each competition: the host may also be a participant, but a judge cannot be either a host or a participant.
7. Have a ton of fun!
Judging
Each banner will be judged individually by at least 4 adjudicators (judges)- none of which may be participants in the same competition - on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest/best) on five separate artistic elements (detailed below). The numbers given for each artistic element for a single banner will be added up to result in the total score of that banner.
Consistency: How well does the font compliment the image choice? How consistent is the quality of images used? How balanced is the banner?
Color: If only one basic color is used, how much does it help convey the mood of the banner? How balanced are the colors used? Would the colors look better if they were less bright or more colorful? How well does the font color compliment the rest of the banner colors? Can you read the text (if any), or does the font color interfere too much?
Image Quality: Are any of the images used unintentionally pixelly or show signs of bad jpg/gif compression? Is the text (if there is any) too pixelly? How is the overall save quality of the image?
Image Selection: How well do(es) the image(s) selected fit the theme? If there is more than one image, are they placed in a balanced and pleasing manner?
Effectiveness: How much of an impact does the banner communicate? Do you think the banner fits the artist's intentions? Overall, how do you like the banner? Is the banner blah or WOAH!?
Of course, you don't have to ask yourself each question I listed, those are just guidelines to show what I meant by each element. Here is an example scoring card:
Banner 1:
Consistency: 5
Color: 4
Image Quality: 5
Image Selection: 4
Effectiveness: 3
Total Score: 21
Banner 2:
Consistency: 4
Color: 3
Image Quality: 1
Image Selection: 3
Effectiveness: 2
Total Score: 13
So, we see, Banner 1 gets a higher score than Banner 2. If any two (or more) banners have a tie, they will just be displayed as such. In order to be as fair as possible, the host will not disclose to the judges whose banner is whose.
Placing
Using the scores submitted by the judges, the banners will rank in a particular order. The top-scoring banners will be displayed, along with their corresponding artists, at the end of the competition. The number of high-scoring banners displayed at the end will vary with the number of participants.
4-6 participants: top two banners
7-10 participants: top three banners
11+ participants: top four banners
Each non-placing banner will also receive a unique award from the host - a title such as "Most Creative" or "Best View of Johnny Depp's Chest".
Hosting
Each competition will have a host. Sometimes I'll be the host, sometimes someone else will be (whoever pipes up, really!). That person is responsible for:
- receiving banners from participants
- emailing a zipped file of all banners to
essy@speakeasy.net after all banners have been received
- notifying judges to vote when banners are posted
- tallying votes
- displaying the winners
- coming up with deadlines for submitting banners and judging
- coming up with unique (and positive) award names for the banners that didn't place