Datacenter web design contest We are building a new datacenter in Finland, and require an web design for the website. The datacenter is based out of bomb shelter, and we have the finnish equivalent domains. The finnish name is Pommisuoja for bomb shelter, and have the domains pommisuoja.com,.net,.org,.info and .fi. Opening date for the datacenter is planned as 1st of March, 2010. The datacenter basic services feature private VLAN, Hardware Firewalling, QoS (SSH + Web highest priority) and very flexible addon hardware availability (yes, even your own!). For example, 1Tb extra hdd is just 10e a month. The GREAT Prize: 140$ + 6months a dedicated server with us ($600 value!) Slogans: "Sinne ne koneet menneet on!" roughly "There's the servers gone to!" "Siellä ne koneet turvassa on!" roughly "There's the servers are safe!" used in conjunction with brandname Pommisuoja, ie: "Pommisuoja - Siellä ne koneet turvassa on!" Desired features - Logo, must represent "Pommisuoja" - Overall design should have a bomb shelter feel to it, preferrably grunge style - Small area for "partner" images, ie. tiny 125x125 pics for CentOS, Dell, HP, Cisco etc. of the like - Distinct but small footer, with high contrast. Contains copyright, and links to AUP, TOS and the like (ie. orange bg while otherwise dark grey bg) - Service highlights - News/Feed position - General marketing blabber area - Icon set - Simplified orders page - Main content area links (Services, Support, Order) - Main content is easy to read (ie. white bg, black text) Freedom You'll have quite free hands, desired features are flexible for the main part, so if you have a better idea, just do it! Payment, Winner The jury consists of me and some of my friends. We will concisely valuate your contest submission and the best liked will be chosen. Please, use a few sentences why should we choose you as the winner. Payment is done via Paypal or IBAN wiretransfer. Dedicated server is a P4, and will be provisioned after opening (paying customer servers provisioned first). Deliverables Full sourcework, ie. Adobe .PSD and all the fonts required, original photography/stock photos used etc. Everything needed to recreate from scratch. Also prefer readily cut + html&css done, but not necessary. Additional work? It is possible that the winner will be chosen for additional design work, such as advertising banners, product highlight pictures etc. If you have good HTML + CSS skills, we might use those skills as well. Questions? Feel free to contact me here via PM, reply to this thread, or e-mail at aleksi [] nucode, dot fi.
Each graphic artist needs to understand the exact same needs of a client.. Providing examples doesn't necessarily means Copy/Past.. We are just trying to know where you want to be headed.. Please provide some examples, like that you'll make it easier for alot more of us. Counting on entering the contest!
Really, i do like to be surprised. What i do like however is highly visual design, yet practical enough for the actual implementation to work (So very hard "visual tricks" should be demonstrated how to implement nicely). I do also like grunge, post-apocalyptic style. I would like this design to be very visual in it's nature, it needs to "blow their minds" when they enter the site, and highly polished. But at the sametime i ABSOLUTELY hate the basic template monster style, those designs makes me want to puke. They are way too clean and uncreative. Some examples: http://osc.template-help.com/wt_26917/index.html EXCEPT bg and the horizontal lines. Everything else sucks. http://osc.template-help.com/wt_26851/index.html eww, who made this monstrosity! http://osc.template-help.com/wt_26757/index.html this i actually KINDA like (the product displacement) http://osc.template-help.com/wt_26838/index.html eww http://osc.template-help.com/wt_26853/index.html bad bad bad general template monster style http://osc.template-help.com/wt_26894/index.html bad The quality has gone way up on template monster, they used to be far worse in the past. All had that general, cleanish look, every single template. It also needs to have clear good contrast, easy to read text. Detailed work i like really much. Attention to details makes a good design, a great design. I would like to note also that this design needs to be very distinct, it has to brand itself into the viewers mind, and scorch itself in to the back of the viewer's eyeballs, in a positive sense. It needs to be something completely different for the industry to keep as standard. Some competitor websites: http://www.nebula.fi http://www.sigmatic.fi http://www.louhi.fi http://www.xenetic.fi http://www.diginia.fi http://www.datacenter.fi/ http://www2.tenue.fi/
My entry: http://ruzoo.com/beta/pomm/pomm.jpg - I'll finish the bottom tomorrow. Feedback appreciated.
fxresolute thank you for your entry! Feedback: - Theres no visual implication of a bomb shelter - "logo" or lack of there of, it's just white text (albeit it looks nicely high contrast etc!) - The content area does not seem to be scaleable - the content area choices are nice (can these be done so that i can add or remove easily?) - i like the background, but does it scale vertically and horizontally? - content area circuitry background: nice detail! I like the detailing work, you've apparently already kept mind on details. However, the overall impression is far from finished. The logo & slogan needs to be graphical. It needs to scale for longer content area nicely. Lacks frontpage high visual cue spot: Ie. selling spot where eyes are automatically drawn to.
Additional competition info Prize: The server can be swapped for another cool 140$ making the monetary total prize to 280$. The another 140$ will be paid in 3 monthly installments, first 1 month after the first payment. Deliverables: Bonus points if you can deliver it as HTML+CSS, completely valid semantic markup. Show an example of your HTML+CSS work before competition end. Polishing & Finishing touches: To win the competition has to be nicely polished up, this means during the competition with eligible winning candidates we will look at the tiny details, and changes will be made according to feedback. And remember No Generic Look! Purpose of the design is to sell, so keep this in mind. It has to be intriguing for people to want more information, and finally lead up to a sale. The final site will be quite basic, there's not going to be a blog, or automated sales system, so this eases up a bit. End date: Not earlier than 8th of January. Winner will be paid immediately upon delivery. Services and Products offered are colocation and dedicated initially, but will be expanded to VPS & Shared hosting later on. Dedicated servers start from 35€ a month for a "miniserver" (better than VPS, but not strong as big hardware). OS choices are Linux, *BSD only. Networking gear is HP ProCurve and Cisco. Hope these help you
Thanks for the feedback - I'll work on it. Just so you know, what I've shown is only the top half of what the website will be. I was going to finish the bottom off in the white area, kinda clean, but I might change that up so that it has the grunge wall/dirt type background. This is where I was trying to come across as a bomb shelter. So in addition to what's there (which will be also modified, and tuned up) there will be another half of the site for content, etc. I think a nice 'buy now' or 'see details' button will fit within that opening paragraph to bring ones attention to see some pricing information, leading to a sale. Let me know what you think.
I'm starting to get your idea better. Intriguing design. BG apparently scales further down nicely? How about sideways?
Sure will be. I'm going to have to take a break to accommodate client work, since this contest won't be ending for another month or so. Thanks, Stephen
Yes, this contest is a long one, because it's important. I'm sad to say, that if there's not enough entrants i might not pick a winner. This design will be base company visual image, and will be basis for business cards, invoice templates etc. So, what i'm trying to say is that there's no room for making a wrong choice, ie. choosing non-selling visual image for the company.