June 2018: Official MangaDex Art!

[Zephyrus]

Welcome to MangaDex’s first official contest! This is the first of many contests that will run once a month throughout the year.

I’d hoped to begin when the forums had been polished up a bit, but I’ve decided to run a contest that isn’t dependent on certain forum features.

I’m sure you’ve all noticed how quickly that MangaDex has been changing. It seems like every couple weeks, we’re seeing rollouts of new features and updates of existing ones. There are some very ambitious plans in place to make MangaDex the best place to read manga. To that end, the Staff has decided that our first official contest will be creating a logo, a site mascot, and a site banner!

Starting from the date of this post, 5/22/2018, anyone who wishes to participate in this contest will have until midnight of 6/24/2018 to submit their entries. The format of the contest is as follows:

[ul]
*You may choose to submit a logo, a mascot, a banner, or one of the three individually. Please keep in mind that if a user submits all three items as a set, we'll look more favorably on those entries because we want all three items to share the same art style and color palate.
*The mascot, which will replace the current default avatar of Index, must be a minimum of 600x600 pixels and must have a ratio of 1:1.
*The logo, which will replace where “MangaDex” is currently on the nav bar, must be a minimum of 600x600 pixels and must have a ratio of 1:1.
*The site banner must be approximately 1440x250 pixels. Some variation is fine, but please do not stray too far.
*When submitting your entries to this thread, please make sure to ping myself and post your item(s), inside spoiler tags, in this order if you have all three items: mascot, logo, site banner.
*Multiple entries are allowed. Please be sure to group and label your entries accordingly so there is no confusion.
[/ul]

Rules:
[ul]All artwork must be your own original content. Plagiarism will be instantly disqualified.
All artwork must be SFW.[/ul]

Prizes: To whoever submits all three items and is declared the winner, I will be donating a $25 gift card to a retailer such as Amazon or Steam. @Lymus has agreed to donate a Steam Key for a $60 game + $15 DLC. Lastly, @Holo himself has let slip to me that a super sekrit prize may or may not be ready in time to award to the winner and runner up. Watch this space for updates!

In addition, we will award smaller prizes to entrants that submit a single item. Note that if an entry is the only such entry for an item, it will not automatically win.

We have no restrictions on creativity. Want the logo and mascot to double as the same thing? Go for it! Want to try and impress us with a new color scheme in the site banner? Let out your inner Van Gogh! Most importantly, have fun. We can’t wait to see your entries!

Feel free to ask any questions you may have concerning this contest.

 

[Sinnamon]

? Excited to see what people come up with!

 

[maximaxi]

If we only submit to one of the categories is there no chance of winning 1/3 of the contest ?? Like what if I'm terrible at graphic design (logos, etc.) but good at character design?

 

[HelveticaFont]

 

[RexNemorensis]

I greatly anticipate the subsequent developments. Let us hope the number of Sonic ripoffs is kept to a minimum.

 

[Thoraxe41]

Can't wait... crap sfw?

 

[Ada]

I think it means "safe for work" aka no nudity/sex or grotesque things.

 

[usagiaddict]

>safe for work

 

[chiruru]

Change the FedEx Logo to MangaDex lol

 

[Zephyrus]

@maximaxi

We are setting the bar pretty high by requesting 3 separate pieces of work. That's why everyone is being given roughly a month to work on everything.

If users want to submit single pieces, that's fine! Perhaps that one piece of work will inspire someone else to submit. However, please keep in mind that we will prioritize submissions of all three pieces over single entries when judging winners.

If no one submits all 3 pieces, we will probably just judge whatever single pieces per category were submitted. We really want cohesion between all 3 pieces, so we may ask winners, if any, to redesign/recolor their submissions so all three match.

This is all purely hypothetical and subject to change depending on what entries we see.

 

[Zephyrus]

Apologies for the double post but I thought this warranted it:

@Lymus has agreed that if someone delivers a set of all three that wins and that he personally likes,
he'll give the winner a steam key of a 60$ game and 15$ DLC.

Get at it, folks!

 

[ZdrytchX]

Let out your inner Van Gogh!

Sounds strangely demotivating xd

 

[Keimichi]

Hmm, that is a lot of work for one month though.

Since this applies to contests as well:

 

[Zephyrus]

@Keimichi
It's possible that a month may not be long enough. We'll see where we are in a couple of weeks. If enough people say that a month is not enough time, I'll consider extending it somewhat to give people an opportunity to really crank something good out.

We don't expect the Mona Lisa or anything. I'm not an artist, but I don't think it would take a week to say, create a logo. The mascot will probably be the most challenging aspect of this contest.

 

[Keimichi]

@Zephyrus
Yeah. I’m not an expert in logos, but to my knowledge how long it takes depends on the quality (but I personally find it hard to tell whether a logo is good quality or bad lol). Either way, it’s mostly the art, which can take quite a while, just that combined with the logo it will take longer. Especially with a banner, too. That’s three item to draw in a short period, so people are likely to rush through it sinc they have higher chances of wining if they skim through all vs. if they dedicate their time on perfecting on one.
Plus the skills for logo design, mascot design+art, and banner design are different. One person might be very good in one and be really bad in another. So in the end it could come to very beautiful entries that doesn’t match, or entries that match but doesn’t stand out. It’s mostly an example, but you see my point here ?
I think it’s better if you divided it into three different contests. Say, one starting with the logo which you pick the best. Then continue with another one where people design a mascot around the logo. Then finally one where they create a banner/illustration using the mascot design. This way you can guarantee they match while getting the best entry for them.

There’s also the issue that not everyone might be free rn, considering some people are still in school, in their exam period.

Anyway just a suggestion ;;

 

[HermesPasser]

it will be interesting

 

[maximaxi]

Agree with Keimichi. ?

 

[Zephyrus]

I'm considering some changes to the contest to make it easier on people.

I'm thinking of making each piece an optional entry. If someone wants to submit all 3 pieces, great. If not, we'll select winners from each category: mascot, logo, and site banner.

This will give contestants an opportunity to focus on one item for a month if they so choose.

Thoughts?

 

[Khaos]

Let out your inner Van Gogh!

do we need to cut our ear off for this

 

[maximaxi]

Thanks Zeph, you're a blessed mod, not just cause you changed the contest, but because it's really clear that you guys are present and open to a dialogue. Keep it up ???