Artwork Contest Rules
Contest Rules Overview
The concept behind setting up a list of rules for our wallpaper contest is to insure that everyone who wishes to create a participating entry understands the requirements involved with what constitutes a qualifying entry. Once the artwork meets these requirements, judging among community members takes place and a final decision made based on the amount of "votes" or acknowledgments from participants as to the best submission for the current release. In many cases, runner up entries may be considered for entry into a supplementary wallpaper package or possibly used for some other advertising or marketing purposes. For the reasons stated, it is also important that contributors understand licensing requirements of submission intended for consideration. Our desire is for everyone to have a lot of fun contributing to the project and allow contributors a chance to express their creativity while at the same time motivating others to also contribute to the project.
Contest Rules Outline
The rules for the contests are fairly simple. Anyone can enter, there is no requirement to be an openSUSE member, contributor or even user. There is no specific color pallet or layout requirements other than those described below. The final dimensions of any submissions need to be 1920 x 1200 minimum and while it is highly preferred that images be in SVG format it is not absolutely necessary.
Contest Judging
Contest judging will commence when notification is sent through the opensuse-artwork mailing list. Persons who have submitted works they wish to have judged do not need to subscribe to the mailing list, they will be contacted directly if and when they have made the final round of judging. For those who wish to participate in the judging process, information on how to participate in the process will also be circulated through the mailing list. To be part of the judging process will require a submission to the mailing list to recieve notification that a call for judges has been made and the process is nearing commencement.
Contest Results Announcements
Contest Rules Support
To be able to produce designs that will be considered for any release default wallpaper, it is important for contributors to know what the community looks for in design. Usually these are very simple designs, ambiguous and free from heavy graphics and lettering. Designers may want to think of simple screensavers or unobtrusive backgrounds. Below are a few design samples that give a generalized idea of how to go about creating a design for consideration for the default release wallpaper.
Design Sample Guidelines
The goal of the default wallpaper graphic is to be unobtrusive and allow the items on the desktop to be seen. It should not hinder the overview of user's desktop. For package handlers to be able to manage the default wallpaper artwork into a variety of application packages, the artwork should be produced in an SVG format. SVG format can be achieved by saving the design using the Inkscape "save" or "save as" function. The reason for this is because the default wallpaper will also need to be used in splash screens for associated programs such as GIMP and LibreOffice and scaling vector graphics is much easier on our packagers than trying to work with raster (jpg, png, bmp) images.
While a solid color background seems to be a perfect fit based on the goal above, the wallpaper also shouldn't be completely dull and boring.
It is very likely that a user will customize a wallpaper and even go against the outlined goal, putting a photo of their beloved one as the background. The default graphic however should only be some sort of abstract shape with low contrast of the texture. Abstract shapes work best for two reasons. First it doesn't cause the eye to focus on the background but the items on top of it and also it avoids cultural or religious specifics. Using a picture of an animal might have such implications and in worst case scenario insult the user. Remember, we are distributed all over the world to many different cultures and while some may believe their design is fitting in their culture it could be offensive to another.
Licensing Requirements
- Submissions must adhere to the Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0 license (or another free OS license) that permits use in commercial settings. We have derivative distributions and some are commercial products.
- No branding assets or text requiring permit..
- No brand names or trademarks of any kind.
- Attribution must be declared when the submission is based on another design. This helps to avoid possible legal problems down the road.
Inappropriate Content
- No designs which promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against groups or individuals; or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.
- No illustrations some may consider inappropriate, offensive, hateful, tortuous, defamatory, slanderous or libelous.
- No sexually explicit or provocative images.
- No images of weapons or violence.
- No alcohol, tobacco, or drug use imagery.
- No religious, political, or nationalist imagery.
Previous Release Design Samples
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Mailing list
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