WordCamp New York City 2009

November 14–15, 2009
...was awesome!

Logo Contest Winners

The results are in! After a week of voting, the WordCampNYC logo contest has closed its polls, and the winners are…

13

#13 - Jason

14

#14 - Andrew dela Serna

15

#15 - Dan Simmonds

18

#18 - Krista Gonzalez

Though logo #2 received 129 votes, submissions using the NYC subway motif (logos #13,14,15,18) had a combined total of 163 votes.  The fact that multiple contestants chose to use that motif combined with the high number of votes for these entries (not to mention that they’re just plain cool) has convinced us that the subway signs are the way to go. The legibility of text, good use of professional-looking graphics, and ability to be print well at both small and large sizes all were taken into account when making this decision. Because they so clearly represent day-to-day New York City, all four subway entries will be used to brand the event, providing our WordCamp with a great look and more designers with exposure. We’ll be putting up a page soon with blog badges using these graphics for you to publicize WordCampNYC.

We’d like to thank the WordCampNYC community for participating in the voting, and we especially congratulate all those designers who captured NYC’s spirit in their submissions.  We’ll put up a page soon with badges using these graphics for you to publicize WordCampNYC on your blog.

8 Responses

  1. a shirt with #14 on it would really help me book my airfare and hotel to the event. 🙂

  2. Dan Philibin says:

    So four logos for one event? Not the best branding practice… I agree they’re great but they’re also different from each other and I’ve never seen an event use four different logos at the same time.

  3. jane says:

    Technically, only one is a logo. The others are really sign designs.

  4. Nile says:

    I do not think that is even fair nor appropriate. Just because several people submitted a type of entry, and there was a combined vote, that is not right. This is very slighted and I am really disappointed. The original rules were clearly stated and you gave the vote out to people. There were other entries that were very similar, and no offense… I think everyone did a great job, but I worked hard on my logo.

    I think you should really reconsider before I start blogging and spreading this over all the social networks and involve Matt in this.

  5. things says:

    I agree with Dan, it’s kinda weird to have 4 different designs. One could argue that if four different people came up with the same idea, then it’s probably not that original. I like #18 myself. #14 reminds me of the radio station: http://www.wnyc.org/

  6. jane says:

    @Nile: We’re sorry you feel slighted by our logo decision, but we followed our published process. We accepted submissions, we put up a poll for a week to see what the community thought, and we (the organizers) evaluated each design based on the published considerations. The rules clearly stated that the final decision would be made by the organizers, not by the poll numbers alone. We never said the poll was a popularity contest that would decide the logo regardless of aesthetic or technical considerations. It really wouldn’t be fair to base our selection on numbers alone, since some contestants campaigned among their social networks to get their friends to vote for their submissions and other contestants left the voting to the local WordCamp NYC community, which is why we took the multi-input approach, similar to the way SxSW decides on which panels to include.

    A page will be posted soon showing all the submissions and linking to the designers’ sites, including yours. We are still collecting URLs from contestants so it may take a few days. We’re sure you worked hard on your submission, but so did the other contestants, including the winners, and their entries were judged to best fit the technical considerations published in the rules, and to represent the style of the local community. To continue to say that we should use your submission instead of theirs, when your entry did not meet our technical criteria, will not change our minds. Our responsibility as organizers is to our local attendees, and we really believe the designs we chose will best serve the local event.

    Again, we are sorry you disagree with our decision, but we believe it is in the best interest of the WordCampNYC.

  7. Dan Philibin says:

    When will more details about this event be released, such as speakers, schedule, etc? It would at least be nice to know the estimated start and end time so we can plan the rest of the weekend around WordCamp.

  8. JJP says:

    @Nile:

    Clearly you are disappointed with the results of this contest, but to threaten to make a big stink over simply feeling slighted is not only misguided but extremely bratty on your part. I agree with Dan P. that utilizing multiple logos for an event is potentially a very confusing branding strategy, but at the same time I can appreciate the sentiment behind what WordCamp is about: community participation and recognition of those efforts.

    The logo design you submitted is actually not that inspiring, creative or technically sound, yet they featured it among the list of other logos submitted with a weblink back to your own blog. I’d say that’s pretty generous of them. Most organizations wouldn’t offer that level of consideration of your work.

    These type of events are very hard to organize to everyone’s satisfaction, but the effort is there by the organizers and they try their best to be fair (if not charitable) with these type of contests. So, it’s okay to feel disappointed about the logo contest results, but at the same time do try to keep things in their proper perspective and offer a more constructive assessment of your concerns next time around. Mind you, I say all of this as both a graphic design professional and educator.

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