WordCamp New York City 2009

Back on May 11th we posted the logo contest guidelines, which asked you to submit your WordCampNYC logo design by May 28th… essentially two weeks.  Well, since we were too busy trying to find a venue, we didn’t do a very good job of promoting this contest.  We received four entries, and two violated trademarks (you can’t use “I love NY” as a logo theme!).  So we decided to extend the competition to August 31 at midnight EST.  We will then post all the submitted logos on this website, and ask for your votes, with the final tally being about one week later.

Please blog, tweet and promote this contest as much as you can.

Here’s the scoop:

The Manhattan skyline? The Statue of Liberty? King Kong on the Empire State Building? What can you come up with to visually represent New York City? And can it incorporate a [W]?

The “official” WordCamp logo uses the “W” mark and text that says WordCamp. Cities around the world have used this logo, plastering it on web sites, t-shirts, programs, etc. In contrast, some WordCamp organizers create event logos that visually represent their location or community personality. New York City has more personality than most places, and our community has more design talent than anywhere else on the planet, so we should have a badass logo that will put all the rest to shame. A logo so cool that you want to wear the t-shirt every day for the rest of your natural life, after which you donate it to the museum of cool t-shirts.

If you’re a designer, illustrator, sketch artist, or generally creative person, consider designing the WordCamp NYC logo! If your logo is chosen, it will appear on hundreds of attendee t-shirts, on web sites receiving millions of hits, and on all the printed materials at the actual event in October. To allow more people to participate, we’ll hold a logo contest and let our community vote to choose the best one.

The Rules:
You must incorporate the official W into your design. Vector files are available here.

No pornographic or profane images.

Your logo has to look okay if printed in black and white. You can use color, just make sure that turning it grayscale won’t ruin it, since all the printed matter will be in black and white. Bear in mind that every extra color makes the t-shirts cost more.

You will have until August 31 midnight EST to work on the logo idea.

If you have some good ideas but can’t draw to save your life, post your ideas in the comments here, and maybe another community member will like your suggestion enough to draw it. If you’re working on a logo and want feedback, feel free to post here in the comments and link to the image file on your own web site.

Logos will be officially entered into the contest with the delivery of a .jpg or .png to wordcampnyc at gmail dot com no later than Midnight EST  on August 31, 2009.

Submissions will be reviewed by the organizers for compliance with the rules (incorporated the W, no porn, no “I love NY” etc.), with those that pass muster being posted for the community to vote on them. Voting will last for three days.

The WordCamp NYC organizers will make the final selection based on a combination of community votes and technical considerations (does the logo still look good at both small and large sizes, does it grayscale well, will it be easy to print on a t-shirt, etc.).

The winning designer can take a few days to do any last polishing they didn’t have time to finish, and then we’ll put the logo into production. A “Logo designed by” credit (with link to your web site) will appear on the WordCamp NYC web site.

To help inspire you, we’ve included some logos from other WordCamps: