Classic Skin Contest {ideas}
 

Let's toss around contest ideas.

I was thinking a fun one would be a speed skinning contest, where we would have a 2-3 week entry time, then contestants would be given a week or two to make a skin that would meet the requirements to be submitted to the winamp site (ie, all windows, but cursors not required).

After a week of voting, the winners are chosen.

A second contest could then begin where the contestants would be given...2-4 more weeks to perfect and add ot the skin they submitted, and we could then vote on best overall, and most improved.

Just an idea. :)

2-3 weeks isn't a short time, that's almost an eternity, try giving someone 48hrs and see what they come up with :p

O_o I dunno if I'm up for a speed contest... especially on Mr. Jones's timescale... I was also hoping the theme would help me choose my next skin, and this one just yells at me to choose it faster ;)

edit: What about a nice simple but interesting theme, like "Food" or "Make a skin of your favorite country."

Oooh! How about a "music" theme in which people have to base a skin on a song??? That should result in some interesting possibilities for creativity!

That's, maximum, 10 weeks before the final winner is chosen.

By then, most of the skins will have lost their appeal.

[Edit] Me stupid.

Yeah, but come on a speed contest would be great it would test who can...

a) skin like like mad thing
b) who can come up with an implement a cohesive design in less than 48 hrs
c) who can make the best bug free skin, thus showing competance with his/her skinning abilities
d) who really has no life to speak of :p
e) some other stuff.

C'mon, I can do it, I've banged out a fully working and scripted modern skin in less than 48hrs before now, I'm sure y'all can do it with a simple classic one ;)

Orrrrrr, if you really want a bit longer on it how about this....

1. Get a list of people who wanna take part in it.
2. I'll assign each of them a random subject based on what little personal knowledge I have of them, I've known most of you long enough to know a little about what makes you tick
3. Y'all take your assignments and get skinning to the best of your abilities with the subject you've been given.

Subjects would be simple concepts and not massively detailed, like say "Bannana" "Icy windows" "Topless surf girls" etc etc.

4. You get judged and the winner picked.

or some shit like that.

... I can dig it. Assigned topics is quite an interesting idea. And it is summertime. Do we get to choose more or less when our 48hours takes place? Sometimes I do... you know... work and stuff.

Work and stuff?, oh you mean that stuff we should be doing while surfing the net?

I'm in, Jones. I like the subject skin because i usually do themes anyway. I would do the speed thing if that ends up happening but. . . Don't expect any miracles. I'm slow.

I'm slow too. And now I'm working on another skin, because I got tired of waiting. But this one is NOT gonna be done in a couple days, lol.

I think it would be better just to skin the three main windows in the time span.

I'm not a big fan of the super-fast time-limit idea, though I do admit Jones's point "d" gives me an advantage. :D

I don't think a speed-skinning contest is a good idea, practically speaking. It's hard enough getting people to complete skins on time with a long entry time. The Orb contest had, I think, a 2 month deadline, and even then I had to extend it by a couple of weeks to get all the people to submit. The Winter contest had a long deadline too, and even then not everyone who started a skin finished on time. The GUI Olympics had a month, and that had to be extended by another month, and even then several entries (including 2 of mine) barely made it on time


I think there should be a theme, as it makes the contest more interesting, but the theme should definitely be broad. Also, I think a good theme would be one that isn't biased towards picture skinners, yet also isn't biased towards non-picture skinners.

I like the "music" theme, although I think it could be broader, and not just confined to being based on a particular song. Other themes I can think of are (and most of these are ideas from the last contest which went unused :D) unsual materials (not good for picture skinners though, nature, childhood nostalgia, remix ;), 'ethnic; or 'non-Western' art (could be nice and broad, I can imagine some good skins could be made in Aboriginal, Native American, Middle-Eastern, Far Eastern, etc. styles).

Any more ideas? I'm out :D

I like the broader music theme, and the childhood nostalgia theme (isn't that what I always do? ;) ). We could do a "Lego" theme, but that's not really broad at all, and probably within the nostalgia theme. I'm at a loss for other ideas, but I do still vote against the speed skinning, because you'll probably end up with 2 entries and 11 didn't-finish or gave-ups.

I have a question. If we do the speed contest, would we be allowed to use bits of incomplete skins we have lying around our hard drives or does it have to be totally from scratch?

I was thinking that maybe it would be cool to have someone donate one of their never finished or barely started skins, and then have everyone base a skin off of that. Hopefully it would be only a sketch, and the point would be to stay true to the original, but do something creative. Would be kind of cool to see how everyone interprets it differently. I also like the music one, though.

I have at least a handful of incomplete skins, but they're all past the sketch stage (a stage I generally skip) so I don't think they could be interpreted very interestingly. The Zelda 64 skin does come to mind, though... But I still vote music. :D

Music sounds good to me. I've been meaning to do another metallica skin anyway.

Ultimately, it's up to not in santiago, anyway, since I guess she'll be organising the contest. Maybe she already has some ideas

music sounds good.....maybe i could make one using the ff6 opera house.:)

edit//or maybe not...looking at the screenshots it doesnt look as good as i remember it:blah:

You could always do one from scratch, using FF6 as an inspiration... Opera House sounds like a decent skin anyways...

Ye gods you guys are fast. So if I had been quicker and executed my intent of opening a new thread, this is what it would have said:

I'll volunteer to orgazine and run this contest. These are the nebulous parameters I had in mind:

- classic skins only
- open to anyone who happens to stumble into the Classic Forum (AKA the jacuzzi of Skin Love) :confused:
- prize: the satisfaction of being the best. If I can think of something suitably nominal it may be included, but I'm really jumping headfirst into the naive and utopian ideal that this contest should be strictly for fun. If someone has a prize idea or wants to donate one, hey great.
- contest timeline has to fall between July 24th and September 13th. This is a relatively large chunk of time, I know, but that's my availability. I'm just sayin'.

I'm somewhat immovable on the aforementioned points. The following bits need some serious negotiation:

Theme, obviously. S'funny. My first idea for a skin contest way back when was a 24 hour skin contest. A logistical nightmare, yes, but I had a plan . . . and then I discarded the entire idea for the same reason mentioned by StillWater and LuigiHann. I think a lot of people will try, but in the end there will probably be two complete entries. Take the Winter Skin contest - there was a ton of interest, but only 5 or 6 entries in the end.

I'm superkeen on the nostalgia theme. I could type out at least 25 different ideas for nostalgia skins right now, if called for. It's an open theme that can be interpreted very creatively if people are up to it. It also encompasses both picture and pixel/painter skinners alike.

There have been some other good suggestions: I like the suggested topic idea, but I wonder if people will get in a tizzy if they don't like the suggestion and give up without trying. The song idea isn't bad and I quite like tydogg's "Skin Scrapheap" idea. I'm sure if interested skinners donated a discarded skin or two (a sketch and/or a rough skeleton), we would have quite a graveyard of selection. The downside would be the uneven starting points as some skins are bound to be more developed than others.

Judging How is the winner going to be decided? Popular vote, panel of judges, numbered hamsters in a maze, or other? I was thinking secret ballot (perhaps a PM vote), but I don't mind going with consensus on this issue. Once the judging method has been established, we should talk about judging criteria.

I'm forgetting something. I know I'm forgetting something. Oh yeah, I'm leaving town for 10 days in mid-August, which shouldn't affect things too gravely. Again, just sayin'.

I still think I'm forgetting something.

Anyway, let's decide on a theme, a deadline, judging, etc.


Aaaaaaaaand . . . . talk amongst yourselves. :D

well i vote for the "skin for a song" theme.

I'd vote for the song theme too, but it was my idea and I already voted for it several times. On a more practical note, could we do a poll for judging? I don't use the poll on this forum, so I don't know if it's any good, but certainly there are other findable poll services... Otherwise we could do a panel of judges, but I don't know who'd be on it. And how about a mid-August deadline, perhaps after you get back from wherever, just because I'm heading to college on the 21st so I'll have to finish it before then, probably. Is it ok to submit multiple entries (Not that I'm likely to, I'm just brainstorming about the song idea)

I'm a fan of the judge panel method. For example, five judges, barred from participation, with, say, a rating out of 10 points for each skin. I'd volunteer, depending on the theme (if the theme really sparked my interest, I'd make a skin, but I'm not really sure).

I'm not too fussed with the theme. Although I think the nostalgia one is the best so far, because even though it's very broad and caters to all types of skinners and allows for many types of ideas, it's also quite unique. If the theme was music, then, since there are already hundreds of music-related skins out there, the contest would essentially just end up creating a handful more of skins to add to the pile. 'Nostalgia skins', although they exist too, are probably not nearly as numerous.

If it was a "skin for a song" theme, then I think it would be cool if the contestants uploaded mp3s of the songs to their webspaces, so that when the skins were all made available for download on the forums, links to the songs were supplied also.

Another idea: everyone always complains about how certain colours are seldom used in skins, like purple or orange. So how about the theme simply being a colour? For example, there would be 3 or so 'rare' colours to choose from (eg. orange, purple, and, I dunno, maroon or yellow), and everyone has to make a skin that overwhelmingly uses one of those colours.

As for judging, I definitely vote for the numbered hamsters in a maze method.

maybe if we limit our selections to music we dont think others are familiar with...

but i guess the "unusual material" theme could also include musical things provided they are unusual right?:p

We could also have someone who was going to be on the judging panel select some songs they think most people dont know, and have people pick from those.

having someone else picking the music would kinda ruin the idea for me.

yes me too. I have a couple of good ideas already if its based on a song.

I like StillWater's idea of making us upload the song that we do, and have it linked with the skins, so that the judges (or hampsters) can hear the song as they judge them, even if they have heard it before. Picking obscure or rare songs would not be productive, as the skinner should be able to choose they're favorite song, or an obscure song if they want. ^_^

Sorry to have to do this just as the ball is rolling, but I have to skip town for a few days as of eeearly tomorrow morning. Rest assured, this will not be a common occurence . . . I can't really afford it, you see.

Well, I still think a nostalgia contest would be the bees knees, but I'm willing to defer to the majority. Unless there's some heavy opposition in the next couple of days, it looks like this will be a Skin-A-Song contest. As for judging, I don't mind having a panel judge the contest, but I wonder if I'll be able to scrape up enough classic-savvy individuals who are still active around here who aren't going to enter the contest.

Unfortunately, I don't own any hamsters. I do have a couple pet rocks, though. I've always wanted to see them dressed in matching numbered jerseys . . . .

Anyway, I'll be back Friday and I'll make an official contest post then, based on the opinions and ideas thrown out in this thread between now and then.

Maintenant, commencez.

I dunno about the song thing. For a song skin, the judges would need to hear the song first. And forcing contestants to upload the song really isn't fair to those on dialup. I think the barrier to entry is a bit high. Not to mention the legal ramifications. (I'm pretty much kidding on that last point.)

if a judge has broadband they can find it themselves right?:p

i don't know.:o

I don't mind the time it takes to upload a song but, it might be hard to find a place to upload it to. Most free webspaces don't allow you to upload mp3's. I'm on geocities and they certainly don't. Maybe if we sent them directly to the judges via aim or something like that?

i dont know if everybody has one already, but for some reason gmail gave me 6 invites....how about i give one to the winner?

At the very least, it's quite easy to show somebody song lyrics... The AIM thing might work too...

Know what's funny? I've been really pushing the song thing, but I'm not even sure I'll be able to come up with a good enough idea. I have one or two possibilities, but I'm waiting for somebody to say "go" before I turn my brain on. The nostalgia one works just as well, I suppose...

would "song" include non-lyrical music....or are we gonna be hyper-literal?

i'd like to choose some incidental music.:p

For me, the skin-for-a-song idea loses its appeal if people aren't able to listen to the song when they look at the skin. A good entry into such a contest would basically be a skin that - although it might be decent as a stand-alone skin - could be fully appreciated only if one knew the music that inspired it.

And the lyrics-disclosing thing probably wouldn't work for me either. I've had a few vague ideas for what song I would choose so far, and so far they are songs that are in Polish, Aramaic (I think), or have no lyrics at all. :D

I think the MP3-providing idea would be do-able (and I don't think it would be in the spirit of piracy at all, and if anything might introduce some new music to people that they would want to go out and buy), although it might be quite tricky to organise, so may not be worth it. For me, it's no big deal, even though I have dial-up - I can simply upload to song to the webspace that comes with my ISP, although it may be more complicated for others.

If I had to vote, I would probably vote for a more general music theme, though probably most of all for a nostalgia theme, because it's bound to stimulate some very unique entries out of people. :)


not in santiago: if by the time you come back, indecision on the theme is still rife, maybe you should start a poll to help you decide.

I could judge, I guess, if I don't go somewhere that is sunny, foresty, seaish and islandey. Which is very probable. I don't know how long I'll be staying and when'll I go, but hopefully it'll be soon and long. Then again, I will be probably back on weekends so it shouldn't be a problem. And on 30.08 I'm going to Spain for a week, so try not to take that long.