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Yes, we’ve got March Madness pretty badly over here in the design studio, more about that in a minute.
First I want to thank the hundreds of readers who voted in the recent opening bracket face-off in the competition to pick a new awards badge for the monthly eBook Cover Design Awards. You guys are awesome.
(Editor’s note: If you think that I never mentioned it was “just the opening round,” you are correct. Read on.)
No Tie Games in Championships
After several days of voting, our first round competition ended in a dead heat. Tying for first place are designers Lafcadio and DJ Rogers. Congratulations to both.
Having a tie vote opens some interesting possibilities, but none of them were particularly appealing. There’s no point using 2 completely different images, since it would just confuse the branding for the contest.
I could vote as the tie breaker, but I don’t have a strong preference between these two designs.
What to do?
Buzzer Beaters and Final Brackets
However, there was another development that had also tripped me up, just as I was heading for the basket to bring this contest to a close.
Designer Derek Murphy sent me 5 different badge designs just as the voting started. Here are my 3 favorites:
And not just any designs, either. These were beautiful, dynamic, modern, and just the thing I had been looking for all along!
Now I realized that fate had interceded to give Derek a “bye” and send him directly to the Final Three.
After some thought, I picked my favorite of the badges Derek submitted, and decided to hold a 3-way final event, pitting the 2 winners from the first round against Derek’s best.
Here they are, ladies and gentlemen, your three finalists in the eBook Cover Design Award Badge Contest.
Pick your favorite and vote by Monday at midnight Pacific time. Let’s crown a worthy champion!
(Inbox readers: You’ll need to click the title of this article to go to the blog where you’ll be able to vote.)
1. Designer: DJ Rogers
2. Designer: Lafcadio
3. Designer: Derek Murphy
Okay, now go vote.
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Photo: bigstockphoto.com
I can’t bring myself to vote for Derek Murphy — the design reminds me too much of the Heinz branding. It’s nowhere near exact, just close enough that I’d be thinking of baked beans or ketchup every time I saw it. I voted for DJ Rogers in the first round, and will do so again this round.
As a designer who entered the contest on time and is now in the final three, I can say this:
I LOVE Derek Murphy’s design. It’s everything Joel says it is; Joel knows his stuff. If I were running this contest, and that late entry came in, I too would be relieved that there was a tie between other designs that would allow for an additional round of voting.
Forget how people feel about it, vote for the one you think is designed well and matches the website. I think all good designers can appreciate good design, and can recognize design superior to their own. I like mine because I made it, and I spent some time on it, but it is not the best candidate for this contest. I feel great knowing I was in the top two of the final round.
Lafcadio
Thanks, Lafcadio, much appreciated. Your entry was amazingly popular.
Fate happens. Deadline or not, it’s all in good fun, and – even more importantly – for a cause you invest oodles of your time in, for our benefit. Voted. Fun to be part of the process. :-)
Thanks, Ellen. Yes, fun was what it was all supposed to be about, you betcha.
I’m also a little uncomfortable with hearing that “fate intervened” in the form of someone missing a deadline (that the other contestants adhered to). Does that mean that you were worried if that designer had been voted on, he wouldn’t have done as well? And so it was lucky his design wasn’t entered initially?
I thin it’s fine, by the way, if you want to just choose the design you like best. You’re certainly entitled to do it that way. But then don’t call it a contest and ask people to vote. I voted in the first round, but now feel strange voting again. If the design I prefer wins, will it just be disqualified anyway because you’d rather have a different one?
Thanks for your feedback, Sharazade. I certainly can’t argue with you, but as I said above, I’m going to “reward” all the designers who entered. It was quite a dilemma, believe me, but I really appreciate your voting in the competition, the votes definitely did count.
March madness has definitely set in…last I checked a partcipant did not earn a bye entry into the next bracket unless they had made it to the playoffs to begin with. I am not a designer, but had I entered your contest that obviously had a submission deadline, I would be very upset and even a bit offended with the change in the rules that were established.
It is obvious, by your statement, “And not just any designs, either. These were beautiful, dynamic, modern, and just the thing I had been looking for all along!” …that your preference is to Dereks design. This statement alone seems unfair to those who did enter by the deadline and did not make the final three. Once again, society rewards the failure to meet deadlines by giving them a redo!
Instead as a professional, you could have just opted to say this is “just the thing I had been looking for all along!” …so I am going to award the two ladies that tied with either $100 each or even divide it to $50 each but I really want to use Dereks design. What are you going to do if Derek doesn’t win?? After making it obvious that this is your preference…you will be stuck with a design that is not your obvious first choice. Do the right thing man!!!
Thanks for your input, JR. In fact, all three designers are going to get awards, as well as the other designers who entered, because I appreciate their effort.
Well, my design eye feels totally gratified in that the design I voted for originally (DJ Rogers) and the one I mentioned in my comment (Lafcadio) were the two that got the most votes. AND I just voted for Derek Murphy’s design BECAUSE—JOEL—he used YOUR color palette. Don’t know how I missed that on the first round. After all, this is a badge awarded by thebookdesigner.com and therefore it is an extension of that branding, at least IMHO. Certainly there is a case to be made if this were a separate ad or marketing piece, or even your ebook covers, that the color palette could be something different than your color palette. But in this case, I do think that Derek has nailed it.
Ruth, thanks. I have to agree that Derek got this exactly right. In his original email he mentioned that he’d like to see something that matched my site better, so you are on the same wavelength there.