CLOSING CEREMONIES - Logolympiad 2011

[pollux]

LOGOLYMPIAD 2011 is now over! It's now time to hand out banners for the top three.

The bronze banner goes to sparky chewbarky, with 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal.

The silver banner goes to Firefly, with 2 gold medals, 3 silver medals and 2 bronze medals!

And the winner of Logolympiad 2011 is CAB, with 4 golds and 3 silvers! Congratulations!

I want to hear from you! What did you like from this first edition in 5 years? What would you like to see improved?

I will take in consideration any constructive ideas you may submit.

Thanks to the 43 participants who submitted at least one entry for the contest! I hope to see you all next year!

[missouri tigers]

Congratulations to the three "banner winners".

As for ways to improve the contest for next time around:

Adding more time to complete each event couldn't hurt. I personally tried to enter all of the events that I could, but simply couldn't find enough time, and didn't end up entering as many as I had hoped to.

Also, and I know it's not ideal but...

Perhaps a system where you have conditions such as 1 week OR until you have a certain number of entries could be used. That way you could try to give out 3 metals for each event.

Then you could start the next event once that one is over, and possibly still keep 2 events going at the same time (although the time between the two events might be thrown off).

[CAB]

Thank you very much to everybody who voted and participated! It definitely was a fun competition and provided me with opportunites to design some things I probably never would've thought of.

I'm gonna have to disagree with GoNordiques a little. Yes, it is a sports logo messageboard, but I think people could try to open their minds up a little bit to some non-sports related art. As far as my 9/11 logo you mentioned, I pretty much agree with you. It was something I sketched and whipped up in one day because I just wanted to get something in. At first, the building and smoke cloud seemed like a good idea to portray the number 10. But looking back I can definitely understand why some might find it inappropriate, as it seemed to celebrate the event more than paying respect to it.

Suggestions? More time seems like the popular choice. One week between events may give people more time to brainstorm a little and get an entry sent in time. But no doubt this was run very well, pollux obviously spent a lot of time thinking this through and had everything running right on schedule.

Thanks again!

[drdougfresh]

Damn, I can't believe it's over already. I only got into two contests, namely because of the time constraints as have already been mentioned.

I have to say, I thought the events were pretty good. I like brand identity stuff (and I'll proudly wear my one gold for that event ), and I thought the sports ones were generally pretty good. I feel like some of the events were a little boring though, maybe that's just personal taste, but things like the final event were fairly limiting (too narrow a focus). I didn't care so much for the company picnic thing, either, as that was perhaps just a little too out there.

In summary: more time, and more open-ended design challenges. I understand the challenge that creates from your perspective, pollux, but it also makes it a little more enjoyable to follow/participate.

Excellent work on running this thing, and congrats to all the winners in this event. I think it was a great exercise-- hopefully the start of many.

[Firefly]

In lieu of national anthems, do we get to pick our own podium music?

Well, I'm glad I managed to finish the games by winning the last event while completely misreading the actual objective. Though, I've been thinking over how I could have made it a basketball logo and find it far harder than what I came up with (how many cute basketball logos are there?). A number of events were more difficult than fun.

As it was mentioned above, the XFL timewarp just had that certain something that got the creative juices flowing. The anniversary event with the stiff anniversary dates took more time to get going as it took more research than you'd think.

As far time, well, I liked the tight deadline. It might work better if there were fewer events.

[sparkychewbarky]

First of all, congrats to fly and cab; an impressive body of work from both of you.

A huge thanks to pollux for a couple of reasons...

I thought the event was a lot of fun and very well done, and I hate to find any fault with so much effort,

but a little more time to complete entries would be great.

You can't just "throw something in" and expect to do well; the quality of submissions is too high...

Which brings me to my second reason to thank pollux;

There's been a lot of complaining about the state of the board lately.

I noticed that the ones that were doing the complaining didn't "put their talents where their mouths are".

I'll bet that the winning entries from this logolympiad would hold up well against previous logolympiad winners.

Anyway, kudos to pollux and contestants.

Oh, and GoNordiques, I don't work in the graphics industry, but I would imagine that you wouldn't find all projects interesting at work.

The variety of sports and non-sports events made this more challenging.

[pollux]

I guess the general consensus is to have more time to work on each event. Before launching the contest, I was leaning towards a simpler version of the previously run contest with less events. But I wanted to stay true to the format that winters in buffalo had used before. During this contest, though, I realized that participation was declining, partly due to short timeframe, and maybe because of the interest in event types.

That being said, I will likely revise the number of events for next year. It will be easier for me to run but I will still have everything wrapped up in two months. I don't want the contest to run over 3 or 4 months.

*****

Perhaps a system where you have conditions such as 1 week OR until you have a certain number of entries could be used. That way you could try to give out 3 metals for each event.

Then you could start the next event once that one is over, and possibly still keep 2 events going at the same time (although the time between the two events might be thrown off).

Unfortunately, that might stretch the contest too much for the events that people won't want to compete in. Plus, we would likely have a contest running over more than 2 months, which is already a long time.

As for the medals, I despise giving out medals only for participation, and that's why I set up a vote for each event when I receive 2+ entries.

*****

I found most of the events to be. . . a little lackluster. I understand this is a sports logo messageboard, but events like tea packets, I was really uninterested in. Also the final event, the Blueberries (imagine the Biscuits) really limits the entries. Everyone is expecting a cartoonish logo with a bat, or a glove, etc... I found that too, uninteresting.

But events like the throwback with the XFL, superb! Company logo was fun, alot of interesting concepts. Although, I should say the event logo, the criteria was far too open. The 9/11 logo was voted silver, and I feel that logo was pretty distasteful. The alternate logo was something that came along at the wrong time, if it were earlier, it might have had more entries.

I understand where everyone is coming from. I feel some events felt like they would be better if they had a more recognizable team or company. You'll catch more fish "entries" with a larger net. Say you were designing an alternate uniform for the predators or design a new pepsi bottle.

In summary: more time, and more open-ended design challenges. I understand the challenge that creates from your perspective, pollux, but it also makes it a little more enjoyable to follow/participate.

A number of events were more difficult than fun.

As it was mentioned above, the XFL timewarp just had that certain something that got the creative juices flowing. The anniversary event with the stiff anniversary dates took more time to get going as it took more research than you'd think.

I tried to balance the more open-minded challenges (Timewarp, Crossover, Alternate Logo and Alternate Uniform) with some that had stiffer guidelines (Consumer Product, Bonus Round) and participation varied from event to event. I know that such events would benefit from having more time to work on, so that you can do a little bit more research on the topic.

As for company-oriented events, I tried not to use a big company but rather giving you the choice to pick one. Again, that is likely to change. Keep in mind I drafted all 14 events in about 2 weeks, so I didn't get much time to review everything. I will, however, take more time for the 2012 edition, especially since it's likely there will be less events for me to work on.

[sparkychewbarky]

Unfortunately, that might stretch the contest too much for the events that people won't want to compete in. Plus, we would likely have a contest running over more than 2 months, which is already a long time.

I think that you could stretch out certain events that need extra time within the overall 2 month timeline.

I like Missouri's suggestion for a couple of reasons.

I don't think that someone who has put the effort in to submit an entry should be penalized because no one else tried.

Ensuring that there are 3 medals awarded per event, addresses the above mentioned concern, plus,

it's a benefit to the olympiad overall when there's the maximum number of medals handed out.

There would be more contestants "in the running", resulting in a more competitive race to the finish.

I think that only 1 entry in the last event may have been a result of most competitors doing the math and realizing that they were out of it.

Thanks pollux.

[Cola]

I only entered the first round, and it was simply because it was the only one I felt I had time to complete. There was too much going on...voting while a round starts on Friday, then another Monday when I have hardly had time to get my thoughts or sketches down for the previous. With a mind like mine, it gets churning when I read a new round...ideas float around and then I go to sketching a bit for that- long story short, I end up finishing none of them in the timeframe when you add in real world responsibilities.

Overall, I did like following the rest of the competition. I thought the topics were great and interesting- really wished I had complete a couple more. Maybe next time.

Thanks for taking the time to organize and execute it. This site needs it.