Today I am pleased to announce the first official contest, hosted by Facepalm Studios! This is a web design contest, and the rules and prizes are listed below. The deadline for all entries is Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 10PM EST.

Competition:

Best use of typography and transparency on a web site.

Rules:

- Fonts used must either be supported across all platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) or you must include a download able font pack on the design.
- You must create your own design, and not take one from another site. <– I know this is somewhat redundant, but some people may just get a template and edit it.
- Your site must appear EXTREMELY ALIKE in all modern web browsers, including Firefox 2/3, Internet Explorer 6/7, Opera 9.5, and Safari 3/4. Minor discrepancies may exist, such as a slightly off-aligned box here or there, but nothing very different.
- Your site must have content in all areas where content can exist (even if it is random stuff).

Prizes:

1st Place – 2 @maskedmedia.com email addresses (each with 6GB+ of storage and a Gmail user interface), 1 Web Hosting Account (500MB of disk space, unlimited bandwidth, subdomain or domain name (you must provide the domain name if you choose that option), 1 MySQL database and user account), honorable mention on my blog and the new Facepalm Studios website, which hosts this competition.

2nd Place – 2 @maskedmedia.com email addresses

3rd Place – 1 @maskedmedia.com email address

Other Top Contenders – Honorable mentions on my blog and the Facepalm Studios website.

Judgment:

You will be judged on both the creative and usability aspects of typography and transparency on your website design. For example, using a fancy font in a place where there is a massive area of text would not be very usable. Another example is the use of transparency on things such as images. Too little transparency may work, but too much could damage the quality and usefulness of an image.

The contest will be judged by myself, as well as my friend, who is a graphical designer. As such, neither of us can enter in the competition.

Note: Any competitor who is a member of Facepalm Studios can submit their work and win prizes, but will not be listed on the Facepalm Studio’s website.