What are your ideas for CSS Off?
We’re opening this up to you. If you’d prefer not to voice your ideas publicly, just email us at cssoff@gmail.com.
We’re opening this up to you. If you’d prefer not to voice your ideas publicly, just email us at cssoff@gmail.com.
I think this is a great idea and I am eager to take part. However, for those who do not own Photoshop would it be possible to provide the website mockup in Fireworks format and/or an open source format.
Also a press release style post with more details about the who what when where why and how would be good for help writing blog posts about this, especially the who and why. I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now and all know is that you’re ‘The CSS Guy’. :P
will you send an e-mail when it’s going to be launched? cause i kinda forget about things, and i’m really interested in this project.
oh btw, great project!
Oh, and to add, there really needs to be clear information on the ownership of submitted ideas. Something along a similar lines of what CSS Zen Garden employ. And I presume the photoshop mockups are going to be for obviously fake sites.
@Jon:
The file format was a consideration - we don’t mean to be exclusive - it just happens to be the application of choice by JD and myself. We’ll look into offering the comp in alternative formats that support layers. We’d also like to hear if others are interested in the same thing. And yes, the sites will be fake, and we’ll post the legalese shortly.
@Vitor:
We hope to have our rss feed working soon. Will that help?
Feed should be working now.
@Jon
Thanks for your feedback. We’ve just added a link to our legal disclaimer in the sidebar.
@Jon (again)
I just downloaded the latest version of Gimp and was able to open .psds just fine, layers and all.
@Jon: you can open PSDs in Fireworks too (as far back as version 4 I think).
Something you might consider is making the link to your feed more obvious.
Also, I know it’s going to be hard to please everyone but time differences are likely to disadvantage some people.
24-hours… not 12-hours please.
I understand the ‘turn-on-a-dime’ approach to using 12-hours, however, I can already think of 2 reasons why 24-hours would be much better.
1st (probably the strongest reason), world wide support. I’ve got a friend (American) living in Japan. He loves CSS stuff and would probably participate, but does his 12-hours work with the CST 12-hours? 12-noon CST is 2:00am in Tokyo. 2:00am - 2:00pm is sleeping, commute and work times.
2nd - similar to #1, work times. Some people who are all into CSS and standards might be students, athletes, work 2nd shift, etc. Their days are different than other peoples. 12:noon CST. Count commuting time, and it might be impossible for some people to participate.
24-hours is better, I think. Everyone, no matter where in the world or how their job schedule is set, will be getting an equal share.
Break it down:
24 hours
—————
- 6 to 8 hours sleep.
- 8 to 10 hours work.
———————–
10 to 6 hours of ‘free time’ to eat, chores, and work on CSS Off.
Depending on where in the world they are, their sleep, and work hours will happen at different parts of the 24-hour cycle, but all participants will be able to to organize the ‘free time’ they have to work on CSS Off and that is the goal. The original 12-hour cycle works great for those in North America, as it still covers *their* free time cycles (if you work 1st shift), but what about students studying abroad? Or those working abroad? Europe has a ton of amazing “web guys”. I’d hate to exclude them as well.
After all, I don’t think the idea is to really win the $30. It’s about participating and competing in an area of interest to better ourselves. No?
Cheers,
John
Point made. 24 hours it is, starting with the first competition.
I already knew that you can open psd is Firework/Gimp but its always nice to have native formats to avoid possible discrepancies.
I live in the UK and totally hadn’t considered the time zone thing so nice to see people are on the ball and that its been taken care of. :)
Just read the ‘legal’ bit. Not sure why you have chosen a license that allows commercial use. I think that will put off many people from taking part. Would you consider this license instead: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Great idea, really looking forward to the first round!
Regarding licensing, I think it would be quite confusing, and contradictionary to the whole concept of this contest, to use a non-commercial license. The output will (hopefully) consist of best-practise CSS/HTML techniques. Sharing ideas and techniques freely and thereby educating people is what’s been pushing the whole web standards movement forward in the first place.
I have only just discovered this site so I haven’t had a proper scan of it all but the basic idea is great. Looking forward to taking part :)
I posted the event on upcoming. Maybe that will conjure up some interest.
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/196971/
A great idea.
I’m actually making this comment after the .psds have been made available. I have a concern about the design itself, and maybe this is part of the challenge (i.e. interpreting the design), but given the format (banner image at the top, rounded coloured footer) there’s really a conflict between a static centred layout and a more fluid one.
By placing the banner image in the design so that it didn’t reach the edge of the artwork area you’d implicity be on safer ground when it came to layout (and resizing issues in browser windows). Currently, the design itself shows a *little* less consideration to the way the web works than I was expecting. If we’re gonna work like crazy to be semantically accurate, valid and cross-browser/platform, it’d be nice to start with a design that see it this way too (that said, I think the rest of the design does a great job).
Disclaimer: Just my 2 cents. In no way am I complaining, I realise I don’t have to be here if I don’t want to be.
1. Could you post on the site current time in Memphis and some kind of count down to the deadline? It always take me some time before I realise what time is there :)
2. The mail reminder just before or during launching new contest would be nice as I’m not checking RSS and I’m sure that I will forget!
More suggestions maybe will come later ;)
Is there any news on the next one?
Would it be possible for you guys to send out an email and/or text message when a new CSS Off begins? Having a few other avenues to be notified other than RSS would be cool.
Uhm, I like the idea of this contest.. but what doesn’t comfort me is that you OWN website isn’t even valid HTML…. 13 errors on the validator …
Was wondering how long it would take someone to notice. I do believe those errors are a result of a JavaScript countdown timer we got from the net and threw in at the last minute by popular request. We’re either going to clean it up or build our own eventually.
Is the CSS OFF “off”? It’s been a few weeks without posting a winner to Wikinetic.
Great idea. I too am hoping I can find the time to get involved in this.
could you make the first contest somehow available ? (i mean the psd and winning entry)
thnx