Help Redesign LISNews and Win Up To $200

You may or may not know we recently switched from Slashcode to Drupal here at LISNews, and I now think I made a bad decision when I chose the theme. Drupal makes it very easy to change how everything looks, and I’d like to do just that.

But to make sure I get it right this time I need your help. I’m willing to pay up to $150 for an original theme that we can all agree on. If you can’t create a brand new theme from scratch, you can just pick one of the many prebuilt themes. I’ll enter everyone who chooses an already available theme in a drawing for $25. Hit the Form, leave a comment, or Contact Me and let me know what you think we should look like. If you want to be able to win the $25 I need your email address. We’ll narrow it down to our favorite 10 sometime next month, and you’ll ALL have a chance to vote for the final design.

If you’d like to hunt for a theme, here are 4 places to get started:

http://drupal.org/project/themes
http://themegarden.org/
http://theme.drupaler.net/
http://themebot.com/website-templates/drupal-themes

If you’re thinking of trying to design a theme, read on below for ideas.

I’d like to stick with the “old” LISNews colors, Orange and Blue (Orignally ff9900 and 000099). That’s not a requirement, but just a preference.

Think modern, cool, original, easy to read, and librarian. Maybe round edges. Easy to scan, easy on the eyes.

You don’t need to make a logo, I don’t really have one, but if you DO make a logo, and we choose it I’ll give you an additional $50, or just $50 if we choose your logo but not your theme.

Just because you make a theme doesn’t mean I or anyone else will like it, I make no promises that if you waste a week of your time building what you thought was the perfect them you’ll win anything. Ultimately you have to “win” this is a contest and will be open for voting by anyone who reads the site.
The theme should be complete and I should have to do very little if any work to it.
It needs to work on small monitors.
Extra credit for standards compliant and accessible.

Got questions, let me know: Hit the Form, leave a comment, or Contact Me.

SO to summarize: If you can’t create a theme, pick out one or two you like and let me know. You could win $25 for doing just that. If you can design a theme you’ll need to put it someplace we can all see it, or send it along and I’ll drop it in here. I’m not paying you UNLESS it wins the final voting. I also won’t use it unless it wins. If you’re a talented logo designer and make just a logo and we use it that’s worth $50. So if you design a logo and a theme we use, you’ll get $200. I’ll clear up any questions as you have them.

The final list of 10 will be created by the LISNews authors based on our favorite 10.

Let’s plan on making the change no latter than May 1st.