Hi everyone,

Sorry we've taken so long to respond on this contest. We've been having a hard time, because whilst several entries were very strong, none were exactly what we were looking for, and we were debating how to go forward.

In the end, it came down to two designers: weirang and maash007. We felt that the header, footer and page layout of wierang's entry was very strong: http://contests.sitepoint.com/conte…ies/265427
but that massh007 had the better layout and graphics for the page itself: http://contests.sitepoint.com/conte…ies/265118. maash007 also went to the trouble of showing us how a product page might look. http://contests.sitepoint.com/conte…ies/264449

We thought the best solution was to combine the two designs - taking the header and footer from the one, and the page from the other. We've approached both designers to see if they'd be happy to split the top slot, and I'm pleased to say that they are both agreeable.

So, after all that, we've got two winners! In recognition of this effort, we're going to increase the total prize to $500, so each will receive $250. Thanks a lot to both the winners, and to everyone else who took part in the competition. We've really enjoyed reviewing all the great entries. The standard was very high.

Best regards,
Jake and Gareth.

Appologies to all entrants!

Jake (web builder and ecommerce consultant) and I (Gareth water cooler mogul) are both away (not together) this week end and it is unlikley we will be able to pick a winner before Friday 7 December!

We will do are best to drag our selves to the local pub (drinking establishment) where armed with strong beer, wifi, lap top and all the entries we will make a decision!

It will not be easy as the standard overall is very high!

All entrants have shown some unique aspect of design and the vast majority a hunger and adaptable attitude. All work and effort is much apreciated and I will happily provide specific feed back to any one after the decios ha been made.

At the time of writing with just over 15 hours to go there are 4 or 5 entrys that are in the running so its still open and very difficult to choose.

Many thanks

Gareth

Hi everyone. Jake here.

Some good entries coming together so far. But so far, none of you have shown us anything other than a homepage. How do you see your designs being interpreted on some of the other pages of the site - a product page, a news page, or a general content page perhaps? We're looking for a coherent theme across the whole site.

Cheers,
Jake.

Hi everyone.

Jake here. I'm keeping out of most of the aesthetic feedback, but I'm just going to raise one point for you all to consider.

I'm taking it that most of your designs are going to be fixed width - most of them will not obviously lend themselves to a liquid layout.

This is fine. However, in these days of wide-screen monitors, my personal view is that fixed width sites look pretty silly if they're left-justified, with loads of blank space on the right. Therefore, I'd center the website in the screen.

Please consider how you would treat this. Would you just propose your design as is, with white space either side? Would you create a "page", with a gentle drop-shadow round the edge? Would you add a background colour, gradient, pattern?

For those of you who've just done the fixed page with no background, please could you have a go at a slightly larger page, which will give Gareth and myself an idea of how your design will sit in the browser?

Cheers,
Jake.

Hi all,

I've uploaded a better version of the logo, for you to use in your designs...

http://fourhats.com/images/Aqua2.jpg

Cheers,
Jake.

Gareth here,
There ae some very good pieces of work entered so far and all of your entrys are greatly apreciated! : )

Seems to be a lot of simalarity in colour usage and would be nice to see some brave and attractive new colour schemes ? may be that taking a chance will pay dividends.. who knows! As is it is hard to choose between some of the designs with very similar colour schemes and image usage.

?!

Thanks again and look forward to seeing something a little "different"

Cheers
Gareth