Wow, so many excellent submissions. some, although very high quality and worthy of selection in their own right, just were not what I had envisioned. To a great extent, this is a contest more along the lines where you are rewarded for hitting what I sought with pretty limited information to go by along with the quality o the graphic work-- so I certainly hope that yu all appreciate how much I appreciate your efforts. That said, Lancer4's entry is just right for our logo and to Lancer goes the prize.

BUT-- I have to say that Lugosi hit my vision dead on in terms of the overall look and feel that I want my redesigned site to have and the only reason I don't call Lancer's designs the winners, is that for a logo specifically, I prefer Lancer4's AS A LOGO. I think both Lancers and Lugosi's designs are compatible and I am going to award Lugosi with the prize as well because I would like to use those designs on my pages-- just not specifically as a logo. so congratulations to you also Lugosi. I need to ask the Site point admins if there is anything specific I need to so for the double award.

For what it is worth, I think that Lugosi and illumina got more appreciation by submitting variations on the same design-- I think that is a great strategy and encourage people to follow that approach.

There are some of you who produced very excellent designs but either ignored or didn't understand what I was seeking-- if you ignored it and were presenting something that you think I "should" want versus what I said I wanted, you really wasted your effort unless perhaps someone else saw the work and followed up with you for something they needed. I think that overall, you, as a designer, should honor the client's wishes and spend effort to try to understand that vision and in that process perhaps offer a little coaching to help a client see what it is you see that would benefit them. But to just offer a very contemporary design to someone asking for old school look doesn't seem like the best strategy.

I am probably not alone in viewing this process more an interviewing process as opposed to a one time contest,-- you win thanks a lot have a nice life. It is highly likely that I will be working with both the winners in the future for other graphic needs and this process allowed me to both become acquainted with them ie that they exist and also to judge how well my efforts at communicating a desired outcome was received and interpreted by them. this is important in a client designer relationship in my opinion. we all know that there are some people with whom we just click and meanings are easily and accurately understood versus people who, no matter how we try, we always seems to be communicating past each other. Lancer and I didn't have too much of an exchange but he tuned right in on the design, either by skill or luck. Lugosi and I had more of an exchange and even with what I suspect is a language barrier, Lugosi and I seemed to be able to convey meaning to each other with out too much misunderstanding. So, not only was I judging the quality of the designs, I was attempting to find a designer who I could be confident I could also work with in the future-- Unless this is just a funsy thing for you-- that should be kept in mind for th professionals who are entering these contests. Don't stop at the picture-- show the prospective client and onlookers that you invest in effective communication as well. In fairness to many of you, you did try to dig a little deeper with me and I must admit that I was already moving towards the winning designs and may not have been as responsive to you as would be appropriate-- my apologies for that. So many hours in a day and all.

Again thank you all and congratulations Lancer4 and Lugosi. I will be in touch soon but am pretty swamped today (8/26) and tomorrow (8/27)

Damn-- they closed the contest because I gave feed back on multiple entries to submitters insteadof oe feedback per entry-- heh, sorry aobut that- any way, I will choose tonight Thank you all for your submissions!!

Lil Bump and if no more activity I will close out the contest-- anyone with any revisions-- please get them in-- thanks to all for the great submissions

Hey doing some learning as I go-- I guess its important that the final design is in a Vector format due to likelihood that it will be used at various sizes and I don't want to lose detail-- please let me know if your submitted design can be done in a Vector format. Sorry if this is a pain to anyone-- im not really graphically inclined.

S2