All, the designs are getting very close. I have guaranteed the prize so that you will all know that we are committed to one of the designs. I would encourage you all to continue submitting designs. We will continue to submit comments and suggestions sa quickly as possible.

At this point we are very partial to a design that contains a footer with a landscape image that contains a cairn. We anticipate creating multiple "themes" for different web pages with each theme containing a different footer image. To help point you in the right direction, I have created a lightbox of images on iStock with several images that could be a good backgrounder...

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_sea…oveCache=1

Hope you are having fun with this... we are!

I wanted to add one more element to inspire you creative types...

The stack of rocks in our logo is a "cairn" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn). Cairns are man made markers that are placed near hiking trails to help other hikers find their way along a path. The cairn makes an interesting element because it is effectively the least amount of resources (a pile of rocks) needed to serve the primary function. This is a central tenet of agile development -- doing exactly what is required without expending unnecessary resources.

In sum, it would be interesting if the footer contained a background image of a photo that contained a Cairn (here's an example http://www2.istockphoto.com/file_th…-peak.jpg). Hashrocket's website footer (http://www.hashrocket.com/) does a good job of integrating such an image.

Below are some comparable sites that I thought might be worth sharing with you all:

http://www.hashrocket.com/ (check out how the background changes when you scroll down)
http://www.entp.com/ (clean design)
http://mcp.r09.railsrumble.com/ (standard Rails/Mac design)

I just switched out the attached logo file. It now contains a version for a dark background and a transparent version.

Thanks for your comments... I have redrafted the brief to clarify these questions.