Well… Picking a winner in my blog design contest was far from easy. I had multiple favorites and so I asked a few friends to help me pick the winner. We eventually narrowed it down to two and then did a final voting round.

The winner is Marten De Jongh, a freelance photographer/designer from The Netherlands. You’ll see his design appear on my blog mid-january.

I’d like to thank everyone who participated. You guys did an fantastic job!

Last week I realized that I am not 100% happy with the blog theme I recently installed. I like it, but it’s not quite exactly what I wanted. In all honesty, I don’t really like fiddling around with CSS and HTML. I hate having to navigate around different browser implementations and therefore never really got in to CSS and HTML. I also realize that there are people out there with much better design skills than me.

Last week I asked my Twitter followers if someone would be interested in designing/building a theme for my blog in exchange for CS4 Master Collection. I also asked if they would want to participate in a contest or if I should just pick one person based on previous work. The majority of the “votes” went to an open contest and so here we are…

What am I looking for?
A nice, fresh, clean and unique theme for my blog. You would provide both the PSD files and the WordPress theme files. The code has to be 100% valid and as SEO friendly as possible. The main content area must be at least 640 pixels wide. The theme would have at least 1 widget enabled sidebar on the right.

What’s in it for you?
Eternal fame ;-) and CS4 Master Collection (a €3300 value).

Moodboard
To get you started, I put together a little moodboard that should hopefully give you an idea of what I like. I like minimalistic and clean with nice typography.

I also like these designs (or parts of it):
http://www.fontshop.be/
http://www.engadget.com/
http://www.adobeusergroup.nl/
http://www.adobeusergroupxl.nl/
http://www.8020studio.com/
http://aigany.org
http://concentric-studio.com/work/

Deadline
To spare you from doing unnecessary work, I will judge this based on the static designs. You can add a link to the design in the comment section. The designs have to be in on December 18th 2009. I will pick and announce a winner on December 21st. The winner will then create the actual WordPress theme. The final theme has to be delivered on January 15th 2010. Don’t forget: delivering the WordPress theme is part of this contest! The contest is open to anyone anywhere.

More questions?
If you have more questions, feel free to leave a comment or use the “Get in touch” form.

Looking forward to seeing your designs!

Did you purchase CS4 Web Premium or CS4 Master Collection on or after September 15, 2009? Then get your free copy of Flex Builder 3 Standard today!

Check out https://freeriatools.adobe.com/cs for more info.

I would also like to remind you that Flex Builder 3 is also/still free for education and unemployed developers. Additionally ColdFusion is also free for education.

In the summer it’s usually a little quieter at work so why not use this quiet time to learn something new? ActionScript 3.0 for instance. Doug Winnie, Adobe’s group manager for designer/developer workflows, just started a new series on Adobe TV titled: “ActionScript 1:1″.

ActionScript 1:1 is a free training resource that combines video tutorials, documentation and sample files to teach you the basics of ActionScript 3.0 using Flash Professional CS4. The course is specifically designed for Flash designers and animators who want to add some custom interaction using ActionScript 3.0 but need a little bit of help getting started. Doug starts off with the very basics and then gradually explains more ActionScript that will make your designs and animations interactive and dynamic. He makes it very easy to understand and I’m sure you’ll be coding ActionScript 3.0 in no time.

ActionScript 1:1 is available on Adobe, through RSS and on iTunes. See Doug’s blog for the links to the videos and the sample projects.

Flash on!

There are a couple of ways you can use Flex and Flash together. I’ve already showed you a couple of those in previous tutorials. In this video, I’ll show you how to use the SWC files created by a Flex library project in Flash CS4. That way, you can have an ActionScript developer work in Flex who can then hand off compiled SWC files to a Flash designer.

Is Adobe going to open source the Flash Player? What can you expect at MAX? What about the competition from Microsoft? What’s coming to Adobe Labs?

Kevin Lynch, Adobe’s chief technology officer, answers these questions and more in an interview with eWeek.com

It’s a bit lengthy but an excellent read if you want to find out more about where Adobe is headed.

The cat is out of the bag! Get a big black marker and write “CS4″ on September 23rd! Or even better: Go and register yourself to be part of the special web broadcast where we will announce CS4 and show you all of it’s cool new features. And if you’re in Europe, you have a chance to see it before the rest of the world!

Additionally, you also want to check with your local Adobe User Group. Most of them are organizing special events on the 23rd! I know the Belgian and the Dutch user groups have something special planned and I’m sure your local AUG will also join in the festivities.