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!

If you’re living in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom and you haven’t upgraded to CS3 yet? This may be a good excuse to do so.

If you purchase either Adobe® Creative Suite® Design Premium, Adobe Creative Suite Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium, or Adobe Master Collection directly from Adobe between April 21, 2008 and May 26, 2008, you will be automatically entered for a chance to win one (1) copy (100 copies available) of Adobe Master Collection software!

CS3 Master Collection is the choice for the multi-disciplinary agency. It holds everything you need for video-editing, image manipulation, print design and web design. The coolest thing about CS3 Master Collection must be the fact that it all uses one installer and one serial!

What are you waiting for? Order your CS3 now. [Official rules]