Website design competition - Win £50

[NutterzUK]

Hi,

I have a nice fun little project which will allow you to possibly win £50 and build your portfolio. I have created most of the back end and will code everything, but the project currently needs someone to draw up a design.

I've seen a lot of creative flare on this forum so I'm going to open it up as a little competition. It will open for 1 week only (assuming there are a few submissions to choose from) and will end on Monday 14/01/2103.

The person who designs the best design gets the money and will see their design made into a fully functional website. I don't plan to make any money from this site, but the back end (PHP and database) I may use on my own portfolio.

The site spec:

Description: My partners family always write wish lists so that everyone gets a present which they would like to receive, for Christmas, Birthdays, Weddings etc, this is fairly normal. The problem comes when people are not all living in the same house and so you don't know who has bought what, even with a list. This site will allow users to sign up, create a list and share it with their friends for free. People will be able to view their friends wish list, and mark what has been purchased already. I will be making an Android and perhaps iOS app also to go with the website. There is a four step process, which would be nice to put somewhere on the home page although it is not essential, perhaps with some graphics:

1- Register using quick registration
2- Write a list
3- Share your list
4- Put your feet up and enjoy the party.


- There will be on the homepage a login box (Email + Password).
- There needs to be icons for Facebook, Twitter and G+.
- The site will be hosted at http://www.my-gift-list.co.uk
- It would be nice to have a list page also where users can view there list, but it is likely that the homepage design will be re-used with some slight modifications for the other pages. The other pages (which don't need designs necesserily but if you wish feel free), are:
- MyLists (Shows lists you own and lists you are viewing).
- Account Details (Just to allow users to unregister if they wish).
- Create a new list.
- Registration
- There needs to be space for one Google Ad box (Hopefully to pay for webhosting + server, but probably not).

The rules:

- Submissions need to be posted on the forum first, any winner must be able to email me a PSD file (via trust) after.
- Any images used from elsewhere need to be free for use and free of any copyright (Links to places where any stock images came from would be good).
- Unlimited submissions.
- The winner will be based on the homepage design, if there are two very close then it will be judged based on the layout for any other pages given.
- The winner has to be willing to allow me all rights to the design to use to build the website, if they wish they may have a backlink placed in the footer.

An idea I had
You can use this if you wish (or not, up to you):
- A wooden background (representing a table most likely), with a vertically placed roll of wrapping paper. The underside of the wrapping paper extended horizontally to create the white space for the content. Around the wrapping paper some (perhaps cartoony) objects like scissors, sellotape and maybe a gift tag. The top menu could be drawn on a gift ribbon. A notice perhaps somewhere to say the website is 100% free, probably on one of the gift tags.

Good luck!

 

[NutterzUK]

What happens when you share your list, someone logs on and decides to buy you that toaster you asked for...and then someone else logs on and decides to buy you that toaster you asked for?

Can someone mark a gift as purchased but keep that from the person that created the gift?

Complicated, but I hope you get my meaning.

I've passed this on to a work freind as well

Yep, spot on. When someone purchases something they can mark it as "purchased". Then the person who owns the list cannot see this, but the people who are watching the list can see it . The backend which I created separates *Owners* from *Watchers*, which means you can watch a list which you are not the owner of (And see what is ticked off).
This was my inspiration for the idea, this year my partner received two epilators one from myself and one from her dad as she put it on her wish list, she's not that hairy, and SLI epilators isn't something she wants to do, she doesn't see the efficiency gains in duel wielding..

 

[NutterzUK]

You mean something like this?

http://www.wishlistr.com/

Yes, similar to that only I believe that actually sends the list rather than letting people use it to see what others have already purchased, and I would be making an iOS and Android app to accompany it. It may well have been done before, but this is a project I want to do for my portfolio, for my friends and because it will be useful to others rather than to make money.

 

[NutterzUK]

No entries yet? Looks like this might be an easy one to win!

 

[NutterzUK]

Hi,

Thanks for your input. It does appear some people have taken this in the wrong lighting.
As it clearly says, I do not aim to make a profit out of this. This is just something to build portfolios and as a bit of fun. I'll be losing money since i'll be paying for the server, and shelling out £50 for someone to do something which will hopefully benefit themselves (and yes, me too).

£50? That probably doesn't even equate to minimum wage.

Cuchalain, this is not aiming to make money. It probably would be minimum wage anyway unless you were to take over 10 hours, however I'm not even going to get into that as it's not the point.

http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html

RoyMi6, thank you for your helpful contribution.
Is it for a charity or non-profit, yes. Is it for a band? no. Do you vehemently oppose the cause (hopefully not). Is it through an add agency or design firm - no. Then looks like the overall answer is yes. However, this is somewhat irrelevant as it's a competition, not working for free.

Sounds just like Amazon's wish list.

or a bit like john lewis wedding gift list

Yes it is like amazons wish list, and yes it's like john lewis, but both of those sites require you to buy from their own shop and not anywhere. Also, once again this has been discussed and nowhere did it say this is a new massive idea to make tonnes of money. No no no. So to those who wanted to quickly jump on that boat before actually reading the post, I would appreciate it if you would actually read it. Do you really think that if I had an idea which I thought was new, innovative and was going to make me a fortune but I was just dying for a designer, I would post it on a public forum?


Thanks, and good luck anyone who wants to try.

 

[NutterzUK]

No they don't. I am able to flag anything on an Amazon wish list with "I have bought this item elsewhere."

Oh ok, that's good to know but to be honest that is totally irrelevant as I am in no way trying to compete with amazon. I am competing with nobody as the service isn't aiming to make a profit. I don't like where this thread is going and it is getting totally derailed from what it actually is meant to be, perhaps I didn't explain well enough in the opening post.

 

[NutterzUK]

Thankyou Harvey for understanding.

There is a phrase for this which is rather fitting which I was often told when I was young, if you have nothing positive or constructive to say... don't say it.

I'm not sure why this is being compared to "slave labour", do you compare any of your other portfolio or CV enhancing activities slave labour? It's a competition, when Blue Peter asks people to send in examples of what they made at home, is that slave labour too? This is for whoever tries it as much as its for me. This has gone way off the rails.

I see the point by aln saying that it may make money in advertising revenue, fine, if the winner wants 50% of any revenue gained from any advertising once the server costs have been taken out then that's fine, that's really not the point, or it can be donated to a charity if you prefer. It's probably going to be a matter of pennies rather than even a pound... or better still, feel free to enter a design without any space for advertising.

Please read again the first few words of this whole thread:
"I have a nice fun little project"
Not many words later it says it is not to make money.

Put them together and some people seem to get from that something along the lines of:
"I want to compete with amazon and make a fortune, I might quit my PhD study to become a gift list creating tycoon, and leave you with nothing". Gee.

 

[NutterzUK]

Thanks Leezer, i'm not actually sure why nobody "believes a word coming out of my mouth". I'm not so sure this is true but if that's the way you want to take it and you want to ruin this for anyone that was interested then fine.

Conditions stink? What that the winner can have half of anything it makes (if anything) and that it's not actually aiming to make money but to help build portfolios as a fun project.

You know what, you really need to find something better to do with your time than trying to ruin other peoples threads, since you've effectively opened your conversation by calling me a liar, i'm not really interested in having much a conversation with you, I think it says more about you than it does myself.

Forget it though, please do close this thread, i've had quite enough of it.
Since nobody has submitted any submissions or anything actually remotely useful then let's just close this idea and move on, we can call the competition off. Sorry to anyone who was actually considering submitting something, since Leezer fancies attacking my personality and people can't see past money that's the end of that.

 

[NutterzUK]

Any builders out there want to take part in my loft extension competition? £50 for the builder who converts my loft the best, you can even supply your own materials and use the resultant photos on your advertising literature!

Joking aside, not cool mate, if you want work done cheap go to elance or logoguru (and see what 'cheap' actually is, hint its not around £50). Not trying to be funny but please don't belittle what it takes to actually design a site.

This is great service if you want a draft page: http://www.logoguru.co.uk/services/a-web-page and unbelievably cheap as its all done offshore.

I do need to firstly say, if you are not interested, "mate", why are you posting?
I am sorry if you feel that you feel this is "belittling" to anyone who has the skillset to create a design, I certainly don't myself (I could try but it wouldn't be very good) and I realise it takes a lot of time. It does seem though that if you actually read the thread that it is quite the opposite. I happily said, anyone can have 50% of any money the website makes. I will be coding it, the HTML/CSS+ Jquery, creating the PHP and database backend. This would take much longer I can promise you and the winner would be having 50% of that, so really, I don't think it's belittling. When someone does something for themselves, creates a little project to put on their portfolio, maybe some pieces of art etc, they do that for free and to show what they have done. Is that undervaluing their time also? If you're out of work and you actually want to have a go at making something which you can say, hey look.. I made that, and feel proud of it when you go for a job interview then that's worth your time, besides again, the point was that I would actually be doing the vast majority of work and giving away half of it, it's not a case of money. The money was just put there as a little reward, not as a "payment" as such. Also if you had read the thread fully not only would you realise that, but you'd also realise that the last post was some time ago saying that it's closed, I don't see why it needs discussing further (Unless you have too much time on your hand and replying to threads with little or no thought is what you enjoy doing). This brings me to think that by posting a response to something which is settled and done, just repeating what others have already said, shows how much you value your own time.

I am sorry if you feel in any way offended by my offer, perhaps you are of the view that the design is more than 50% of the work, or perhaps you are of the view that if you have nothing better to be doing at the time you shouldn't be bettering your portfolio in any way, but that's fine. Hopefully if you apply for a job any time soon they don't ask you about any projects you've worked on, but certainly I don't recall many people going to job interviews successfully saying they have worked on 0 projects and created nothing with no portfolio. Funnily enough, i've never been out of a job myself so I wouldn't know too much about the hiring process, so perhaps you are correct and doing anything to be part of a project or as a bit of fun, practise or to better yourself and your CV in any way is a huge waste of time.

Had I wanted a professional to create some masterpiece then I would have posted it up on elance or something similar, I am not new to those sites, however since it's just a project not to make money but for a bit of fun, to create something useful and to add to any CV ( backlinks would have been fine ) I didn't think that was the place for it.

Please, next time if you wish to jump into a thread which doesn't actually concern you in any way if you are not interested, at least read and try to understand what is being asked and why before replying.

I am genuinly sorry if I have offended anyone, that wasn't at all my intention, it was just a bit of fun, however i'm afraid I have very little time for people that either attack my personality for it or re-post things which have already been said.

Finally:
"Any builders out there want to take part in my loft extension competition? £50 for the builder who converts my loft the best, you can even supply your own materials and use the resultant photos on your advertising literature!"

Are you kidding? Please tell me how this is slightly similar? A loft extension is something you probably don't practise at, and it costs money to do. To create a design costs time, probably a lot, but if you're looking to do something for a bit of fun that's fine. Playing games costs time and people enjoy it, does that mean that it's a waste of money? No, that's not what it's about. Also, did I ask anyone to code anything and complete everything in my name? No. I like coding, I will often code things instead of playing games because that's what I like to do. If someone asks me to code something interesting which will benefit me in some way then great, i'll do that. Before you then assume my time is worth nothing and I don't know what I'm doing, I teach programming at a top 20 UK university. If you are into creating graphics and you don't have a current project, I would think that's the same and you may want to spend your time doing something useful. Evidently, you like to spend your time posting on forums, which is fine.

 

[NutterzUK]

I did read your original post properly and was simply pointing out (in a tongue in cheek stylee, granted) the the majority of professional designer/developers will see it in the light that I did.

I know you weren't trying to get cheap labour and appreciate what you were trying to do but the market these days for professional developers/designers is extremely competitive and getting harder and harder to make money in with offshore sweatshops knocking out sites for tuppence and the nuggets from clients such as "My nephew has just created a website for his chess club and says its really easy and only takes a couple of hours, so why is your quote £10,000???". I've run my own software house for 15 years now, worked my knackers off 7 days a week and seen sites like Elance etc decimate part of the market with cheap foreign labour that a UK company cannot even remotely price-match so when I see posts like your original one it strikes a nerve.

As for why I was posting, you obviously missed the link I included that would have helped you out.

Thanks for the link, and sorry. I also know that there are a huge amount of cowboy developers around who who don't do the industry any good, but that's not really a nerve I was at all intending to hit. My plan was for myself to invest a lot of time in the site and to have something good to show for it, and I was happy to share that with someone.

Again, thanks for the link and sorry about my rant, it wasn't necessary.