Call-to-arms to all designers! It's time for new Banners and a new logo

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December 1st arrived! did you marked the date last year?
This is the time for our Call-to-arms to all designers!!!

Good day TNWiki's gurus, judges, readers, and authors,

We hope that you had a lovely year, and like anything else a "great year" also must come to an end, and the new year is almost here... With your help and the help of all our awesome communities members, we are all working to make sure that next year will be even better. Opening a new year is great time for new beginning, new desires, new thoughts, and A NEW DESIGNING.

And it's starts with our annual project to select new banners and new logo for 2019.

Like in the past several years we are looking for new Banners and new logo to the TechNet WIKI. We are using these images in our blogs, articles, promoting the community, and the winning images will be used and presented in our official groups online and at Microsoft website.

All you have to do is create new image(s) for our TechNet Wiki Group (banners and/or Logo), publish your files in the TechNet Wiki Group on Facebook, get feedback from the community, and once it is ready contact one of the organizers and we will provide you a link to upload your work to OneDrive. Next you will be able to register your images to the contest.

The last date for sharing your work is December 31st 2018. We request all TechNet Wiki Members kindly share your banner/logo in the Facebook group as soon as possible. Please keep reading on How to post your work.

It's time to test your design skills!

Background

During online and offline activities of the TechNet community, we are using images to promote the TechNet Wiki in general and in order to improve the visual affect. For example images can be used to improve the looks & feel of announcements, blogs, articles, and even offline use like presentations. Banners are usually presented on top of posts and Logo is used for the content.

How to Post your work?

Step 1: Create image according to the "Banner Guidelines" or "Logo Guidelines". You can create as many images as you want and we encourage you to do so. Moreover, you can upload and register several versions of the same image as well.

  • The name of the image is used as the image ID. Therefore it must be unique and follow this format:
    <your name>_<unique number for each of your images>.jpg
    For example: RonenAriely_01.jpg
  • Avoid copyright infringement! You must avoid using images that are not yours, unless you have the proper licence. There are a lot of free images online published under different "Creative Commons licenses". You can use Google advance search in order to find images that come with a licence that fit your use, and always confirm the licence.

Step 2: Upload the image(s) to the TechNet Wiki Facebook group for feedback.

  • Image that will not be presented on Facebook, will not get into the contest, even if it is registered!
  • Contact one of the organizers and he will provide you with a private link for OneDrive. Each participant will get a link to upload and manage his own images on OneDrive.
  • Do not share your link! This is a personal link and anything that is done with the link is under your name and your responsibility.

Step 3: Once the image is ready, register the image on the Wiki registration page.

On the same time upload the original image to our OneDrive, using the link provided for you in step 2.

Step 4: We will give the community a chance to vote for the Images. The community votes will be taken under configuration and will guide us to the top images.

Step 5: Finally one logo will be selected from the top images, by members of the TechNet Wiki Council and the organizers.

Place your work today and mark your history with our TechNet Wiki.

The banners must fit for the TechNet Wiki Group on Facebook. Therefore you must follow Facebook guidelines for group's banners. Unfortunately, from time to time, Facebook changed their format including the size for cover photo, which is used by groups. The images which were created for last year do not fit for current format. Moreover, standard cover photo (personal page) size is not the same as the cover photo on a group. The dimensions of a group photo are 820 x 428.

Important! Facebook interface adds a management panel at the top of the image (a blue panel with search text box, link to your personal page, link to home page, and several buttons), and it also adds a management panel at the bottom of the image (a white panel with options like Joined, Notifications, Share, and More). Therefore you should leave some space in the upper and the bottom of the image.

It is highly recommended to test your work on Facebook group, in order to see how it fits into the overall design of the page. For this purpose, you can open a new group on Facebook, for testing.

Logo Guidelines

The logo is a small square icon version, which should fit as logo for any purpose from stickers to T-shirt and online posts.

  • The Logo image should be about 56x56 pix.
  • The background must be one color, so we could make it transparent if needed (You can post a version which has transparent background).

Tools and accessories

Create banners using PowerPoint

You can download this PowerPoint file, which includes some tips for non-professional designers, who want to create a banner in a fast and simple way. I'll assume that you do not have a professional graphic application, and I'll show you how to use PowerPoint for the task.

Open Test Group On Facebook

Anyone can open a group on Facebook, and it is HIGHLY recommended to create a test group for the sake of the work. Facebook groups has a specific format and the only way to examine your work in the same way that it will be used, is to examine it on Facebook system.

 

Have a question?

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