The Nucleus CMS Skin Design Contest is divided into 2 divisions as follows:
Division A - Nucleus Skin
This division is for designers familiar with or would like to learn Nucleus' skins and templates system. Entrants must submit a fully working skin in a single .zip file that can be downloaded and imported by users.
| Best Overall Design |
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| Winner: | $100 USD |
| Runner-up: | $50 USD Amazon Book Voucher |
| Criteria: | - Submissions are assessed on overall merits, with the main emphasis being on useability in Nucleus (i.e. maintenance of skin and ease of customization by the user)
- Additional functions, such as styling for installed plugins, will be considered.
- Winning submission is determined by a panel of 5 judges who will score submissions out of a total of 20.
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| Users' Choice |
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| Winner: | $100 USD |
| Runner-up: | $50 USD |
| Criteria: | - To be determined by forum members in a forum poll.
- Any forum member can vote.
- Only one vote allowed per forum member.
- Registration of multiple forum accounts to vote is not permitted.
- A link to an offsite demo will be provided so entrants can display the full capability of a skin (e.g. styling for installed plugins).
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| Most Accessible |
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| Winner: | $100 USD |
| Runner-up: | $45 USD |
| Criteria: | - Submissions are assessed on accessbility across the biggest range of browsers and platforms (i.e. Firefox on Windows XP, IE6 on Windows, Opera on Windows, text readers such as Lynx, Safari on MacOSX, etc).
- Accessibility will be judged by how well the skin assists/detracts from the user's browsing experience across different platforms. In old browsers/platforms, the skin should degrade gracefully without harming the browsing experience. The skin should function equally well in a monitor with low resolution as well as a high resolution.
- Bonus points will be awarded for making the skin accessible to other forms of browsing media (e.g. screenreaders, handheld devices and mobile phones); and for making the skin accessible for the visually impaired and other forms of disability.
- Inclusion of styling for plugins will not be considered.
- Winning submission is determined by a panel of 5 judges who will score submissions out of a total of 20.
- Contestants are not eligible to judge.
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| Most Elegant |
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| Winner: | $100 USD |
| Runner-up: | $45 USD |
| Criteria: | - Submissions are assessed on the "elegance" of both the appearance of the skin and its code structure (e.g. minimalistic code, readability, structure, the ease of adapting the code).
- Size of the overall skins package and loading time will be taken into account.
- Inclusion of styling for plugins will not be considered.
- Winning submission is determined by a panel of 5 judges who will score submissions out of a total of 20.
- Contestants are not eligible to judge.
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Division B - Static Design
This is a division for designers who want to participate but are new to Nucleus and unfamiliar with the skinning system. Entrants can submit a static design to be ported later by the Nucleus CMS community. A static design consists of 7 html pages:
- The Front Page - How the default blog would be displayed.
- Item Page - How each blog item would be displayed.
- Search - How the search page would show up, with or without search results.
- Member Details & Contact page - this includes a mailform which can be styled using these classes.
- Error Pages - These are used by Nucleus to spit out Nucleus errors. These shouldn't look like blue screens, or should they? ;)
- Archive List- A list of archived posts per month / Calendar
- Archive Page - How the archives of a specific month would be displayed.
| Best Overall Design |
|---|
| Winner: | $90 USD |
| Runner-up: | $50 USD Amazon Book Voucher |
| Criteria: | - Submissions are assessed on overall merits, with the main emphasis being on visual appeal; accessibility of the design to different browsers and platforms; and the elegance of code (e.g. understandability of the code, minimalistic coding, how easy it will be to port the finished design).
- Winning submission is determined by a panel of 5 judges who will score submissions out of a total of 20.
- Contestants are not eligible to judge.
|
| Users' Choice |
|---|
| Winner: | $90 USD |
| Runner-up: | $50 USD Amazon Book Voucher |
| Criteria: | - To be determined by forum members in a forum poll.
- Any forum member can vote and only one vote allowed per forum member.
- Registration of multiple forum accounts to vote is not permitted.
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