And the winners are...
We're delighted to announce the winners of the Webvanta Web Design Contest. Designers who participated in the contest used our hosted CMS to produce sophisticated, database-driven sites without any back-end programming. These sites illustrate the complete design flexibility that Webvanta offers, allowing designers to use any HTML, CSS, and JavaScript they want, while gaining instant access to the database and content-management facilities that Webvanta provides.
The number of designers who took on the challenge also proves the ease with which designers can become adept at using Webvanta.
The top prize goes to Gunpowder Graphics, created by designer John Slingerland.
Judges comment: “Simply beautiful with strong concept. Delightful experience scrolling down to the roots on the home page.”
To fully appreciate this radical design, gradually resize your browser window while watching the clouds.
In commenting on his experience learning and using Webvanta, John said, “Webvanta has some great features and I like how quickly I get a design up and functional in the system. They also have the best customer support I have ever seen. The live chat is great. If I ever had any questions they were right there to answer them and solve any problems I had almost instantly.”
Congratulations, John! Your MacBook Pro is on its way.
The three runners-up will each receive an iPod Touch:
Alan Fentiman built his own site to showcase his freelance films.
Judge's comment: “You get to see how the information design works, and for this site it is a fairly simple organization, but it is consistent and easy to follow.”
Devon Fleming, designed and built by Louis Plante of Plante Graphics.
Judge's comment: “This site uses color to its advantage. The reader can scan the site quickly to find what they're looking for. The designer balanced content with promotion well.”
Z3 Media, created by designer John Braunstein as his company site.
Judge's comment: “A strong brand identity with great use of rich color, visuals complemented by clean copy, nicely integrated animation, and streamlined visual presentations that worked well with the simple navigation structure.”
All four of these sites will receive free hosting through 2010.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to build a site to submit to the contest. It's supremely gratifying to see the innovative sites designers build with the tool we've spent the past two years creating.
We'd also like to thank the six designers who contributed their time to judge the entries:
- Micah Bowers Creative Director, Bluefire Productions
- Andrew Crow Senior experience designer, Adaptive Path
- Bill Mead Web Design Instructor, Art Institute, Sacramento
- Veerle Pieters Founder and graphic/web designer at Duoh!
- Elliot Jay Stocks Freelance designer and author of Sexy Web Design: Creating Interfaces that Work
- Ryan Taylor Freelance designer/developer at Havoc Inspired and producer of Boagworld podcast
Reader Comments
1 comments
Thank you
From: Louis Plante, 02/26/10 06:36 AM
I just wanted to thank the Webvanta team for their hard work on the system that allowed me to create such a great site for my clients. I've got 3 new clients lined up because of the ease of use of Webvanta. I want to thank the judges too for your time