Design Contest: "10 Years of Euro Cash"

[chrisild]

While I like the "spiral of feet" too, the conditions (see reply #3 here) were unfortunately quite specific about what text elements should appear on the piece, and what should not be used. Indicating the issuing country, and the "2002-2012", was a must. However, "The design may not include the name of the single currency (that is to say the word 'euro' or similar) or any other text." And I guess that Tipik, the communication agency involved, was to simply pick those submissions out that somehow did not meet the conditions - regardless of any artistic qualities otherwise ...

Christian

[annovi.frizio]

ok right  :-)

[chrisild]

Two more designs that "did not make it". Interestingly, these two can be found at the competition website. In another forum, somebody played with the URLs a little, and came across these files:

http://www.eurocoin-competition.eu/sites/default/files/imagecache/big/contributions/eurocoin_0.jpg
http://www.eurocoin-competition.eu/sites/default/files/imagecache/big/contributions/eurocoin_1.jpg

Below are the two, roughly adapted in size. And yes, one of the two has the stars upside down. Still, I find it interesting to see all those designs ...

Christian

[augsburger]

Is it me or does the second one say 2013 and look like someone had to do their school homework on the bus just before handing it in?

[annovi.frizio]

I regret not being able to vote on all proposals submitted... 

[chrisild]

Is it me or does the second one say 2013 and look like someone had to do their school homework on the bus just before handing it in?

It's you. Sure, those hand-drawn designs are not "technically perfect" at all. But you cannot have both - a competition that basically everybody here can participate in, and one that allows professionally done designs only. Now if you look at the first link (eurocoin_0.jpg), you'll see a large version of that design. And you can tell that that it does in fact say 2012 - just with a pretty wide bottom line of the second "2".

Christian

[chrisild]

I regret not being able to vote on all proposals submitted... 

On one hand I agree, it would have been great. Problem is, we don't know yet how many designs were actually submitted. With a dozen or so, it would have been easy to pick one, maybe one that is better than the five finalists. A thousand or so, and the "voters" would have been overwhelmed - many would have said, phh, I won't go through so many. Also, with just a few designs to ultimately choose from, it is easier to show "all" options in web or print articles, and then say "vote here" ...

What I do hope, however, is that after some time we get to see as many of the submitted designs as possible. I buoni, i brutti, i cattivi.

Christian

[Figleaf]

Christian has an excellent point, Frizio. If you participate in a design contest (or apply for a job or a contract), make sure you respect all the restrictions, or you have a great chance you'll never get beyond the first screening. You can always try to argue about the restrictions when your design is selected.

Peter

[augsburger]

When I entered the olympic 50p competition in the UK they said they wanted the designs to be the same as the one submitted, so any mistakes or errors or strange looking things would have had to be taken into account. They did clean mine up a little bit and changed some things, but it is a difficult one to get right.

Of those who entered the olympic 50p competition i'd say half were designers and the other half were not. Three worked for the Royal Mint previously, one had already designed the common £2 coin. The simple fact is, you are opening up a competition with 400 million possible entrants. Which are you going to take, the professional looking images or the ones that look a bit naff? You take the best designs, perhaps there could be one or two that are not professionally done but look good, but those who know what they are doing have a much greater chance.

With so little time between the submission of the designs and putting them out to vote, the board did not seem to change anything, and I bet all five of those designs submitted are by people who are designers or connected to art, or possibly to coin design, their images are professional. And i bet that those choosing the designs immediatly rejecteed those that were drawn badly or in any other way "imperfect"!

[chrisild]

Agreed, a professional - and preferably somebody who already has some experience with coin design - will have had better chances in the "first round" than amateurs. I cannot imagine that those committee and jury members would actually say, yes, Design #824 is somewhat poor but it has potential so let's make a professional design based on this. Also, we should keep the designs of the two previous issues in mind, particularly the euro-stickman design (2009). Guess they would not want anything like that again next year ...

According to the conditions, the five finalists were selected in a process of three stages: First, the pre-screening (primarily done by the communication agency) that sorted the ones out which did not meet the formal criteria. Then three DG ECFIN staff (Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs) selected the 200 best designs. Finally, "a professional jury consisting of two professional designers/artists, a representative of the Euro Coin Sub-Committee (ECSC) of the Economic and Financial Committee, a representative of the Mint Directors Working Group (MDWG) and one representative of DG ECFIN" selected the designs that people can now vote for.

Such design contests have their flaws. (Remember the Estonian euro design contest and its result?) But at least they get people interested in the subject. Or so I hope.

Christian

[annovi.frizio]

http://www.webalice.it/annovi.frizio/p_eurofantasy27.html

italian version...



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:-)

[augsburger]

Did you enter these designs Fritz, or have you just taken the images from the competition and changed them a little?

[chrisild]

Did you enter these designs Fritz, or have you just taken the images from the competition and changed them a little?

As Frizio writes at his website, that is "Only my graphic interpretation". He has done that a lot of times in the past, and posted quite a few of those in this forum and elsewhere. In my opinion they are helpful - after all, the names that will actually be used on a coin will be different from ISSUING COUNTRY. "Eire" for example is much shorter than "Bundesrepublik Deutschland".

Christian

[annovi.frizio]

yes chris, you are right  :-)

[augsburger]

Did you enter the competition Frizo?