ZipTies

The community has voted, and the votes have been tallied. The winner of Project Icon, with 35% of the votes, is Entry ID “BD,” otherwise known as Ben Dunkle. Congratulations, Ben! The runner-up was VS, otherwise known as Verena Segert, so we’ll be attaching that set to the alternate color palette that is selectable from the profile screen. As we prepare for RC1, Ben and Verena will be revising a couple of their icons so that both sets will use the same metaphors, creating the colored “on” states, and creating the larger size of each icon for use in the h2 screen headers. We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to select from so many great options, and would like to express again our appreciation for all the designers who participated in the contest. Thanks also to the more than 3700 people who completed the voting survey and took the time to weigh on on the individual icon sets.

The wide lead of BD and VS made it clear that voters had a clear preference for these sets.

Question 20 was not mandatory, so a few hundred people skipped it, but the responses we did get (3366 of them) reinforced the fact that the two most popular sets were also the most popular 2nd choices, which made the decision of the judges to go with the popular vote an easy one (take that, electoral college!).

A few of the individual icon metaphors also had a significant lead over the other choices.
Dashboard: 1333 voters (40%) chose a house as the best metaphor. We agree, so both Ben and Verena will be replacing their Dashboard icons.

Media: 2097 voters (65%) chose the combination camera + musical note icon, which was part of Ben’s set. We also really loved it, and Verena will amend her media icon to incorporate this idea.

Plugins: 1682 voters (53%) selected the outlet plug metaphor, which both Ben and Verena used in their sets.

Tools: 1581 voters (49%) liked the combination of two tools better than anything else, so Ben and Verena will try this approach.

So those are the results, and soon you’ll see the new icons coming to a 2.7 installation near you.

Need another look at the entries to remember which one you liked best? Here are some reminder images, as well as the identity of each set’s creator.

BD was Ben Dunkle, a designer, professor and artist from upstate/western New York State. In case you’ve already forgotten, Ben’s icon set is the winner of Project Icon and will become the default icon set after a few minor changes.	VS was Verena Segert, our runner-up, a designer from Germany who presented sets in both grayscale and blue. Her blue icons received more specific voter comments than the gray ones, so we’re planning the second color palette to be in shades of blue so that we can use the blue icon set.
GB was Guillaume Berry, a designer from France who submitted two sets in the same style in order to propose a couple of different metaphors. One of his sets came in third while the other came in last, but whether you only look at the higher scoring set or you combine their votes, Guillaume had the next highest percentage of votes, and many people liked the metaphors he used for various icons. In fact, given the enthusiasm of the community for Guillaume’s icons, we think a great plugin would be one that would allow the user to upload the icon set of their choice. Any volunteers?
OSD was the Open Source Design class at Parson’s in New york City, taught by Mushon Zer-Aviv and consisting of students Alexandra Zsigmond, Ed Nacional, Karen Messing, Khurram Bajwa, Leonie Leibenfrost. Teacher and students worked together to determine their metaphors and visual style.	LS was Luke Smith, a designer from Iowa who specializes in icons among his other design pursuits.

If you need to hire an icon designer any time soon, we highly recommend our Project Icon contestants, who all delivered great work in a very short timeframe. It was great to work with all of them, even for such a short assignment.

So, to sum up:

1. The winning icon sets by Ben Dunkle and Verena Segert will be incorporated into WordPress 2.7 RC1.
2. Someone should write a plugin that would allow anyone to upload a custom icon set (I bet the other contestants could be convinced to release their icon sets for such a purpose).
3. 2.7 is still trucking away, but we can always use help with patches, especially for IE6! (I know, that wasn’t in the main post, but it’s true, so hmph)

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this experiment, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And congratulations again to Ben and Verena!

Canon Europe, world leader in imaging and professional photography solutions, today announced the introduction of its Photo Print Services portfolio to help commercial, print-for-pay printers and professional photographers generate extra revenues through the sale of photobooks, calendars, greeting cards, signs and posters. The rapid uptake in digital photography and expansion of broadband internet services has led to a significant growth in the photo merchandise industry. In 2007 the market for photobooks, calendars and gifts grew 67% to EUR 378 million and it is expected to grow a further 44% to EUR 545 million in 2008*. Canon’s Photo Print Services offer an extremely attractive option for printers who are keen to tap into this expanding market by diversifying their operations, helping them to add new revenue streams and stand out from the competition.

Canon is working alongside market-leading software partner Transeo Media to provide print customers with highly attractive, easy to use products for their clients. The agreement provides end users with the tools to produce bespoke digital photo albums, calendars and greeting cards using simple drag and drop software. Canon’s PosterArtist software also provides templates, fonts, clip art and hi-res royalty-free images to design head-turning signs and posters in a few simple steps.

In addition to world-class software, the Photo Print Services portfolio includes Canon’s highly acclaimed imagePRESS range of digital colour printers and imagePROGRAF large format printers, as well as flexible in-line and off-line finishing options. Customers can capitalise on Canon’s heritage in photography and digital printing techniques and are supported by professional services to deliver complete, end-to-end workflows.

Professional printers will be able to use Canon’s Photo Print Services to target the consumer market and a range of trade sectors such as education, housing, leisure and tourism. Typical applications include wedding albums, birthday cards, personalised posters for use in schools or at work, signs and calendars. For print businesses, the new services offer an exciting way of reaching new customers with a genuine value added offering. As well as increased margins and incremental profit, print customers can also benefit from quick and low cost implementation and a dramatic return on investment.

Mark Lawn, Canon European Marketing Manager said: “The addition of Photo Print Services offerings to our portfolio is another significant milestone for Canon as we continue to combine state-of-the-art technologies with leading software solutions. We have built on the success of our Path to Profit initiative, introduced at drupa 2008, enhancing our compelling value proposition and helping Print Service Providers grow their businesses through new digital print services.

“Photo Print Services will help our customers to diversify into new markets by taking advantage of the growing digital imaging and merchandising markets. They not only enable our customers to gain a competitive advantage and generate additional income, but also give Canon the opportunity to strengthen customer relationships even further through the provision of genuine end-to-end solutions. Photo Print Services are the perfect addition to our professional print portfolio as we continue to support our customers along the Path to Profit.

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For anyone in KC (or surrounding area):
The Cowtown Computer Congress (http://cowtowncomputercongress.org) (CCCKC) HackerSpace is proud to bring you a Hacker Double Feature . We will be presenting the following movies on Monday September 29th at Harry’s Country Club:

Hackers Are People Too (http://www.hackersarepeopletoo.com/)
-and-
Graffiti Research Lab (First Season) (http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?p=140)

Immediately following the movies, we will break out the laser graffiti machine. YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS EVENT.

This event is open to the public. Especially Hackers, Crackers, Makers, Freaks, Geeks, Nerds, Artists, or anyone else interested in Kansas City’s Tech Scene