Well we’ve pretty much narrowed it down to two possible winners at this stage (click on the thumbnails for the fullview):

I have been in contact with both artists who made these to try to cook up some final designs for the site. I have personally already found one I really like, but the staff has been sort of split on this, so I thought we’d give you guys a chance to use these logos to try something out. This is where we’ve gotten so far with the two designs (click on both images for the full view):

Cheetah Design/Idea:

We changed the second design quite a bit here but also added a sort of mascot. I like the idea of having an animal mascot for the site because a lot of fun graphics can be made with this. The Cheetah obviously being used as a symbol of speed (ZeroSecond) which the site was based on. Its kind of reminiscent of a football mascot/logo. Some of the staff members arguing against this idea have claimed the logo is too simple.

Hourglass Design/Idea:

The basic ideas from the original entry have been kept here and not much has been added. It has been put into a full site design though as you can see if you click on the banner. The Hourglass which makes up the “Z and S” from ZeroSec here is also a sign of speed which the site is based on. It is quite reminiscent of an application logo. Some of the staff members arguing against this idea have claimed it dosen’t suit a blog, but rather an application company site.

——

Now that I’ve shown you what we’ve got so far, I’d like to allow you try your own designs, using these two basic ideas. Below you can download a rar archive with all the PSD files you need (logos, banners, navbars, everything). Try out your own site designs with these logos and send them in to logo@zerosec.ws

DOWNLOAD ALL FILES HERE

Well this has been pushed forward way too far and I’m sorry about that guys but way too much was going on with both the site and life (and a bit of procrastination on top) but here it finally is. First of all let me just thank EVERYBODY who has entered into this competition. Me and the rest of the staff have had a great time seeing the entries flow in and I think you have as well. It was really fun to open my inbox every morning to look through the batch of new banners/logos. Also thank you to all the forum members who engaged themselves in this competition.

Let me also say that some entries were artistically great, but would simply not have suited a blog design. So how were the entries below picked? Basically I asked every crew member of ZeroSec to give me their favourite 3 entries. The following 4 entries received multiple votes (the highest count on one entry being 8 votes) but a lot more received one vote each (those will not be mentioned here though).

Out of interest I’m putting up a voting thread on the forums, to see what you guys think. Please note that the winner of the vote will not necessarily win the competition. The ultimate decision will be made among the ZeroSec admins.

VOTE NOW!

[Note: Flaming in the comments will under no circumstances be allowed and all negative comments aimed at either entries, entrants or staff will be removed immediately and you risk being slapped off to set up a proxy. You have been warned.]

Also I mocked this together from two different entries really quickly which I think better displays how the ansi art entry can be used and why it was liked by a lot of editors:

No we have not forgotten about the Competition! We have now officially closed the competition for entries and we are entering the CHOICE stage. The staff is now looking at what could fit as a logo for the site. We’ll pick 10 entries that will go up for a vote on the forums. We’ll then see what you think about these entries and take that into consideration when picking a winner. Please not, this does NOT mean that whichever entry wins the vote is going to win the competition.

Good luck to everyone and check back here for 10 picks and a voting thread within 24 hours!

Just a short reminder here that there are only 3 days left to enter the Graphics Competition, so if you’ve left any work lying around or still wanted to send something in, DONT FORGET! We’ve gotten loads of awesome entries and I just finished updating the Entries Thread on the forums where you can check out all the entries that have been sent in so far.

Make sure to check out the Competition Category for all the information you need about this competition including information about prizes and so on.

Its around that time that people start going back to work/school, but I hope you had a really refreshing time away from the stress and enjoyed the holidays!

The bad news is, due to the insane mania around the holidays, we have to delay the final date of the Graphics Competition by a bit. The good news is, you’ll have more time to get entries in! We’ve had so many awesome entries from you guys and I couldn’t be happier with your involvement in this competition. I think all of you guys on the forums have had a lot of fun with this as well and I know you are eagerly awaiting a conclusion to this.

We have to delay the competition a bit because choosing and adapting a logo will be quite a lengthy process. Simply too much is going on behind the scenes right now (and trying to spend time with family/friends during Christmas) that we can’t spare the competition as much time as we’d like. I think you’d all agree it’s better to lengthen the competition than make a rash decision.

The (new) Last Date to send in entries: January 10th 2009

On that date, the staff will pick a number of their favourite entries, which fit as logos/banners. Those picks will go up for vote on the forums. The outcome of the vote will not necessarily be the winner, since the staff needs to take several things into consideration that a regular viewer probably wouldn’t think about, but we’ll definitely look at the vote outcome and listen to what every reader has to say.

Only 6 days left to SEND IN YOUR SUBMISSIONS!

Well by now I think every regular visitor of ZeroSec will know that a graphics competition is underway. For all the info your heart may desire about this competition, simply go to the competition category in which you will find all the relevant articles.

This article is posted to announce to you a new prize which the winner of the competition will be awarded with, on top of the one already announced and other prizes to come. Koonukiwear has some awesome originally designed T-Shirts and other miscellanious merchandise to offer, check out their site at Koonukiwear.com.

The winner will get 2 T-Shirts of their choice, a bandana and a pair of sweet shades, all delivered (free of charge of course) to any location in the world.

Check out the sweet motives in their shop by clicking on the images above.

Only 6 days left to SEND IN YOUR SUBMISSIONS!

A user made a comment in the article I posted yesterday encouraging people to enter the competition (yes we do read your comments and care about what you have to say). I think it was quite a good point (read it here), that if people could view all the entries, then they would be more likely to try and compete with them. Therefore I decided to make a thread on the forums with all the entries so far in it.

Check Out All Logo Entries so Far Here

This thread will be updated every 24 hours at the very least, with the latest entries that are sent to the e-mail adress I provided. Please note that you will still be required to send your entry to the e-mail adress provided in the original Logo article, but if you like you can post it in the forum thread as well.

We need to up the ante on the Graphics competition, since we are not getting nearly as many entries as we’d like, so this is basically just a post reminding y’all to enter or to tell that friend of yours who’s pro at design to enter!! I was playing around in Photoshop/Illustrator a bit and came up with the stuff below.

Uh, no i didn’t design that Death Horse myself (I wish i could do stuff like that :/ ), i dragged it from the interwebz, but its just a crappy idea to encourage more of YOU to enter. The original competition article is HERE and the first prize announcement can be found HERE.

Click on the images below to see them in high resolution/quality.

Did you know we currently have a Graphics Competition open? If not then get crackin reading THIS POST. As I mentioned in that post, we are announcing the prizes as we go, and here is the first one. Our friends over at jDownloader have sponsored this great prize which will be one of the prizes that go to the winner of the graphics competition.

The prize is a Rapidshare collectors account with 150,000 rapidshare points. This is an immense amount. Instead of just opening a year long rapidshare account for the winner, he or she gets to choose what to do with these points. Here are some of the most obvious options:

1. Open up one 30 day account and extend it every month (for 15 months) for personal use. The great thing here is that if you wont be using your account for quite a while, then it wont continue to expire past 30 days like it would with a 1 year long account.
2. Open up 15 x 30 day accounts.
3. Mix the two options above as you please.
4. Convert your points and get a RapidShare reward. With 150,000 points you can get the top reward, which is a Samsung Digital camera, but there are also some other sweet rewards (Click HERE for the full list). Below are the coolest ones.

So get designing already and have a shot at winning some sweet prizes as well as getting to see your work displayed at the top of ZeroSec! You can send in as many entries as you like!

A few days ago we introduced the new design of ZeroSec and god damn a lot of you were bitching about the new logo . It was mainly me who liked it a lot, but I’ve heard the voice of the people and decided to give ya’ll a chance to prove your skillz to everyone around the world and affect a major change on this site.

Remember, I’m doing this for you guys, so lets make sure we get a LOT of entries: Spread the news about this to as many people you know. We are a site which makes zero profit because we choose NOT to include things like full page, intrusive ads, so if you want to support us then now is a great opportunity to do so: Design a new logo! If you are not good at design, then paste the URL of this article in as many IRC channels, forums and chat windows as you can and talk to potential designers. Lets make this interesting.

Jesse wanted to give making a logo a shot, but won’t have any time, so he left you guys some things to work with if you want to use the original ZeroSec logo shape as your foundation. I don’t do 3D at all so ll just paste you what Jesse said:

[00:22:03] <Jesse> http://rapidshare.com/files/168816343/zerosecweb.c4d
[00:22:17] <Jesse> C4D file, which will open in Cinema 4D, with VRAY added as render engine.
[00:22:30] <Jesse> Vray can be turned off in effects panel.

or

[00:22:47] <Jesse> http://rapidshare.com/files/168816495/zerosecweb.obj
[00:22:50] <Jesse> Object file that can be opened in Max, Maya, Lightwave, etc, etc.

Also, the FONT used for the original logo can be found HERE! You may of course also make a completely Fresh logo if you like as well. Those files are just there to make it easier for those of you who want to improve on the original logos shape.

Send as many entries as you like to: logo@zerosec.ws

Requirements: The logo may not take up the entire width span of the top banner like the old logo. We need a space to the right of the logo where announcements and a potential ad banner can be placed, necessary for paying the server bills. Include a preview .jpg image and the .PSD file (or .c4d if you worked in Cinema 4D etc…) in your entries.

Time Limit: This competition will end on Christmas Day (the 25th of December). This gives you almost a full month and plenty of time to come up with something. On December 25th, all the entries will go up for a public poll on our forums. On December 29th the top 5 in the polls will be considered by the staff as winners of the competition and a decision will be made on the winner. The amount of votes for each entry in the top 5 will naturally be considered into our decision, but at the end of the day we who run ZeroSec will make a final decision, but the open poll up until that point will allow you to make your voice heard.

For the winner: As to the winner, we hope we can convey our thanks adequately. First and foremost, we do hope that they would take great pride in having their work at the top of zerosec, but the winner of the competition will also get a series of prizes, some of which will be announced in update articles in the coming weeks. The ZeroSec staff will stand for some of the prizes, but if you want to sponsor a prize (if you have a company or site you want to promote for example) then we will make a separate post on ZeroSec announcing this sponsored prize with a banner to your company/site (if your sponsored prize is good enough). Send an email to logo@zerosec.ws (with “prize sponsor” as the subject) and tell us about the prize you want to sponsor and the site you want to promote.

Good luck, and most importantly: have fun!

Kinda recently I added the “Contests” section in the forums, so I thought we have to start sometimes. Starting off with a small, simple but fun competition. What can you win?

1st Place: 1 Month RapidShare Premium Account + Custom title @ Forums

2nd Place: 1 Month RapidShare Premium Account

3rd Place: Custom title @ Forums

The rapidshare premium month will commence whenever the winners wish. The custom titles can be anything that dosen’t insinuate you’re staff and can be any colour you wish.

What do you have to do to win? Well, I decided to make this first competition a simple one. I didn’t want to do a graphics competition or something like that because it’s so common. Instead I decided to run with something almost anyone could get in on: LOL Animals! If you’re not familiar with LOL Cats, check THIS site out.

1. Get a digital camera

2. Get a piece of A4 paper and clearly write “ZeroSec.ws” with a thick marker or pen (or crayon for all i care, just make it fat).

3. Find your model animal/pet and place the A4 paper somewhere in its vicinity, so that the text is CLEARLY visible in the background.

4. After the photo session, upload your pictures and add any “LOL caption” you wish in PhotoShop.

5. Send as many entries as you like to info@zerosec.ws

On Sunday the 14th of September (In one weeks time) I will put all entries up on the forums for a public vote. The top 3 will win the prizes above. Please remember that if the HANDWRITTEN “ZeroSec.ws” text is not present or looks faked, it will be asumed you didn’t take the picture yourself and the entry will be disqualified. Have fun and good luck!

P.S: Keep it safe and don’t hurt any animals. Any evidence of an animal being hurt in the photo process will disqualify your entry.

Results (Check forums for details)

1st: Clear winner: hxixm !

2nd: PINBALLWIZZZARD2. Since altogether PINBALLWIZZZARD2’s images got more votes, he will be awarded with second place.

3rd: Mr.X