The Sandbox Designs Competition is being held at sndbx.org and administered by Scott of www.plaintxt.org, who has provided the initial award base of US$500. Additional supporters are being openly sought to help increase the award base, which currently is US$1950 (as of 2007-07-16). This is the largest prize ever for a WordPress design competition.
As designs will be based on the Sandbox theme and participants will only submit CSS file(s) and image(s), no modifications may be made to the Sandbox PHP theme files—or at least, none will be accepted in submissions. Participants may submit multiple designs so long as each is submitted separately and in accordance with Submission Guidelines.
Submissions will be collected by Scott and released to judges immediately after submissions close. Judges then will have the allotted time to judge each design and submit their scores. Scores will be tallied by Scott and verified by a third-party non-participant (see Judging Procedures).
Results will be announced on sndbx.org by 12:00 AM (UTC), Monday, August 6, 2007. Winners will be issued their cash awards via Paypal within 7 days of final results. Cash awards are listed below.
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Total Competition Prizes: US$1950.00
- 1st prize: US$850
- 2nd prize: US$550
- 3rd prize: US$400
- First three (3) runner-ups will receive US$50 honorarium and a copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle each
Competition Timeline
These milestone dates are subject to change but notification will be given as a blog post. Please make sure you have read and understood the Official Rules.
The dates below are marked up as an hCalendar, so you can download each event as an iCal or, better yet, subscribe to this calendar. Pretty cool, eh? No plugins required. 
Sandbox Designs Competition Announced: 12:00 AM (UTC), Friday, June 1, 2007 The competition officially begins and all competition details are available. Those wishing not to participate in lieu of sponsoring or judging are welcome!
Submissions Close: 12:00 AM (UTC), Sunday, July 29, 2007 Sandbox Design Competition submissions must be sent to submissions@sndbx.org by 12:00 AM (GMT) in order to be considered for judging. Participants are responsible for full adherence to the Official Rules.
Design Previews Online: 12:00 AM (UTC), Thursday, August 2, 2007 Accepted Sandbox Design Competition submissions will be available on sndbx.org for previewing and downloading. Designers may publicly release their designs at this point.
Winners Announced: 12:00 AM (UTC), Tuesday, August 7, 2007 The three winners and the runner-up of the Sandbox Designs Competition will be announced on sndbx.org.
Prizes Delivered: 12:00 AM (UTC), Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Winners of the Sandbox Designs Competition will receive their cash prizes via Paypal. Winners are responsible for providing verified Paypal email addresses to Scott in order to receive their prizes.
