All the latest news and announcements, straight from the WooThemes HQ!
WooContest Winners Announced
03. Nov, 2008 by Adii Rockstar in Promotions
Well, it’s probably time to get to the highlight of the recently finished (and first ever) WooContest, as I’m sure all of you are waiting to see who’s walking away with the prizes… The contest delivered 188 amazing concepts and we’re extremely happy with the quality of the submissions.
Obviously with a competition of this nature, there’ll be some people who walk away as winners and others who’ll get another opportunity to win next time (there’s no such thing as losers in our book). We have decided to award a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize, whilst we have also contacted another 7 designers to buy their submissions. This will then make out our Top 10.
Before we get to the winners, we’d also like to thank Elliot Jay Stocks, Liam McKay, Brian Gardner & Jason Schuller for acting as guest judges and providing us with some valuable input. We considered their votes, along with ours to finalize the following list:
1. The Groovy Series by izuddin.helmi – $2000 Winner!
Choosing the ultimate winner for a contest like this, is never easy – but with three great variations in the series, we absolutely had to pick this one! We love the style, customizability and the different layouts, which ultimately clinched the first prize in our minds.
2. myweblog by Spencer.Gurnk – $1000 Winner!
We think this concept is a typical WooThemes design and that’s probably the reason why we like it so much. They say that one shouldn’t “try fix something when it’s not broken“, so this slick theme will fit into the hugely popular WooThemes theme recipe book easily and we believe that it’ll proof just as popular with our users.
3. Store WooTheme by jonikox – $500 Winner!
With our recent push to get into the commerce / business themes market, we think this one will go down really well. The grunge design is definitely popular and we’ll be sure to add a few more styles to the design before it’s ready for release.
4. Irresistible by izuddin.helmi
There’s something truly mystical about this design and we love it. We’re sure that with a bunch of different colour schemes, this theme can turn into one of the most popular themes on WooThemes.
5. Prouder Studio by thecraigvine
Another design that can count itself unlucky that it didn’t make it into the Top 3. Irrespective though, we’d love to develop this theme and add it to our growing list of portfolio themes.
Completing the Top 10…
Then, in no particular order, here are 5 more outstanding submissions, which just didn’t make our Top 5. We have already contacted these designers about purchasing their concepts, since we’d love to develop these and add them to the WooThemes stable.
- Newsport by Armono Wibowo
- Bloggingstream by fir.da.us
- TypeBased by Armono Wibowo
- Gotham News by onvo
- Personal Blog Theme by onvo
So a big congrats to all the designers that have made it into our Top 10 and especially to the three winning designers for their amazing concepts! What do you think? Do you like the designs we picked? Or do you think we missed one of your favourites?
3 November 2008 at 8:15 am #
wow. thanks for putting on the contest…! great submissions.
3 November 2008 at 8:19 am #
Love the choices! Good work
Congrats Spencer, never knew you were a designer!
3 November 2008 at 8:20 am #
Congrats to everyone! This was a great contest
3 November 2008 at 8:21 am #
These are some awesome designs! Looking forward to some of these being turned into WooThemes
3 November 2008 at 8:31 am #
congratulation for the winner
amazing contest
3 November 2008 at 8:32 am #
Congrats to all the winners, its a hard-to-choose contest actually coz there are so many creative design submitted to the pool.
Best of luck to all.
3 November 2008 at 8:33 am #
Very well done guys. What a great contest a lot of hard work and talent from so many people.
3 November 2008 at 8:33 am #
Wow, the Groovy series is awesome! And it’s from a designer of my country! Can’t wait to see the release of it from the Woo teams
3 November 2008 at 8:34 am #
Absolutely great choice, I agree with the judges, congrats !!!
3 November 2008 at 8:36 am #
Great entries. I can’t wait to purchase #1 & #4.
izuddin.helmi is really talented and I love the personal blog themes.
3 November 2008 at 8:40 am #
Simply thanks, thanks very much.
=D
3 November 2008 at 8:58 am #
OMG!!!!…. Is it true? T_T (Yeah, I’m crying right now)
I want to say thanks to my family, friends, woothemes, judges, designers and all people who supports me!
Can’t wait to see people all around the world using my themes on their blog.
I am extremely happy!
Thanks
Mohd Izuddin Helmi
3 November 2008 at 9:01 am #
congratulation, especially for 2 my friend, armono wibowo (2 thumbs up
) and firdaus (i have guess)
3 November 2008 at 9:10 am #
congratulations for the winners!
3 November 2008 at 9:22 am #
Very cool. Can’t wait to see the themes available.
3 November 2008 at 9:23 am #
:O
Wow! I can’t believe it.
With so many great designers entered, it is a true honor to have placed 2nd.
Thanks Adii, Magnus, Mark, the guest judges, and WooThemes for putting on the great contest.
@ izuddin.helmi – You are a great designer, and really deserve 1st place.
Amazing work.
Thanks!
Spencer
3 November 2008 at 9:49 am #
This was extremely hard to judge, because the calibre of the entries was so high. Well done everyone!
3 November 2008 at 9:49 am #
Awesome choices! Top quality work, and they for sure deserved it. All of the concepts were amazing, and the choices for winners is perfect!
Congratulations to all of the winners, and everyone that entered!
3 November 2008 at 9:50 am #
There were some excellent designs submitted by everyone and a BIG congratulations goes out to all the winners. It just proves what a great audience Woo Themes has
3 November 2008 at 9:56 am #
congratz to all winners!
many thanks to woothemes who held this contest – such a great weeks for us designers. waiting for your next contest for sure :d
@izuddin: jangan lupa zakat 2,5% ya :d best of luck for you, dude.
3 November 2008 at 10:33 am #
…i knew it
, Congratulations to the winners! Very nice choise from the judges…good job guys 
3 November 2008 at 10:41 am #
i´m glad i wasn´t in the jury, but well chosen, great entries and wonderful themes. i see something big coming to us and woothemes!
pls make bloggingstream as 1st release – congrats to the winners, you all deserved it
3 November 2008 at 10:54 am #
Congrats
3 November 2008 at 11:07 am #
The Groovy Series has been my favourite as well. A good design job. Glad to see designer being awarded first place.
3 November 2008 at 12:19 pm #
very sad for not making anywhere lol, but congrats to the winners, great stuff woothemes.
3 November 2008 at 12:27 pm #
Awesome! Congrats everyone, great stuff!
So, when will these be available? Any time table? I’m anxious to spend some money!!
3 November 2008 at 1:14 pm #
Great work you guys. Big well done to the winner.
3 November 2008 at 1:36 pm #
Those who walked away with the top prizes definitely deserved to be there. Congratulations guys.
3 November 2008 at 2:13 pm #
@Jay – No release date set yet. Like ID software used to say… “when it is done”
3 November 2008 at 2:31 pm #
so, what makes me think at the moment is another announcement you made the last weeks – matt bretts theme as a release.
after following this contest and all those very nice themes we all could see so far i think matts theme has to beat them all.
all those great designs and of course inspiration we could enjoy over the last few weeks, i think its getting hard because most of the visitors would see the contest themes in action….maybe im wrong
since the teaser i´m in love
3 November 2008 at 3:24 pm #
so, the winners comes up, yes i was guest it,,, congratz esp firman, and armono…. it’s a great contest
3 November 2008 at 4:55 pm #
Right, so the person who came second place, works with one of the judges at wefunction, and everybody thinks this is alright?
What an embarrassing contest, glad I didn’t enter mine when I saw the only credible judge being Elliot Jay.
3 November 2008 at 6:09 pm #
@Trev,
Liam was not allowed to vote for me and he didn’t. Not really sure how you’ve come to the conclusion that the other judges aren’t credible either.
I work as a developer (coder) at Function, and thought I’d join the contest in my spare time for a little fun.
3 November 2008 at 6:33 pm #
@Spencer…but, good design skills for a codder, wining a design contest with an “design for fun” now thats an interesting thing
3 November 2008 at 7:32 pm #
ummm a bit fishy, ye okay the winner deserves to win coz he has given you a load of themes thats it really, the designs r nothing new. Second place zzzzzzzzzzzz seen it before. 3rd place is really good. 5th place prouder studio????? have you gone mad?? should have been top 3. Sorry elliot but it walks all over proud studio.
3 November 2008 at 7:50 pm #
@Trev – Yeah, probably should have mentioned that I wasn’t allowed to vote for Spencer at all.
Thanks.
3 November 2008 at 8:24 pm #
How long until I can buy groovy. I want it now!!!!!!
3 November 2008 at 9:57 pm #
amazing work, congrats for all the winners, because all is excelent
3 November 2008 at 11:10 pm #
Thank you guys. Great contest! They are all deserve it.
4 November 2008 at 12:35 am #
@Trev – To clear up a few things for you:
1) Liam (wefunction) was not allowed to vote for Spencer and even with one less possible vote, Spencer ended second.
2) We asked Liam & Elliot to be judges, since they had both designed themes for us before; so they knew what we were offer. To me that makes both of them more credible (in the context of this competition) than Jeffrey Zeldman.
3) Both Brian Gardner & Jason Schuller have been in the WP game for some time now and they offered us some valuable input with regards to that aspect of the competition. WP themes don’t neccessarily sell because they look pretty…
Hope that makes sense!? We’re 100% sure of running a totally legit competition here and even though you might not agree with the final ranking within the Top 10; you have to agree that we have chosen 10 of the best submissions to the competition.
4 November 2008 at 6:33 am #
congrats to the winners!!!
4 November 2008 at 10:09 am #
@Adii…”We’re 100% sure of running a totally legit competition here and even though you might not agree with the final ranking within the Top 10; you have to agree that we have chosen 10 of the best submissions to the competition.”
To be honest, i was thinking WOO is after “improvement of style” for the future theme releases since the web is full with the current “news” and “magz” like themes and people are sick to see them everywhere. When i was creating my submissions, i always considered that point, that WOO now looking for more unique theme styles (out of the news and magazines) that are more personal. I see i was wrong as the selected themes are again not “out of current range”. My opinion is if woo is targeting the “personal” blogs audience they need to change their style a little and dive more into the more visually appealing themes, themes that have some exclusive graphics. Ofcource no one can blaim you for that (including me) as this is your own decission on how to manage your business nd what products range to have…i just specify what i personaly think about the whole thing. Contest was good to discover talents and you did discovered…but unfortunely only 1. The deciisoun for the 1st place winner was exactly right, but not sure for the others
.
4 November 2008 at 10:35 am #
@Gunay – Even though I hear you, I don’t think that you are entirely correct.
I do think that we’ve chosen some very unique layouts, which will be further extended once we start their development.
The problem with doing themes with extensive graphical elements, is that it is not generic enough and users don’t buy it. Themes like ours should always be more generic than overly complex graphically, as that allows the buyer to customize the theme more easily.
4 November 2008 at 11:18 am #
@Adii Why not?…i mean if the design allowe it, does the new selected designs doesnt come with multiple backgrounds? Why you think that such complex graphics theme cant use several different styles CSS?
Why this cant apply for more complex graphicaly designed themes, multiple backgrounds? And 1 thing you may pass…you cant imagine how many “personal users” will prefere to use such complex grahical themes as some plain designs. Placing a few content modules on solid background…if thats now an creative theme, i have nothing more to say. Functionality based…i dont see any reason why we cant apply same functionality you apply to basic designs on more visualy appealing designs 
I do agree that you have choosen very unique designs but as i specified early, in my oppinion this apply only for 1st place winner. In one of my Flickr comments (after you announced the judges), i specified that i already know the winner 1st place…looking at the judges sites and their own stiles i was sure the contest results list will looks like its at the moment…for sure no surprise. What i am saying here is only that i was thinking woo themes is after some changes to the current product range, but the selected design will target the current woo customers audience. Now if this is an business strategy you follow then is fine, you have great customers potential and they are happy with what they get…here we are talking only about to extend the customers list based on their interests/orientations
4 November 2008 at 11:26 am #
All very delicious looking themes, kudos on the winners
4 November 2008 at 11:35 am #
Great stuff! keep’em coming!
4 November 2008 at 11:43 am #
Congratulations!!! I like buy this themes now!!!!!!!
4 November 2008 at 12:29 pm #
Yes, GREAT contest and wow, talk about some talent! I can’t imagine how hard it was to pick a winner. Congrats to the winners!
5 November 2008 at 3:11 am #
Great outcome for the contest. Awesome designs
5 November 2008 at 6:04 am #
Congrats to all winners and participants. As a participant I can say that all winners really deserved and thanks to WooThemes for organizing such a great, healthy contest.
See you on next contest, guys =)
7 November 2008 at 1:59 am #
good，i like
9 November 2008 at 6:24 am #
great work! cool and pro concept design.. congrat!
10 November 2008 at 10:55 am #
When will the Groovy Theme be available for download? It’s awesome!
12 November 2008 at 7:28 am #
I liked the Gotham News
When will these ble availble?
12 November 2008 at 8:37 am #
Gotham News is in production now, so will probably be out before the end of the month.
11 December 2008 at 12:05 pm #
wow.cool.i should’ve mine here someday XD
8 January 2009 at 6:28 pm #
I love the shoptheme, can’t wait to see that coming available. I like some different approaches, most of the themes are news sites, a shop site, or cardealer site, or eventsite would be cool
keep it up
27 January 2009 at 7:25 am #
I really like “myweblog by Spencer.Gurnk”, hope to see more themes like this one.
Thanks you guys
13 February 2009 at 2:08 am #
any contest again?