Scott Allan Wallick and Andy Skelton recently announced a competition for creating style sheets for the Sandbox theme for WordPress - The Sandbox Designs Competition

For those of you not familiar with The Sandbox - it is a WordPress theme, only naked - leaving you, the creative designing geniuses that you are, to dress it up. Though it is so much MORE than just simply naked - - its pure and gorgeous, in all its semantic glory. A perfect starting point for themers from the novice to the experienced.. and all points in between.

Why do I sense the beginning of a BravoTV reality show in the making? Project:Sandbox, perhaps? Though, I’m not quite sure how riveting that type of television would be to sit and watch designers sit.. and design. Woo…I can feel the excitement already!

Back to the Sandbox Design Competition…

This is a chance for all you WordPress designers to let your mad skillz shine by creating the perfect, winning theme that WordPress users everywhere will be lining up in massive numbers to use and enjoy. Plus, there’s a really great cash prize that appears to be growing by the day, thanks to some fabulous sponsors who have already eagerly given their support to this project (ahem - more about that in a second.)

The competition started June 1, 2007 and runs through July 29, 2007 - the judges will select a winner by August 5, 2007. A quick rundown of helpful links for those of you itching to participate:

• How do I submit my entry to the Sandbox Design Competition? - when you’re done reading that.. have a look at the official rules and submission agreement
• As with everything, there are rules to abide by - - read the rules right here
• Designs will be judged on specific set of criteria like valid CSS, valid XHTML, cross-browser compatibility, use of color and typography, originality.. well - - just go read the criteria, would ya? Why should I re-invent the wheel here??
• I’m not seeing a list of judges yet - but Scott assures me he has some great folks lined up
• I also do not see a listing of participants … YET.

Well, what do you think? Think you’ll participate?

As of the time of this writing - the TOP prize is $500, the second place winner gets $300 and the third place winner gets $200. I say ..at the time of this writing.. because those prize amounts are subject to change, depending on the amount of sponsorships they receive for the competition.

Which brings me to why I will not be participating in either the design submission or the judging of the competition - in the name of my new book that will be released in Sept. 2007, I made the very easy decision to support the project with great hope that we will see some amazing themes as a result! WordPress for Dummies is very proud to be a sponsor of the Sandbox Design Competition.

Sponsors cannot participate, you see - - we can only… sponsor. I can only sit and watch from the sideline.

Really, sponsoring this project is actually the way I’d like to go because its projects like this one that really showcase the different talent that’s out there - and it contributes to the WordPress community in a huge way. Of course, it’s no secret that I have a silly soft spot in my heart for WordPress themers - so sponsoring this event was an easy decision for me.

I’m in good sponsorship company, too - Matt Mullenweg has also sponsored this competition, as well.

I just want to give a huge shout out to Scott and Andy for taking this kind of project on - - its no small undertaking! BEST of luck to those two guys (better you than me..heh!).

Also, another extra thanks to Scott, himself - his theme, BLOG.TXT, is featured in the WordPress for Dummies book and he gave generously of his time and talents while I wrote that part of the book and allowed me to bug him for an interview that he provided some very in depth information and insight for. Thanks a million, Scott!

So…. what do you think? Think you’d like to participate in the competition and lay all your design talents out on the table for the whole world to oggle at? OF COURSE you will - - head on over to the Sandbox Design Competition right now and brush up on all the details - - I can’t WAIT to see what you do!