I Messed Up !!

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Regarding the suggestion of various ways to adjust the logo to correct the aspect ratio... That's not the issue. The aspect ratio doesn't need to be changed. That rule only exists to prevent someone from entering some oddball shaped logo that is impossible to scale onto a t-shirt or mug. One year we had an entry that was a long skinny rectangle. Like a 4:1 aspect ratio. Artwork like that is very hard to scale to fit t-shirts and mugs.

At issue is the question of whether the other entrants would have submitted logos so different that the outcome would have changed if they used an aspect ratio of 1.87 rather than 1.5. That seems unlikely to me, but I'm not a graphic artist so I really shouldn't speculate.

Making this judgement call the way I did seems to have been a further/additional screwup. Sorry to have polarized the community this way. You should see my inbox. I can think of a few options, but I don't know what the sensible one is at this point.

My apologies to all.
 
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jeff said:
Regarding the suggestion of various ways to adjust the logo to correct the aspect ratio... That's not the issue. The aspect ratio doesn't need to be changed. That rule only exists to prevent someone from entering some oddball shaped logo that is impossible to scale onto a t-shirt or mug. One year we had an entry that was a long skinny rectangle. Like a 4:1 aspect ratio. Artwork like that is very hard to scale to fit t-shirts and mugs.

At issue is the question of whether the other entrants would have submitted logos so different that the outcome would have changed if they used an aspect ratio of 1.87 rather than 1.5. That seems unlikely to me, but I'm not a graphic artist so I really shouldn't speculate.

Making this judgement call the way I did seems to have been a further/additional screwup. Sorry to have polarized the community this way. You should see my inbox. I can think of a few options, but I don't know what the sensible one is at this point.

My apologies to all.
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With issues like these, with a welcoming attitude for opinions, you will rarely get a clear approval. It was probably a foregone conclusion that many will have opinions for any possible resolution. I feel you did the right thing, but appreciate the opposing thoughts - they certainly have merit.

I needed to Google what aspect ratio was, then shook my head at the insignificance for the entries. The voting was pretty clear and in the end I feel you did the best you could. (This is why you get paid the big volunteer bucks).

I have hosted several contests and I believe I as the moderator made several serious mistakes; not an easy chore.

Congrats to the winner, and also to those who submitted an entry! 👏 👏 👏
 
Notwithstanding the comments of Jeff above with regard to aspect ratio . . .

LouCee raised the possibility of removing the outer oval from Logo B in order to reduce the aspect ratio.

I have done a reasonable calculation . . .

The result of doing this "tweak" is that the aspect ratio of resulting image (unaltered otherwise) is definitely less than 1.5, the max "allowed".

My calculation may be a little rough, and I am fairly confident the aspect ratio is about 1.3 or less, with oval removed; no other changes.
 
As I said in one of my comments I believe 90% people have no idea what aspect ratio is. And even now with the discussion still do not. But want to comment on the entries. All were top shelf as I posted in the comments when they were first shown that is was going to be hard. But with this said may I remind those that are making remarks about fairness and things, If you read back to when Jeff opened this up as he does every year to the membership, he made a few changes to try to get more entries. Hand drawn was one if I remember. This has become more and more a problem as well as participation in the Bash contests. If you do not believe me look back at the contests being offered this year as to past years. It dwindles more and more. There are various reasons for this and I will not go into this. But there probably is a handful of people who can even do this kind of work on a computer ( I have no clue and I have left my mark all over this site to prove it) that can, should be proud and as with all contests here be proud of your entry and take the results in stride. Yes hard work as been mentioned goes into all things we do. How many people are disappointed when their pen entry does not win? They too put lots of hard work in to even get entered. There have been some mistakes along the way in various years that hopefully were corrected the next time as this will be also. We should just accept the fact that the membership has spoken. I do not believe for one second that size would have made any difference at all. It came down to design as it does when judging pen entries. If we are now going to define the word tweaking then things are heading down the wrong path here. Now you can say I do not have a dog in this fight but I believe we all do in that the winning design represents us all for the entire year. We all will learn from this and be better for it next year.
 
magpens said:
Notwithstanding the comments of Jeff above with regard to aspect ratio . . .

LouCee raised the possibility of removing the outer oval from Logo B in order to reduce the aspect ratio.

I have done a reasonable calculation . . .

The result of doing this "tweak" is that the aspect ratio of resulting image (unaltered otherwise) is definitely less than 1.5, the max "allowed".

My calculation may be a little rough, and I am fairly confident the aspect ratio is about 1.3 or less, with oval removed; no other changes.
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The aspect ratio rule is to ensure that we get a logo that can scale well to mugs and t-shirts. All of these logos, including the winner, are fine as-is. The issue is simply the unfairness of allowing the winning logo despite the fact that it exceeds the stated ratio.
 
The aspect ratio is the ratio of the largest dimension of an image to the smaller dimension. So an image that is 500 pixels square has an aspect ratio of 1:1 An image with an aspect ratio of 1.5:1 could be 500 pixels by 750 pixels.
 
We should deduct the winning entry vote total by the amount it was oversized.

Oh, wait, it still more than doubles second place. The lathe wins!

If only it could have accidentally smashed into a wall while doing victory burnouts and donuts we would never be able to prove it was actually set-up wrong. Lol. (That one is for our NASCAR fans)

We should probably consider annulling any contest votes from American members, anyway. Take at look at the state of our government over the last dozen or so years and it is obvious we evidently do not have a clue when it comes to voting for anything!🤪

Congrats to the winner!
 
How can anyone possibly know whether the non-winning entries would have been substantially different if they had been allowed to stray from the 1.5:1 rule? Having done some graphics work one of the hardest things to do is to fit a piece into a given space and at the same time convey the intended meaning. I don't question the validity of the logo B design concept and why it got so many votes but I can tell you that I spent quite a bit of time trying to get mine to follow the rules. If it is allowed to win I will be very disappointed, not because I did not win but because the principle of fair play has been violated!
 
All the entries were excellent. The minor variance wasn't glaring enough to be noticed until Jeff happened to notice by chance and informed us. I'd suggest that this is all much ado about very little. Sure, this isn't 100% ideal, but it's certainly the right call. If the vote were close, it might be a different ballgame, but logically, the winning design was overwhelmingly chosen by a strong majority. Yes, the ratio was slightly off - but other than Jeff's honesty in posting this, it wouldn't even have been noticed, I don't think.

In a perfect world, Jeff would have noticed this when it was submitted, and would have allowed the minor tweaks to occur prior to the contest starting...and the final result would likely still have won, because it's not a big change that needed to be made. That being said, that didn't happen, but it's not the end of the world.

I'm very sorry that people are upset - and I'm also sorry that this is causing ill feelings toward anyone - but I also think that this is akin to using a blue pen when indigo would have been perfect - it's the best solution given imperfect outcomes. Congratulations to the winner, and congrats to all the entries for posting some excellent designs. Please take your energies and put them toward some amazing pen designs in the upcoming contests! :)
 
Thanks for the additional comments here and by PM. I still have not decided how to proceed. Options are:
  1. Proceed with winner B, award the prize, and use the logo as intended
    1. Do 1, but divide the prize money somehow among the entrants
    2. Do 1, award the full prize to the winner, provide consolation prizes to others
  2. Cancel the contest entirely, not produce any shirts and/or mugs
    1. Do 2, but divide the intended prize money to the entrants
  3. Re-run the contest (1-week entry period)
    1. Do 3, with current and new entrants allowed (i.e. totally new contest)
    2. Do 3, but only allow A, C, D, E to upsize their logos
    3. Do 3, only requiring B to fit his logo to the 1.5:1 aspect ratio
 
NGLJ said:
How can anyone possibly know whether the non-winning entries would have been substantially different if they had been allowed to stray from the 1.5:1 rule? Having done some graphics work one of the hardest things to do is to fit a piece into a given space and at the same time convey the intended meaning. I don't question the validity of the logo B design concept and why it got so many votes but I can tell you that I spent quite a bit of time trying to get mine to follow the rules. If it is allowed to win I will be very disappointed, not because I did not win but because the principle of fair play has been violated!
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It's also good to think about the flips side... How would the winning logo look different had he stuck to the 1.5:1 ?

The interior elements of B have an aspect ratio of about 1.35:1. So the extra area is all white space, bound by the outside oval. I am not ignoring the artistic merit of white space, but if B were edited to conform to the rule (shrinking the outside oval), I believe it would be nearly indistinguishable from the original.
 
On reflection I am OK with that. It is clearly the best and most appropriate design. That was never an issue for me. Obviously there are some takeaways from all of this to consider before next year :). If logo B is made the winner then the best one won!
 
jeff said:
Thanks for the additional comments here and by PM. I still have not decided how to proceed. Options are:
  1. Proceed with winner B, award the prize, and use the logo as intended
    1. Do 1, but divide the prize money somehow among the entrants
    2. Do 1, award the full prize to the winner, provide consolation prizes to others
  2. Cancel the contest entirely, not produce any shirts and/or mugs
    1. Do 2, but divide the intended prize money to the entrants
  3. Re-run the contest (1-week entry period)
    1. Do 3, with current and new entrants allowed (i.e. totally new contest)
    2. Do 3, but only allow A, C, D, E to upsize their logos
    3. Do 3, only requiring B to fit his logo to the 1.5:1 aspect ratio
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Jeff I know you are truely trying to do the right thing but sometimes it comes down to command decision. You will never please everyone which I am sure you already know. All the options you listed are not good except #1. The no shirt thing has to be out. The redo thing all over has to be out because now that is not fair to those who submitted the first time and gives others a look at what they are competing against. The last about allowing all others to enhance their size of entry will not do a darn thing. Again we voted on the design and not the size of it. Dividing the prize money is not an option because it is not fair to winner.

If you want to put this to bed. Have the "B" change the ratio and post them here side by side and let the membership vote which one looks better and then if there is a huge discrepancy then rerun the vote with the entries you have. Forget about allowing more entries. They had their chances because you left this contest open longer than you ever did and if they are not paying attention to what is happening here than they are not really locked into our forum.

If this happened in a Bash contest do you know what uproar there would be? People changing size of photos, arguing over the use of props or color bakgrounds. You can have all the rules you want at the beginning but there are surely going to be people who will intentionally or unintentionally miss one of the rules. Again those contests are individual but this contest affects us all because what it represents.

Lets declare "B" the winner and get the shirts and mugs in the pipeline ready to buy. Hopefully there will be no delays due to shortages of materials. Jeff we are all behind you in whatever decision you make. You gave us this site where we can discuss and have fun doing what we all like to do, make pens. We thank you for it and this little oops means nothing in the broad scope of the site.
 
Jeff,

First, thanks for your honestly and integrity for bringing this to our intention. The easiest way out of this situation would be been not to advise us of the error in the first place. Most of us (99.99+%) wouldn't have noticed the error in the ratio. IMO go with your original decision with awarding the contest to Logo B, move forward, and learn from this experience. Thanks for all your work in keeping IAP up and running and thanks to ALL of those who entered the contest!
 
Another comment that may be worth stating is that the aspect ratio "thing" could have been an issue in years past.
I am thinking of the 11th anniversary Logo in particular, which has an aspect ratio considerably in excess of 1.5.
 
Jeff, you will do what is best after considering all of the facts (I didn't enter or vote). There were rules for whatever reason. Some may have unknowing followed or broke the rules. However, someone in-charge for this for this contest, thought it was needed; not a "nice to have" or "do your best to comply", but a rule with the same weight as all of the other rules. If the rule is forgiven or waived, then it must follow that the rule was unnecessary - but for this contest, you or the powers that be thought it was. For all we know (and we never will), maybe the rule intimidated some from entering the contest just as my not knowing how to use any of the design-software may have dissuaded some from entering (and chose to do something us with their time - not a bad or good thing, just a choice). I'm sure many of us have been managed or manage others. And we may have employees or be one of those employees that arrive 5 minutes late, BUT is twice as productive as all of the others that report to work on time. What do you do (don't answer)? I compliment the late employee for his/her productivity and value, but make him or her pay the price for his/her tardiness. Otherwise, I am penalizing every who reports to work on time. Sounds stupid, but that is what I do.
 
For future contests, why not use a template for the required ratio, and it should be downloaded from this site to create a fair playing ground?

When designing a graphic, the perimeter is first established, and the design fits within that constraint.
 
I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I've decided to move forward with the contest, declare "B" (Wayne - @wayner123 ) the winner, and award the prize (done). While I appreciate the "a rule is a rule" position many have taken, I do believe that this outcome is fair.

Some have looked at this from the perspective that if logos A, C, D, and E had used the extra aspect ratio, that they would have potentially come up with a different (and maybe winning) logo. This can also be viewed from the opposite position; did the winning logo's success come from the use of the extra aspect ratio? In my judgement, it did not. Staying within the 1.5:1 aspect ratio would not have resulted in logo B being different enough from what was submitted to win. The core elements of the design were well within the required ratio, and the extra ratio area used consisted of white space that if reduced, would not have changed the overall look of the logo. In other words, while a rule was violated, it did not affect the outcome of the contest.

I offer my apologies to those who disagree with this. While this rule will still exist in some form next year (we just cannot use really wide or tall logos on items), I will make certain that all logos meet the requirements.

So, to wrap this up, hearty congrats to Wayne for winning logo "B", and on behalf of the entire membership, our sincere thanks to those who invested their time and effort to create the entries; @NGLJ (A & E) @johnjohnson42 (D) @Jontello (C) All were excellent, and I hope we see some version of them in future contests.
 
pewink said:
For future contests, why not use a template for the required ratio, and it should be downloaded from this site to create a fair playing ground?

When designing a graphic, the perimeter is first established, and the design fits within that constraint.
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That's possible (I could provide a rectangle into which the logo has to fit), but I think specifying the ratio would be enough for anyone. Saying that the largest dimension can't be any larger than x times the smaller dimension should be pretty usable info. :)
 
jeff said:
That's possible (I could provide a rectangle into which the logo has to fit), but I think specifying the ratio would be enough for anyone. Saying that the largest dimension can't be any larger than x times the smaller dimension should be pretty usable info. :)
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But as stated here a few times, some people don't understand the aspect ratio, or how to achieve it.
By giving the correct dimension in a template, it provides the same base for everyone involved. This is JMO, and doesn't carry any weight.


This is what the logo could look like, and it meets the required 1:1.5 rule.

1-iap-corrected.jpg
 
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