The Idea Democracy

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[theideademocracy]

Which College is right for me?

If you or a loved one has ever asked that question then you’ll love this IdeaChallenge! But even if you haven’t here’s your chance to actually make a difference and help hundreds of thousands if not millions of students.

We’re asking you to help design a better version of the college scorecard, a website that helps students compare, analyse and review data for all US Universities. Just click the image to view the IdeaChallenge, read the brief and participate. There’s $2500 up for grabs to make it worth your while.

[theideademocracy]

Put your mind to work and make a difference...

In light of the tragedy that hit Uttarakhand how do we use social media to create early warning systems for people living in rural areas and without access to expensive smart phones?

In today's environment with so many natural disasters taking place we are constantly needing to find ways to warn people about how to seek help. Since social media tools already exist we are looking for easy ways to turn tweets, Instagram images , Facebook posts into tangible warning systems which will warn those living in rural areas and don't have access to smart phones. Think tangible media , Physical computing , DIY, networked devices. 

You can read more and make a difference by participating here.

[theideademocracy]

Great with a camera? Get featured on our home page!

We're looking for a full screen photograph for our home page that captures what IdeaDemocracy is about. Quite simply, the photograph should capture or reflect creativity, collaboration and communication. We'll be sure to credit the winning photographer and mention their name. Unfortunately we can't offer a cash prize for this contest, so while we won't make you rich, we do hope to make you famous. You can read more & participate here .

[theideademocracy]

Got a great travel story?....Now convert it into a custom tour!

Pic courtesy Andrey Salikov

We've got a fun IdeaProject for you. Here's how it works. A New Delhi based Travel & Tour Website is looking for interesting ideas to create custom tours. If you've had a unique and enjoyable travel experience anywhere in the world tell us about it, send us pictures that can be featured on the website and the travel website will use your experiences to create a custom 7 day tour. If you're lucky they may even name it after you!

So if you've had a memorable travel experience, done and seen things unusual and returned with great stories to tell your friends. And even thought to yourself, more people should do this then here's your opportunity to convert your experience into a compelling tour for others.

To get started, you can view the contest details here and sign up here to participate.

We look forward to seeing your photos and reading your stories.

[theideademocracy]

JWT & Ford India, storm in a hatchback?

JWT India and Ford Figo's solution to Berlo's bunga bunga troubles, Paris Hilton's Kardashian woes and Michael Schumacher's younger competition seems to have landed JWT India and its client Ford India in a lot of hot water. The story goes that these ads were uploaded to 'ads of the world' where they drew a lot of international condemnation for being sexually offensive and leading to JWT being forced to hastily withdraw them from India's leading advertising awards festival.

As someone who some years ago was part of a team who on President Bill Clinton's maiden visit to India released an advertisement for a job board parodying the Lewinsky affair and suggesting he might be in the job market, I perhaps should reserve judgement. 

Chances are more people would have seen these ads as part of the on-going press reportage than they would have as actual advertising. These ads were clearly created to try and win awards and not enhance Ford India's or Ford Figo's brand values. And that's the real problem - many in the advertising industry's need for self-gratification and desire for peer approval at any cost. Too bad for the client!

So what do you think? Is this just a storm in a teacup or do you actually think these ads are offensive and sexist? Do leave a comment here or join the discussion on our Facebook page here.

[theideademocracy]

Globalisation....of sorts

Globalisation has been taking a bit of a beating of late. The financial crisis, rising income inequality, currency wars and continued protectionism have all in some form or the other been attributed to unchecked globalisation. Whatever your views, what's undeniable is that the world is becoming a smaller place and whether you like to call it globalisation or not the effects are hard not to notice. On a visit just outside Bangalore I saw something that really made me stop and think and I had to take a picture. It's a camera phone picture so I apologise for the poor quality. But yes, the world is impacting everyone's lives including those in rural India. Don't miss the Louisiana Tee and Tablet!

I'm sure many of you come across similar sights wherever you live. The next time you do, do take a picture and send it in, it'll be fun to share our visual representations of that bad word, globalisation. You can share your pictures on our Facebook page here .

[theideademocracy]

Got a camera? Enjoy making videos? ....We need your help!

Pic: http://www.marketsmartsites.com/tag/video/

If you've got a camera or camera phone, enjoy making videos and have great imagination and creativity then IdeaDemocracy's got a contest that we think you'll enjoy participating in. IdeaDemocracy is asking people to make a short video that tells people what we're all about. 

As you know, we're a start-up and much as we'd like to, we don't have an enormous cash prize to offer. But what we will do is to post all entries to our YouTube channel and the winner will be selected by popular vote. The winning video will be displayed on our home page and will feature the producer's name. We will also promote the video through our social media pages, blog and through PR around the contest. To thank you for your time and to cover the cost of production we're offering a $200 award. Most of all this is a chance to have some fun, get your videos out there and have them seen by tons of people!

To read more about the contest and how you can participate, you can get started here. We hope you'll participate and help us make this a success.

[theideademocracy]

Looking to make a difference? Here's a chance to do so.

We're hosting an IdeaProject that's looking to find an advertising creative to create a campaign for a cleaner Papua New Guinea. To most of us Papua New Guinea evokes images of sun, sand, sea and all thats good with island living! But there's a new scourge hitting the streets of Port Moresby and pristine beaches of PNG. Buai or beetle nut chewing is a tradition in Papa New Guinea with social and economic significance. But carelessly spitting out the red Buai residue is not just unhygienic but leaves stains wherever its spat out. The advertising campaign is meant to address this issue.

Pic: http://nancysullivan.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/04/begn-the-buai-revolution.html

If you're an advertising creative with great ideas on how to use humour and engage with your target audience, we hope you'll participate. If you're selected, there's also $500 to thank you for your time. All you have to do is register here, create a profile, upload your portfolio and then simply click apply here.

[theideademocracy]

IdeaDemocracy - New & Improved!

We've just added a bunch of features to IdeaDemocracy that we think you'll find both useful as well as enjoy using. Here are some of them.

1. You can now start an IdeaProject and even better its free for a limited time only! Choose your category - Graphic Design, Original Writing, Web & Mobile or Multi-media and get started. 

2. You can now view Ideator or individual creatives. Browse through portfolios, applaud work that you like or simply get in touch.

3. We've added messaging. So feel free to get in touch and communicate with fellow creatives or people posting IdeaProjects.

We hope to see you on IdeaDemocracy! Its a great way for businesses and brands to connect with creative talent and Ideas. And its a great way for creative talent to connect with business opportunities.

As always, we'd love to hear from you. So please don't hesitate to comment or get in touch with us.

[theideademocracy]

Got great visual design skills? Looking to make a name for yourself? Intern with us!

We are looking for someone to join our team as a Visual Design Intern and depending on performance to grow into a permanent team member and shareholder.

The person should have the following skills:

1. Adobe Photoshop and Creative Suite. 2. Understand design for web. 3. Excellent typography skills. 4. Grid based design understanding. 5. A good grasp of color theory. 6. A portfolio to prove yourself.

You can work from home and anywhere within the US or India. No Pay for the first three months but depending on performance you will be offered vested equity. This is an exciting opportunity for anyone with talent & creativity and with great front-end design skills who’s looking for an opportunity to apply those skills to a large scale, highly visible online project and grow into an integral member of the creative team. Get in touch with us - rohit(@)theideademocracy.com or apply here.

[theideademocracy]

Meet Victoria Breton, a talented Graphic Designer from Toronto and an IdeaDemocracy member

ID: What made you become a graphic designer?

VB: Ever since I can remember, I’ve been passionate about art and design. I’ve grown up appreciating bold uses of colour, fluid animations, creative character designs and whimsical fonts. I studied Art Fundamentals and Visual and Creative Arts for a total of two years at Sheridan College.  After building a solid traditional foundation, I studied 3D Multimedia Animation for two years at Humber College. I graduated from both institutions with honours. My studies at both institutions lead me to digital painting and graphic design. I now find that I split my time between painting digitally and creating graphic designs for clients.

ID: Where do you find your design inspiration?

VB: I’m constantly looking at other designs that catch my attention – everything from greeting cards to fellow artists’ online portfolios. I’ve built up a pretty extensive “inspiration folder.”   I’ve noticed my folder has recurrent themes, colours and layouts. I have a particular style that I’m consistently attracted to, and I implement that style in all of my pieces. My design process varies a little for each design, depending on the particular intent, but my goal is consistently similar: to create a striking marriage between font, layout and colour.

ID: What’s Toronto’s best kept design secret?

VB: I would say that undiscovered talent is the best kept design secret in Toronto. Toronto is home to many talented artists who have yet to be discovered.

ID: What according to you are the top three trends in design today?

VB: I would say the top three design trends today will continue to be popular in years to come: non-standard fonts, mixing neutral and bold colours, and utilizing minimalistic layouts.   1) Non-standard fonts have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Gone are the years of using default, predictable fonts. Designers like myself are always reaching out for fresh new fonts. It’s an  exciting process to find new fonts and try them in different scenarios to see which fonts interact well aesthetically.  2) Mixing neutral and bold colour palettes has become a popular practice. Consumers will often see cards and brand identity designs (ie. logos, business cards) using classic, neutral colours with a striking  dash of colour. The sparing use of an eye-catching accent colour acts as a focal point, immediately drawing the attention of the viewer / consumer. A famous example of this is the YouTube logo, with “You”  acting as the neutral, and “Tube” acting as the bold colour accent.  3) Minimalistic layouts are a fantastic, popular design element that allow for easy readability. When viewers see a magazine spread with a clean, simple layout, for example, the focus is placed where it  should be: on the written content and/or the photographs.  Less is more. The same thing goes for business cards and other forms of graphic media. Minimalistic layouts are becoming increasingly popular as  they allow the designer to communicate exactly what is required in a straightforward manner.

ID: What’s the brightest idea you had today?

VB: Lately, I’ve been very open to exploration. I’ve been experimenting with a variety of new fonts. There are so many out there! A lot of them serve different purposes, and certain fonts – ones you may assume would never look good together—make unique, exciting statements in combination with one another.

ID: What do you like most about IdeaDemocracy?

VB: I love that IdeaDemocracy has become such a large, thriving community in such a short period of time. It’s an excellent platform for artists and businesses alike, providing businesses with innovative and creative solutions, and allowing artists to grow through inspiration and competition. IdeaDemocracy also has a higher standard of quality design compared to other websites in the same field, guaranteeing premium designs of which businesses can feel proud. These attributes set it, as a platform, above its competitors.

You can view Victoria's IdeaDemocracy profile here and you can visit her website here.

[theideademocracy]

Meet Jake Ruiz, he’d like to be Iron Man but until then he’s a young graphic designer from the Philippines and an IdeaDemocracy member.

ID: So Jake, what’s with the Iron Man business?

JR: Ironman (Tony Stark) is smart, resourceful, charming, funny and filthy rich. The only negative aspect to him is his enormous ego (which is usually his downfall). He has the ability to fly (which is a fantasy of mine) with his suit, as well as come up with super cool gadgets.

I could have picked real superheroes such as Superman, but I chose Ironman because of him being 100% human. After all human challenges are what makes life fulfilling to live.

ID: So where does Graphic Design fit in?

JR: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always had 2 passions: art and sports. I’ve always loved to draw, usually copying what I saw from comic books and also from the TV screen, to doodling in textbooks and copying the faces of my teachers when I was bored in class as a kid.

This passion for the arts eventually led to graphic design since I found the profession cool, and something I could do while getting paid and having fun.

Click the image to view more of his work.

ID: Where do you find your design inspiration?

JR: Pardon the cliché, but I get inspiration from everywhere. It could be in my surroundings, the patterns of leaves, the shapes of the clouds to the architecture of buildings. The various patterns and arrangements found in my surroundings truly fascinate me.

Other works of great artists inspire me as well. I mean which artist or designer has not been inspired by past practitioners? The only ones I could think of are prehistoric cavemen who made those ancient cave paintings and sculptures. The important thing in having others as inspiration is still staying innovative as well as making sure that my works are truly “inspired” and not rip-offs of other works.

ID: What’s Manila’s best kept design secret?

JR:  Philippines are known worldwide for its beaches and tropical weather but we also have a lot of talent in the art and design scene.

Manila’s (The capital of the Philippines) best secret I guess is the amount of talent in the art and design industries here. Creatives here have the potential to match international talent in terms of output of art/design work.

Filipinos even win a lot of online international graphic and/or art contests in the Internet; to think competition comes from countries around the world. Examples of these are the graphic t-shirt design competitions where a lot of the winners are Filipinos.

ID: What do you think are the top three trends in Graphic Design today?

JR: From what I’ve observed, the top three trends in my opinion are:

1.)    Retro elements – Retro elements such as classic ribbons with text on it, moustaches, as well as typography used in the 40’s and 50’s. I’ve just seen a lot lately (including some of my works – haha!). I guess a big inspiration for this trend is the surface of the Hipster sub-genre in culture.

2.)    Clean and minimalist– For logos, here a few examples. Starbucks got rid of the text around the Mermaid and retained the Mermaid mark itself to represent the company. Microsoft Windows’ new logo is a very minimalist version of the famous Windows icon. Apple and Nike has done this for awhile.

Websites are getting cleaner as well, using less color and the power of great typography to bring out the message being communicated.

3.)    Large Typography – Very large fonts in websites or posters used to both make the text the design itself as well as using appropriate typography as a way to communicate the message being conveyed.

ID: What’s the brightest Idea you had today?

JR: Waking up early for a run, eating a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and mangoes partnered with hot coffee – this BRIGHT IDEA of doing this most of the time will surely prolong my life.

ID: What do you like most about IdeaDemocracy?

JR: I have 3 specific things I like most about IdeaDemocracy, not just one.

First, they have IdeaContracts; which is a unique concept and is a far cry from the usual crowdsourcing websites, which makes the designer do speculative work only.

Secondly, I really like the portion where the client gives a brief to the designers. It is really in-depth and detailed, even going to a point to show the designers “IdeaStarters” of logos that they like in order to give the designers a great idea of what they really want.

Lastly, the founders of IdeaDemocracy are really approachable and helpful.

You can view jake’s profile on IdeaDemocracy here and you can view his website here

[theideademocracy]

Can you do better?...$500 if you can!

Our newest IdeaContest is to redesign a simple website for Hotel President. Hotel President is a mid-tier independent hotel in Dehradun, India. They're looking for a simple and contemporary design for their website and are hoping for some great visual design ideas. To make it worth your while they’re offering an award of $500 for the winning design. You can register and view the brief here. So if you think you can do better than what they've currently got, we hope you'll participate in this IdeaContest and we look forward to seeing you on IdeaDemocracy.

[theideademocracy]

Create a Wordpress Theme for a Website to showcase the efforts to help people and tigers coexist at Ranthambore National Park

We're delighted to announce our first IdeaContract and its for a terrific cause. It's to design a Wordpress website for Prakarit Society to showcase their efforts to help people and tigers co-exist at Ranthambore National Park in Northern India. The Site has been designed by New York based designer Laurel Marx and we are looking for a front end developer to use the designs provided to customize a simple Wordpress theme with multiple pages so the client can update the images and content easily. You can view the brief and apply here. Unlike IdeaContests, IdeaContracts are awarded on the basis of skills, profile and portfolio rather than speculative work alone. So if you're a Front End Developer and have the skills specified, make sure you complete your profile, upload your portfolio and click the apply button. Its as simple as that!

We look forward to seeing you on IdeaDemocracy!

[theideademocracy]

IdeaContracts, a new IdeaProject format

Having worked in the advertising and design industries ourselves we understand just how invaluable imagination and creativity can be. We also think that typical crowd creativity platforms often don’t recognise this. It’s unrealistic to think that every creative task can be converted to a contest and that everyone is willing to give away their ideas for free.
The contest format works for specific design tasks where the work involved is not too extensive and the potential reward justifies the time spent. However we think it’s unrealistic to expect someone to incur the time and cost to develop a website, design a mobile app or shoot a film on a speculative basis for example in the hope that their work will be selected.

That’s why we’re going to be launching IdeaContracts, our second IdeaProject format. These will be short term contracts for more advanced design and communication projects remunerated on a fixed fee or per hour basis. These will not require speculative work but instead will be awarded on the basis of skills, experience, portfolio and brief proposal outlining terms.

We’re going to be launching our first IdeaContract in the next few days. We do hope you’ll register with us and if you have already then it’s a good idea to create your profile and upload your portfolio as that will form the basis on which IdeaContracts will be awarded.
We look forward to seeing you on IdeaDemocracy.

[theideademocracy]

"Let's Go Places"...Could you have done better?

To quote from Ad Age:

“Toyota is changing its tagline for the first time since 2004. The new tagline is "Let's Go Places," replacing "Moving Forward." The effort came from six roster shops: Saatchi & Saatchi, Dentsu America, Conill, Burrell, Intertrend and Grieco Research, according to Ad Age.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-toyotas-new-tagline-and-ad-campaign--todays-ad-brief-2012-9#ixzz29d4ni9JF

Stories like this make you think. Is there something to that old cliché about too many cooks... Having worked for global ad agencies for over 20 years, I’ve been in number of such situations surrounded by mountains of research, market and consumer data, talent and resources struggling to come up with a tagline that means everything to everyone. For the most part I found it to be an enormously time consuming, costly and frustrating process for most people involved. If the agency likes it then it doesn’t hold up in research. If it does well in research then the agency hates it. And if it does well in research and the client likes it then the agency hates it even more.

How much simpler to crowd create or put together a group of Toyota loyalists. People who swear by the brand, owners who refuse to drive any other automobile and ask them in three or four or five words or even a sentence to sum up what they would say to someone who didn’t know Toyota.

Perhaps what they came up with wouldn’t be as pithy as ‘Let’s Go Places’ but what it would be would be a terrific reason to consider Toyota coming from the very kind of people that Toyota would like to have more of. Besides it would come at a fraction of the time, cost and frustration that I suspect Toyota and its six advertising partners would have gone through.  

[theideademocracy]

Our first IdeaProject & your chance to earn $1000

We’re excited to launch our first IdeaProject. It’s an IdeaContest to design the logo, letterhead and email template for a start-up Discovery Commerce Business.

We hope you’ll enjoy applying your imagination and creativity to this design task. To make it worth your while there’s a cash award of $1000 for the selected design.

We look forward to seeing you on IdeaDemocracy and may the best idea win!