Hi everyone,

I wanted to provide an update on the 2011 International Design Contest proceedings. We are still compiling results from the judging of the finalists, and expect to be contacting potential winners in the next week or so. I say “potential”, because all winners are required to sign an official document confirming that they are the winner. Then we have to wait 2-3 weeks for everyone to return their documents, before we are then able to declare the winners. We expect, therefore, to be in a position to officially announce the winners around the end of August or early September.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to let you know how the whole submission/judging process takes place, as several people have inquired about this. The process we are using is exactly the same as we used for the 2009 version of the contest, which worked out very well. The six galleries of “Finalists” that you see on CorelDRAW.com were chosen from the many entries received up to the submission deadline. Not every design makes it to the finalist stage, in fact most do not. Finalists are determined by a small group of judges. I know that several people have expressed concern that their design should have been a Finalist and it wasn’t. All I can say is that I am sorry if your design did not make it to the Finalist stage, but like any event that is judged, there will always be some people disappointed while there will be others that are ecstatic. For the actual winners that will be chosen from the Finalists, we have several people at Corel, as well as in industry, assist with the judging from among the Finalists. A point system is used to remove any bias, and we also allow you, our community to participate. It’s important to note that the community vote collectively counts as one of the several votes. This is to avoid any bias or popularity concerns, as we have seen from other contests that issues can arise. Again, this is the same format as we used for the 2009 contest, which was a great success.

Thanks, and thanks for all of the wonderful submissions!

John