Hiya folks,

It's time to crank on the sticker design for the coming 2014-2015 Bike Winter cycling season . . .  typically we start with a little open brainstorming, and see if we can get any new folks to come out of the woodwork and offer up drafting or design skills to make the ideas reality.

Our target date for sticker distribution is the big 17th Anniversary Chicago Critical Mass on Friday September 26th.

The deadline for submission for sticker proposals will be Sunday September 7 2014, 11:59 P.M., with voting taking place  Monday the 8th through Wednesday the 10th.

Lookee here for past stickers/mascots/slogans:

http://bikewinter.org/stickergallery

Go ahead and discuss away, but if you'd like to cut to the chase and design a sticker proposal, here are some considerations that will need to be taken into account:

1)These stickers eat up a sizable chunk of our hard-earned funds, and their main purpose is to be seen and read easily so that they can fulfill their function as advocacy tools- thus:

a) Proposed designs need to clearly, prominently, and legibly, at a glance, even in low light conditions, say Bike Winter 2015 (Not Chicago Bike Winter! we have other cities that we like to support with these).      Bike Winter is two separate words.

b) Need to clearly, prominently, and legibly, at a glance, even in low light conditions, say bikewinter.org. (hint- the URL tends to be too small on practically every initial submission).

2) Size is 1.5"X 4.25". This allows readability on bicycle tubing and on bike racks.
Can be oriented horizontally or vertically-- see sticker gallery for examples

3) Should not violate copyrights or contain elements used without permission.

4) In keeping with tradition stickers may feature a 'new' mascot and a slogan that ideally would be a corny play on words, but this is not a requirement. In keeping with tradition designs/themes should also not resemble past years' stickers but present a new look for the coming season.

5) Proposals need to be submitted in final, production-ready form by the end of Sunday, September 7 2014, either by posting to the sticker/mascot thread (i.e. this one) in thechainlink.org bikewinter group, or as an attachment sent to stickers@bikewinter.org, or by posting to the bikewinter "announce" listserv.  Please try to reduce your image file to under 500k in size before posting to the bikewinter list.

6) Submissions not meeting 1 through 3 above will not be included in the voting.
Voting will take place via SurveyMonkey and will be conducted under the supervision of the Bike Winter leadership.

7) The winner will be determined by a tally of votes at the end of Wednesday September 10; by submitting a design the creator hands off ownership to the Bike Winter effort and its volunteers for use in promoting the Bike Winter effort; creators agree that they will assist promptly if their design is chosen in any minor changes needed to assure visibility, compatibility with the printer's requirements, etc., and/or authorize others to make said changes.

8) Designs submitted in the past may be resubmitted with necessary updates,  but must be submitted by the original artist

Questions/comments/complaints/ideas/proposals/submissions below!