Hive Merch Artwork/Graphic Contest #1 - POLL

[Archian]

Contestants were to create an original artwork / graphic design that was suitable for printing on merchandise (Apparel, Homeware, Accessories and/or Drinkware). The theme of the artwork / graphic was 'Hive Workshop Community'.

• Trying to manipulate the poll in any form is not allowed.
  If you're aware of ip-sharing with any voter, for any reason, you should contact the staff.
• Harassment towards others to influence the result will lead to punishment.
  A neutral recommendation to take part at the poll isn't problematic, though.
• Voting for yourself is not allowed, and will lead to a malus by 5%.
• Participating in the poll does not explicitly safe one from being disqualified.
• Judges are not allowed to vote.

You are very welcome to make a short statement what you like the most, so contestants get a bit of public feedback!

• 1st place: 750 experience points.
  The winner of the contest will have his/her artwork printed on Hive merchandise and sold in our HiveMerchshop during a 3 month period. All earnings from items sold during this limited time will go to the winner and will be transferred to his/her bank account on a monthly basis until the end of the 3 month period.
• 2nd place: 500 experience points
• 3rd place: 250 experience points
• Entry: 25 experience points
• Judge: 50 experience points per entrant

The three winners will receive an award icon representing the winning entry.​

• @Archian
• @Ralle

Name(s)	Entry
Murlocologist​	Click
PrinceYaser​	Click
Shido​	Click
frostwhisper​	Click
BLazeKraze​	Click

Relevance	How well does it reflect our community. Is it likely that our members would buy it. Does it catch the proper attention.	/25
Optimization	How well does the entry suit the different merchandise it's printed on (Apparel, Homeware, Accessories and/or Drinkware).	/25
Composition	Design of the artwork itself i.e. how well was the artwork made. Was it designed with a clear and concise idea in mind. Does the text and/or font used fit the design. Does it send a clear message. Is the design suited for printing.	/25
Orginality	Is the artwork unique & interesting.	/25
		Total: 100

Results calculation

• Judgement: 70%
• Poll: 30%

FinalScore = (30*Reached_Votes/POSSIBLE_VOTES) + (70*Average_Judge_Score/POSSIBLE_SCORE)

The poll shall begin on Wednesday June 29th 2022 and conclude on Wednesday July 13th 2022 GMT (day is included).

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Assigned Staff: @Alexen @Archian

 

[Archian]

Thanks to all who participated.

Some honorable mentions who unfortunately didn't make it before the deadline:

WIP Entry By @-Grendel

WIP Entry By @Taylor Mouse

 

[The_Silent]

Positively surprised by the quality of the end results. Good work!

Wished it was ranked voting, but Oh well, guess I have to pick a single one of your designs.

 

[Shar Dundred]

While I am a fan of Shido's art overall I voted frostwhisper's entry - mainly because its concept
of highlighting the WarCraft universe (which is of course the focus of Hive) is more to my liking
than the concept of highlighting a single staff member as face of the website - even if it is a
long-serving staff member like Archian.

I will say I also liked Murloc's and Blaze's entries.

 

[Chaosy]

The grendel one is siiiiick would be top 2 for me. But frostwhisper's entry is the best in my eyes.

 

[StormKnight]

REALLY wished master Grendel would've finished his orc, i love this little guy to hell and back again >

As a custom RTS/Altered Melee person Murlocs Hive Crest, resonated with me the most.
Shidos style has been a favorite of mine for a long time, plus this work syncs with Summer theme, can't deny that, a right design for the right time.
Frostwhisper has the most practical design i think, and its well deserved, its right in so many ways and it fits right in for most situations of use.
I know PrinceYaser could blow the competition if he had time for some reworks to finish the Hive Knight idea :^)

 

[Mr Ogre man]

@PrinceYaser tbh, I wish you had gone with your first approach, the guy with the torch and the H in the background. I would definitely wear that if it was slightly more polished.

 

[Villagerino]

If Grendel finished his full work on time, I would most likely give him a vote. And yet my vote goes to frostwhisper who also it my heart.

Despite the fact that the print itself looks minimalistic from a distance, it is quite meaningful: it contains many tiny and interesting details that I want to look at, explore and that evoke nostalgia. I also find it very creative to place the Warcraft 3D art in the Hive symbol

Thanks to the staff for organizing such contests where Hivers can participate and create such great content. Regards!

 

[Pyrogasm]

I, too, voted for frostwhisper but in retrospect I'm not convinced that the linework/detailing would actually look good on a shirt because, you know, the resolution of printed designs is probably not very good unless you're paying more for that functionality. Most shirts don't have dozens of tiny lines in a variety of different directions that all overlap/intersect.

I would vote for Grendel if I could.

 

[Shido]

Alright boys, Time to pull the salty meat department here. Unfortunately, this is a long argument so I try to shortening up.

I too was disappointed that Grendel didn't complete his entry because he was busy at work. I still think his entry is one of the sharpest one you will put on anything really. All Grendel has to do is just remove his background, we could do that but that lead him into teamworking (which is not allow).
Although we would rather see something new instead another orc emote who already have two merch made for it.

Worth mention Taylor Mouse here, simplicity is good but this probably not the best emote to describe really. Also the "shop" icon look like a lock.

If you gotta vote for Mr. Frostwhisper, You better hope you will buy it the moment it got into the merch shop. If you end up disappointed and choose not to buy it then that is your fault and I can't help much here. Teespring ratio on apparel usually follow in close 3:4 ratio and obviously if you try to put this on a shirt, the work will need to shrink to be fit. You get how details can get lost from shrink, in frosty case, you would lose couple of building too.
Of course, It's gotta work on pillow and wall tapestry or anything work for 4:3 direction, maybe even on sticker. And nope, you can't stretch that Mr. Ralle, if you stretch his work I call you out for adding the 4th variation.

Criticism aside, I do appreciate his effort put every building in warcraft 3 into a Hive H Shape Island here. But this entry lack a focus point of what the bloody hell do you look at first, maybe you only looking a giant H until you have to pinch your eye to see the detail under it.

If this is a Concept Art Contest, PrinceYaser would have nailed it. But this is why I choose not to have any background here , I also agree the concept of a knight discovered Hive was brightening but given your problem IRL, this is the best you can possibly do. I can't tell what this is in the final product tbh , maybe i'm stupid as always but at least I can tell the other like this is a crest, an orc, an island and heck a bloody eredar.

If Murcologist didn't came in, my entry probably didn't end well for printing. He is single-handedly carry the contest fixing here and I do genuinely Doc here risking himself make his work within a week. Bonus point for the antler too. I see we both worship different god here.

About Blaze entry, I give him point for actually have center focus here but he could have gone for a different font. I actually wish he has gone a bit further making this shirt feel old here with 2004 below.

 

[PrinceYaser]

@PrinceYaser tbh, I wish you had gone with your first approach, the guy with the torch and the H in the background. I would definitely wear that if it was slightly more polished.

Well maybe.
Everyone's been doing a great job. But I was far too busy to work with other ideas, I didn't even get to further polish my main entry.

This was pretty fun though, I love all the submissions.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Teespring ratio on apparel usually follow in close 3:4 ratio and obviously if you try to put this on a shirt, the work will need to shrink to be fit. You get how details can get lost from shrink, in frosty case, you would lose couple of building too.

I didn't even consider that the aspect ratio might be quite off from what's normally desired. That is highly unfortunate, and looking at the preview shirts it sure does look like the H extends into area I'd guess to be unprintable.

I can't tell what this is in the final product tbh , maybe i'm stupid as always but at least I can tell the other like this is a crest, an orc, an island and heck a bloody eredar.

I didn't even see that it was an H until I looked at the 'concept art' for it. I agree it's cool artwork, but it just doesn't fit nicely onto a shirt imo especially without a border.

I actually wish he has gone a bit further making this shirt feel old here with 2004 below.

I found the hiveworkshop.com to be extremely distracting and in some (previously intangible) way dissatisfying, and this helps pinpoint it. It doesn't feel retro like the rest does; that text feels like it could be on a site today. Thanks for your observation!

 

[Murlocologist]

I took some time to write a review for each entry.

Poll result tells me a lot about general preference of members when it comes to visual language, but I don't think the margins between entries are anywhere as near as poll suggests.

Frost: We did have pretty much same concept of Hive's 'H' being made out of tiny stuff with previous shirt design with usernames. So I can't regard the originality so highly. Perhaps I'd prefer the buildings to be less dense and to have less randomization. This way, the story design tells me isn't much more than: wc3 buildings stand for community, h stands for hive. Contest is about printing and not only printing on shirt. I'm not sure this design will work when resized to a couple of inches.
Poll result suggests that people don't mind either of those points however.
Color works good with the concept. Overall image has good visual effect, people can easily associate 'H' with hive and they obviously like that aspect, which to me is somewhere between good simplism and not so good generic approach.

Shido: Taking individual member out and making him a centerpiece of design is a problem when the theme is 'community'. Regardless of that the image has its appeal. Appeal is in the fact that it is different and unconventional in its tone. Unlike other entries it is not approaching the subject matter in a serious tone and by doing so image gains authenticity. Everything is scaled well enough to work in different sizes, which is important too.

Yaser: Well, I think the concept is an issue because it doesn't solve the issue of the theme: community. Hive knight does have symbolic meaning, but it comunicates a singular message. Community should reflect in more details. Background also isn't needed in my opinion. Colors seem alright, image itself is well drawn, but the concept idea isn't that well 'rendered'. Over the years your skills improved and I think you are capable of making better work than this image.

Blaze: The idea has potential, but the rendering isn't quite there. I guess the tone is somewhere between serious and goofy (at least your first wip), more defined tone would bring out clearer message I know you can draw so it would be much better if that orc was actually drawn and font more in line with the forums. That year isn't really neccessary. Again, I can remember some of your icons wayback 5-6 years ago when I joined forum, so I understand you could make better work with more effort.

Murloc: I guess my entry is too complicated for people to visually read. Maybe they don't fancy the composition. Maybe they don't associate the aspects I included with community. But design should not always be straighforward and when it comes to a design for community then in my opinion it should be about specific symbols that mean something to that community. That's why I included 'weird' elements like moose antlers, or MasterHaosis smiley in shape of cape buckle or wc3 minimap hiden in pattern.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Shido for the win <3

 

[Taylor Mouse]

Just a quick question... why did I not make the deadline, what else did I needed to do just to be in the poll ??

 

[stein123]

Just a quick question... why did I not make the deadline, what else did I needed to do just to be in the poll ??

You needed to write that it was your final entry :v

 

[stein123]

I took some time to write a review for each entry.

Poll result tells me a lot about general preference of members when it comes to visual language, but I don't think the margins between entries are anywhere as near as poll suggests.

Frost: We did have pretty much same concept of Hive's 'H' being made out of tiny stuff with previous shirt design with usernames. So I can't regard the originality so highly. Perhaps I'd prefer the buildings to be less dense and to have less randomization. This way, the story design tells me isn't much more than: wc3 buildings stand for community, h stands for hive. Contest is about printing and not only printing on shirt. I'm not sure this design will work when resized to a couple of inches.
Poll result suggests that people don't mind either of those points however.
Color works good with the concept. Overall image has good visual effect, people can easily associate 'H' with hive and they obviously like that aspect, which to me is somewhere between good simplism and not so good generic approach.

Shido: Taking individual member out and making him a centerpiece of design is a problem when the theme is 'community'. Regardless of that the image has its appeal. Appeal is in the fact that it is different and unconventional in its tone. Unlike other entries it is not approaching the subject matter in a serious tone and by doing so image gains authenticity. Everything is scaled well enough to work in different sizes, which is important too.

Yaser: Well, I think the concept is an issue because it doesn't solve the issue of the theme: community. Hive knight does have symbolic meaning, but it comunicates a singular message. Community should reflect in more details. Background also isn't needed in my opinion. Colors seem alright, image itself is well drawn, but the concept idea isn't that well 'rendered'. Over the years your skills improved and I think you are capable of making better work than this image.

Blaze: The idea has potential, but the rendering isn't quite there. I guess the tone is somewhere between serious and goofy (at least your first wip), more defined tone would bring out clearer message I know you can draw so it would be much better if that orc was actually drawn and font more in line with the forums. That year isn't really neccessary. Again, I can remember some of your icons wayback 5-6 years ago when I joined forum, so I understand you could make better work with more effort.

Murloc: I guess my entry is too complicated for people to visually read. Maybe they don't fancy the composition. Maybe they don't associate the aspects I included with community. But design should not always be straighforward and when it comes to a design for community then in my opinion it should be about specific symbols that mean something to that community. That's why I included 'weird' elements like moose antlers, or MasterHaosis smiley in shape of cape buckle or wc3 minimap hiden in pattern.

Big brain needed to appreciate your entry, sorry me dumb :'(

 

[Shido]

Just a quick question... why did I not make the deadline, what else did I needed to do just to be in the poll ??

Technically, your entry was shown not to use any background, at least according to your cup. But your entry is shown to have one. And yeah, you need to call it final as well.

Since any winning entry cannot be modified either through stretched it out or simply removing certain part like background. You're late, Taylor.

 

[Archian]

Just a few more days to cast your votes!

 

[Archian]

We just finished judging. We will have the results up ASAP.

 

[Archian]

Results are up! Hive Merch Artwork/Graphic Contest #1 - RESULTS