Redesign an Outdated 90s Website – Winner Announced!
We were so excited to see the number of great entries we received in our ‘Redesign an Outdated 90s Website‘ challenge. To everyone who participated, well done! Each of you greatly improved the original design and brought our fictional friend Mario into the 21st century!
We hope you had fun honing your skills on this project and if you’re proud of your design, we encourage you to add it to your portfolio.
Of the 24 eligible entries, we asked the Design and Marketing team (Jackson, Christine and Larz) at Business Catalyst to select a shortlist of their 5 favorite designs. The same team voted on the shortlist, and were joined by Joel, Skellie and Amanda from FreelanceSwitch – six panelists in total. Each of us gave 5 points to our favorite design, down to 1 point for our least favorite on the shortlist.
To remind you, here is the original Mario’s Catering design. It’s a fictional business, but it wouldn’t be hard to find other businesses still stuck with designs from the 90s. It was up to our readers to bring the design into the present day.
The 90s Design
Winner: Lindsey Grande
Lindsey was given high scores by everyone on our panel of six, never scoring less than 4 points out of 5. Lindsey wins a shiny new copy of Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 – Web Premium Edition, courtesy of our sponsors. Congratulations on a fantastic design Lindsey! We loved your use of textures and detail. It’s clear Lindsey took the time to make sure every aspect of the design was polished to perfection.
2nd Place: SEVENTY7
SEVENTY7′s design was the closest competitor to Lindsey’s design and a very worthy 2nd place, but the unique style divided the panel, with some rating it as their favorite and others rating it lower. It evened out a few points behind the leader, but it’s clear SEVENTY7 has a heap of talent and that Mario himself would be proud of this design. We loved the use of type and illustrated elements.
Third Place: Stephiking
This design was also rated very highly by some members of the panel, and was close to the second place spot. We liked the contemporary take on Mario’s business, and the sleek, light feel of the design.
Fourth Place: davidmendesgd
In a close battle between 4th and 5th place, David edged ahead because of his interesting use of light and clever use of contrasting colors to divide the layout.
Fifth Place: Reece Butler
Our original 90s design for Mario’s Catering featured branding desperately in need of an update. Reece’s logo redesign was arguably the best of the bunch!
Not on the shortlist?…
There were many outstanding designs in the group and though we could pick only 5 as part of our short-list, we’d love each design and designer to be seen by a wider audience. Next week we’ll be showcasing every entry!
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Nice one Lindsey – I’ll have a hawian – 12″ – Ben
Love the designs, congratulations to the winner. How would I be able to visit their portfolio’s?
@freelanceSwitch – you should post the winner on the original blog post in case people are just checking for an update there.
Agree with @behzad – Congrats to the winner and to everyone else – brilliant work!
I personally preferred SEVENTY7′s the most, but the winner caught my eye pretty early on. I knew she would place high. Congrats to the winner, and kudos to all who placed!
On a side note, I looked at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/90sredesign/ and noticed a ton of designs from the pool not showing up. Even ones clearly using “90sredesign” as a tag. Any idea why?
i think it is because you are not logged in. if you are logged into flickr you see everything marked as private to the pool. (i think)
I agree regarding SEVENTY7′s and am also curious about entries not showing up… including my own entry which didn’t even make it to the eligible list.
Oh well, congrats to the winner and those that did place!
Indeed. There are 24 entries in the search filter for “90sredesign,” but about 60 or so submissions in the group pool, many of which have “90sredesign” clearly among their tags (I found them effortlessly and counted in a couple minutes of just browsing the pool). I am sincerely curious to know what made the other 36 ineligible.
Ok. So where’s the actual sites? Or was accessibility, cross-browser compatibility, SEO-friendly structure, and performance optimization not considered? Well, I guess you should have just had a brochure design competition then….
(Sorry I’m a bit miffed, but I expected more from a community of people who deal with clients that also don’t know how to “check under the hood” on daily basis.)
Plenty of people here can empathize with your complaint(s), but this was just a design contest. The winner won software used for design. It didn’t blow of the development aspect, it just didn’t go that far. Anyone calling him/herself a web designer should create visual layouts with future coding in mind. That’s a given. But the fact still remains that a good site has someone designing it, and in many understandable cases it’s a designer who doesn’t go on to code.
Jamie… do you really think someone would go this far for a fictonal project? And do you belivie ALL designers are front-end developers and SEO experts and vice-versa? Sorry but I think you’re being truly naive with your expetations.
SEVENTY7’s was also my favorite. Spectacular color and typography. Congratulations on 2nd.
Great, fun idea Envato, and really nice work everyone! Great work on a very realistic fictional project.
Wow. I would say the order you placed these finalists reflects your own out-dated design sensibilities. A bunch of people who obviously have no formal training judging a design contest. What do you think you’ll branch out to next?
Congrats for the winnwers! It was fun to participate!
@TheAL
I noticed that as well. In my case, I needed to have five images uploaded to flickr, since they restrict the account until one has done so. Which is to bad for people like me, who simply don’t want to upload images. I guess in order to be a contender, one must play the game.
Congratulations out to Lindsey!
Props to the runners up, and my condolences to those of us who didn’t make the cut.
To all of you out there, where ever you are, keep fighting the good fight!
Awesome submissions from everyone! It was a fun experience. Congratulations as well to the FreelanceSwitch team for a successful contest.
wow.. Congrats Lindsey! .. Mabuhay! way to go girl!
ps: just followed you in twitter…. wink!
I couldnt help noticing that of all the entries (all 60 or so), so many of them felt like “pizza delivery”, rather that traditional event catering.
Maybe the word “catering” has different meanings in different parts of the world.
Does anyone else have an opinion on this?
No personal offense to Lindsay. But – wood paneling background? Really? That look so 2000late. It’s also dreary and dark and dull. It’s a design that may be ok for a horse farm or a country band website, but not for an Italian catering website. SEVENTY7 was clearly the best design and should have won. I cannot believe that out of all the really great designs that were entered, that this one was selected the winner. Wood paneling? Really? I’m with Burt, who says “I would say the order you placed these finalists reflects your own out-dated design sensibilities.”
The top 5 entries were fantastic, very well done to all who entered. The design was so much fun to work on and create, the suspense to find out who won was even more fun and the finished work from everybody looked awesome.
Hopefully more of these type of contests happen in the future, this one was brilliant
definitely the wrong order… the latter 4 entries were way better than the first one, which is really outdated and the structure is not halfway as clear as the others. also the estetic value… sad to see how people judge design, I mean, what the heck, did the winner do you any favors that you chose her design over the others?! there’s nothing outstanding about that design
Congrats! Awesome job everyone!
I don’t think much of the winner design at first though I was reading the post back to front , then the shock was that when I saw that a not so great design was not 5th place but it was the first place? Not as good design in my oppinion when against the other designs here. Are judges here crazy or is it what Michael declares there was some favor was done perhaps? No good taste shown here by these judges.
nice work everyone who submitted a design and congrats to the finalists and the winner. my personal opinion is Stephiking’s is the best – most practical as a website and also a lot more elegant than the others. i guess it comes down to personal choice and the panel had a somewhat different opinion to the people commenting here.
To those of you who feel that the order is out of place…
Let’s use pickled beets for an example. Some people like them, others don’t, and then some dislike beets altogether. Simple as that.
The “client” has made a choice, and the client likes beets. If you don’t, that’s fine. Just don’t start calling the designer’s integrity into question. That is crude behavior. Stating your dislike is fine, and welcome. But can you say why you don’t like it? As a professional?
Congrats to the winner and FS for running a fun contest!
But I have to echo TheAL’s comment about missing designs. I worked hard on my design and submitted according to the instructions and it appears I wasnt even considered.
Please note, I’m not complaining about the winners – they were awesome! I just feel bummed that my entry and others were not even considered.
Please let us know what we did wrong in our submission
Original was the best at some points, at least you could instantly see what’s important.
It was seriously outdated though.
2nd and 4th place were the best imho. But Lindsey had kind of the most branded design.
Wow, that’s a vast improvement. Amazing work guys, I love them
Congratulations to Lindsey on the win!
Thanks to everyone who said they liked my design. I’m happy to see it being described as having a unique style. I was trying to create something a little different than what I usually design.
If anybody wants to check out my portfolio or is looking for a freelance designer to work on a layout, here’s my site:
http://seventy7.ca
Peace,
SEVENTY7
Wow, I wish I knew about the contest! I design restaurant websites as a specialty
Mostly online ordering websites- I ask restaurants what is their number one reason for a site and they say to ‘increase sales’. Much like the winner’s entry, I always use rich textures to convey a sense of warmness to the place. Good job!
How were these judged? I am going to have to say that Seventy77 design supported the concept better and had better use of design principles. Those who say it is only a matter of opinion and fail to use the elements and principles of design are doing their “client” a disservice.
The redesigns are certainly better than the original but I feel the wrong site was selected as a winner.