Mind if you bring other theme developers in on this? I'd love to submit one or two myself.

All for it - let's set a date of November.... 12th.... gives everyone plenty of time to get the word out...

Awesome, November 12th then. I like the idea of making this a challenge for designers. This will also help us populate the themes.

We should set some ground rules and general information for those who want to join the challenge.

I'm also going to put in some rewards (add-on licenses, concrete5 swag?) for those who finish the challenge and those with the best designs. We should come up with some categories for rewards. I'll also talk to some of the other developers to see if they'll throw in some licenses for their add-ons as rewards.

Thank you for being the spark that ignited this!

1 license of coin_slider , 1 license of easy_tab, 1 license of easy_accordion will be granted to top 5 winners.

A total of 15 licenses will therefore be granted.

It's a great idea !!

Thats a pretty sweet idea! I'm digging it!

Guess we'll work on ground rules and categories. I was thinking we'd set the categories in advance but that when it started the days "theme" would be pulled from the prior suggestions randomly... other wise everyone would start on them now..

Maybe even a frame work template to start with ( the default installation? ) that worked well with Zen Garden and Wordpress.

Maybe for each days challenge the images, assets, icon and content are provided and each party has 24 hours to submit their interpretation of the material and theme.

Personally I've wanted to challenge myself to make a few mobile sites templates based on C5, as well as play with a little ajax action with content blocks.

Additionally I don't know how many out there really get into CSS as a programming language, but I've always wanted to build a site using nothing but conditional calls, parent / child , or sibling calls - nothing but pure HTML text with no class's, ID's or inline style tags... I'm a CSS / SEO geek.

Sounds good. Developers, please let us know here if you can contribute to the rewards.

zoiig, if you want we can do ground rules and categories via PM here so we don't give anything away before the start. Naturally, it's not a big deal if people start early, but it does take away from the fun of the challenge.

We'll give stuff away.. How about this... :

Anyone who submits 5 themes that are approved before the 12th gets a Discussions Forums license.

Anyone who submits 10 themes that are approved before the 12th gets a eCommerce license as well.

Anyone who submits 20 themes that are approved before the 12th gets a T-shirt, screwdriver and some stickers.

Anyone who actually gets 30 done in that time gets $100 in site credit as well to use as they want.

This is all in addition to whatever other developers want to give away, we just think this is a great idea. Thanks guys!


Oh, generally we like to see elegant themes people will use for businesses. We love it when they integrate well with something like eCommerce too. We also think there's room for more vertically focused themes.. "Dentist theme, dog walker theme, etc." Stuff targeted for a vertical that way is going to sell less often, but particularly if you bundle some sample content with explanations on how to set that up I think we could really push prices for themes like this above $100 each instead of the 20-40 range themes are typically today.

I'll support this from Japan.

Let me know if you guys finalized the guidelines and rules... although it looks pretty set.



But

- Date Range
- Awards List
- Rules and conditions
- Quality requirement



For exmaple...

- Does all theme needs to be "customizable"?
- Minimum area requirements (e.g., must have Header, Header Nav, Main, Sidebar)




Of course, we need to take some balance... since this is "design" which needs some flexibility.

But on the other hand, we need certain set rules.

==========
My suggestions is
==========

- Set minimum areas - Every submitted theme must contain "Header", "Header Nav", "Sidebar", "Main" areas

- Requires "My_Site_Name" global block placement for site logo

- Whether custom CSS is required or not
-- at least, people can change the font, font color, link colors

- License requirement - must be free

- Original work - not copied from other templates sites. People are welcome to submit the "coverted" themes to the site... but those works are not eligible for rewards...

- OR the converted theme counts as 0.25 themes




Thanks

seems like a good idea to have more specific criteria, just my two cents.

first, I think this started off as an idea to populate the marketplace. It is much easier to convert a theme than to make one, but by making a requirement that it has to be original you are cutting off a lot of devs who don't have the free time to make a couple. So since the idea is to populate the marketplace, id say that they should count for a full prize. after all, not everyone can convert themes so it would help those.
Second, also about the requirements, some excellent templates are single column and would look bad if they were made to have a sidebar, so I don't think that should be a requirements- maybe substitute footer for that?

Also, should there be a requirement that you have to have at least 2 page types? this gives users more flexibility. I'd also support required customizable styles.

i probably would not put the header area, many themes don't have that,

What about the best theme over 30 days become a new preloaded theme?

I'd love to try this! I already have a template picked out to convert. @ frz, it'll be a beer theme, specialized enough?

haha beer :3

Indeed

idea: developers this is a shout out to you, as well as to concrete5 hosting -

I initially started this as a personal challenge. as I've been working with numerous CMS platforms for year I thought it a good idea to commit verbally in order to make myself get it gone ( and I would ) as it's good to have a little pressure on to hit goals..

As the feedback has come in - and the year of marketing experience kicked in - it seems to me a number of people would like to take this opportunity to expand the templates directory price point and awareness of C5 as a full body solution for developers. If that is true then design is only a portion of the solution, without plugins a site is only a partial solution.

IDEA

This idea promotes hosting, templates and plugins.

If the developers agree to this....most software looks to the host to see if a license is valid. SO - what if we have all entries and participates enroll on a C5 hosted account ( not sure how ) and each is given an account to create on. On this account are the plugins they'lll work with ( and maybe win ) to work into their designs, and the community will vote each day who one.

1.) it will allow a fresh view on design and HOW to use a plug-in.


2.) It will promote a hosted solution.

3.) It will provide feedback on how to improve a plugin, it's application and elements of style directly from the designers.

4.) it will give exposre to little know plugins - the idea here to push the envelope.

5.) It'll allow consistency and a feeling of fair play.

6.) It'll allow all developers to get involved and receive direct feedback from the public about their product and suggestions for improvement...



Brainstorming a little here....


I'd like to throw the idea that the winner get sometype of free hosting for "x" period of time in the mix... Also, if this goes well a new "badge" aware per year and we can do this next year as well - though by then the rules, the tools and the terms would be spelled out...

....and I wouldn't mind a little Karma for coming up with it... :) ... ( shameless plug... )

So I was thinking one way to get the word out - once things were official - might be facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/30days30templates/136592566389741?v=i...

It's a good thought, but I think we should start small with a goal of increasing the themes available in the Marketplace.

That being said, there's nothing against a theme being packaged with custom blocks that enhance it's appearance and functionality.

Everyone, please keep your ideas coming in.

Developers: If you have something you'd like to donate, please let us know.

Designers: The contest will not start until November 1st to allow us time to get the rules and information final. We'll be promoting it more next week.

Thanks everyone!

This is awesome!
I'll donate a Deluxe Image Gallery license to everyone who gets at least one approved theme in the marketplace for the contest.

(Theme must be part of this contest, must be free, must be approved, max one license per person).

A plea for sanity. Please check your code before submitting. Are all your divs closed? Are you calling stylesheets correctly? Go over the checklist before submitting. Testing these themes takes effort and time and a flood of theme is gonna be a lot of work.

Steve

Has this started yet or is everybody still brainstorming or working out details?
I want in on the action but don't want to 'cheat' by getting a head start.

It will be announced shortly. The start date is November 15th. I admire your honestly, even though I'm sure plenty of people already started. I'm okay with that since the real goal is to fill up the MP with themes.

Remember, quality themes will score better. Although it's nice to make 30 themes, it's going to be hard to make 30 'great' themes even if you started today.

The challenge starts next week! Get the information here:http://www.concrete5.org/community/30-themes-in-30-days/...

We're still looking for add-on developers to donate prizes!

Thanks!

I'm particularly looking for an a few intranet themes I could use. This is a definite hole in templates for all platforms, and could push the use of C5 as a great intranet tool. I've contracted to build one on C5 for a client in Portland. They were sold on the granular permissions and the ease of editing.

In terms of business themes as Franz suggests, you might get some ideas from a small Wordpress theme site I use, Elegant Themes. Excellent stuff that works well, and doesn't break the bank. Link:http://www.elegantthemes.com/.

Good luck on your 30 day challenge.
Spencer