KDE Visual Design Group/Plasma 5.18 Wallpaper Competition

Rules

1. The deadline for submissions is midnight (UTC) on January 15th 2020. The wallpaper will be selected on January 22nd 2020.
2. The design of your wallpaper must be original and created specifically for the contest.
3. The design of your wallpaper must be released to KDE under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license.
4. You can submit up to 3 entries.
5. Image files must be in PNG format, preferably accompanied by the source files in a non-proprietary format (Inkscape-compatible SVG, blend, kra, xfc, etc.).
6. The minimum size for your submission must be 4K (3840x2160), although 5K (5120x2880) is preferred. Optionally, a phone-sized (1080x2280) wallpaper for Plasma Mobile can also be submitted.
7. Image files must be hosted on an external (non-KDE) site. Note that Imgur is not suitable as it secretly converts large PNG images to JPG. Postimg is one option.
8. The organisers will disqualify and erase any entry that is racist, sexist, demeaning or inappropriate in any way. Disqualifications and deletions are final and cannot be appealed.

Design guidelines and suggestions

1. Consider a wallpaper that provides a sense of continuity with the current "Ice Cold" wallpaper. It should feel natural that your wallpaper comes next in a visual story.
2. Don't add the Plasma version number into your wallpaper.
3. Any words or logos (such as the Plasma logo) should be tastefully integrated into the design of the wallpaper itself, not just added on top as text.

Previous wallpapers, made by the artists Ken Vermette and Santiago César, can be found on this page. The six most recent are shown below for inspiration:

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  Ice Cold (Plasma 5.16 & 5.17)

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  Cluster (Plasma 5.14 & 5.15)

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  Kokkini (Plasma 5.13)

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  Opal (Plasma 5.11 & 5.12)

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  Cascade (Plasma 5.10)

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  Canopée (Plasma 5.9)

Process

A jury made up of members of KDE's Visual Design Group (VDG) and other KDE community members will judge the wallpapers. At the end of the time given, six finalists will be selected for the second round and they will all receive the standard prize offered by Tuxedo. The second round will last one week, during which the judges might ask to tweak some aspects of the wallpapers to make them most suitable for Plasma. At the end of that week, the winning wallpaper will be selected. There will be only one winning wallpaper, but even if your work is not picked as the default wallpaper, your submission may still be included as an optional wallpaper in Plasma 5.18 or used with future releases. The decision of the jury is final.

Prize

The prize, sponsored by our friends at Tuxedo Computers, is going to be a InfinityBook Pro 14, featuring a powerful Intel core i7, 16GB of RAM and 500GB of SSD. It also features all-day 12 hours of battery life, weighting just 1.4Kg and being 19mm thin. Naturally, your InfinityBook will come decked out with the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.18 desktop, your spectacular wallpaper, and a bunch of great software made by KDE. Check it out here.

Furthermore, Tuxedo is offering an additional prize for the finalists whose wallpaper do not win. The packages will vary, but they will all include:

1. A KDE baseball cap
2. A plush Tux
3. KDE stickers
4. A frozen glass coffee mug

Help and Feedback

You can ask the VDG for help and feedback any time during the competition! Just join the #kde-vdg channel on Matrix or the freenode IRC channel (which is bridged to the VDG Telegram room, if you prefer Telegram).

Also check out the discussion in the competition's subforum to get tips and feedback.

Current Entries

Start here!