KDE Visual Design Group/Plasma 5.18 Wallpaper Competition

Submit your designs to the subforum we have set up for the competition. We also have a video competition ongoing.

Read everything on this page very carefully before entering your submission.

Rules

1. The deadline for submissions is January 15th, 2020, at midnight UTC time. The winning wallpaper will be announced on January 22nd, 2020.
2. Your wallpaper must be your original and created specifically for the contest.
3. Your wallpaper must be released to KDE under the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license.
4. You are allowed a max of 3 submissions.
5. Images must be in PNG format.
6. If asked, you should be able to provide the source files used to create the wallpaper in a non-proprietary format, like an Inkscape-compatible SVG, .blend, .kra, .xcf, etc.
7. The minimum required size for wallpapers is 4K measurements (3840x2160), although 5K (5120x2880) is preferred.
8. A companion phone-sized (1080x2280) wallpaper for Plasma Mobile can also be submitted.
9. Image files must be hosted on an external (non-KDE) site without compression. Two sites that host images without compression for free are imgbox.com and postimages.org. You can also upload the image to your preferred cloud storage provider, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.
10. Any submissions containing racist, sexist, demeaning, or inappropriate content in any way will be disqualified immediately.
11. Any submissions of copyrighted material from third parties with little or no modifications will be disqualified and erased.
12. Disqualified entries and deletions are final and cannot be appealed.

Design Guidance & Suggestions

1. Images should iterate and capture the graphical elements of the previous wallpaper selection and should feel like a new version of graphical elements seen in the "Ice Cold" wallpaper.
2. Do not add the Plasma version number (5.18) into your wallpaper or any other text elements.
3. Any text or logos should integrate into the wallpaper design and not be used for quick identification. Text and logos should not drive attention away from the main design of your original piece.

The six following wallpapers, made by Ken Vermette and Santiago César, are used in previous versions of Plasma. You can find Ken Vermette's work on this page.

• 
  Ice Cold (Plasma 5.16 & 5.17)
• 
  Cluster (Plasma 5.14 & 5.15)
• 
  Kokkini (Plasma 5.13)
• 
  Opal (Plasma 5.11 & 5.12)
• 
  Cascade (Plasma 5.10)
• 
  Canopée (Plasma 5.9)

Selection Process

Judges for the competition are part of the KDE's Visual Design Group and other esteemed community members. At the end of the submission period, six finalists will be selected for a second round. Users that make it to this stage get a small prize from TUXEDO Computers. The second round will last one week.

The selection team recognizes the need for selecting a quality image that will be used as a default wallpaper in Plasma 5.18 release. Images selected during the competition may need additional changes to attain this status. During the second round, participants may be asked for edits to their submissions to make stronger pieces. After the second round ends, the winning wallpaper will be selected.

While there will only be one winning selection, other finalists may be included as optional wallpapers in Plasma 5.18, or used in future releases. The judges' decision is final.

Finalists Prizes

TUXEDO Computers is sponsoring prizes for all the finalists who make it to the second round. The packages will vary, but they will all include:

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

Grand Prize

The grand prize is an InfinityBook Pro 14 sponsored by our friends at TUXEDO Computers.

It has:

• Powerful Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM and 500GB SSD
• All-day battery capacity of 12 hours
• Weight of just 1.4kg (3lbs) and thinness of 19mm (0.7in)

Naturally, it will come decked-out with the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.18 desktop, the winning wallpaper, and a bunch of great KDE software.

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!