Design-a-Banner Contest

Yes, you're reading this right—we're going to do something we've never done before. Rather than designing the next skin ourselves, Aya and I are looking to turn it over to one of the more graphics-inclined members we've got. So in honor of Ratmas swiftly approaching, I invite you all to design banners that could be featured on the next site skin!

Some important notes before you start:

• We will be converting to proboards v5 within the next few weeks, and the site layout will probably look somewhat different afterwards. So we're not asking you to design an entire skin; you're only responsible for the banner(s).
  
• Please use the dimensions of the current banner or something very close to it, which is 770x480 pixels.
  
• As you are all aware, we prefer to go with darker color schemes on the site since it favors the colors that people use for posts. Please try and stick to that.
  
• We really like to rotate banners, so if you could come up with a theme and make multiple banners for the same skin, those will probably be favored in our decision process. For those of you who are confused, some themes we've done in the past are tribute pictures, tribute quotes, arena images, tribute places, and districts, but it is absolutely up to your discretion what type of theme to do; we're open to everything, and they don't have to be Games related. Keep in mind, however, all of these banners will have to correspond to the same skin, so make sure the colors are compatible.
  
• We also accept rotating banners that don't have a specific theme, but still fit together in a rotation.
  
• We're looking for HIGH QUALITY graphics; this is the largest and most popular Hunger Games roleplay on the internet, and since so many people visit this site every day we'd like it to look very professional. If you're a novice graphics artist, feel free to submit, but please don't be offended if we choose someone who's a bit more experienced than you.
  
• No MS paint.
  
• Staff members, you guys can submit as well.
  
• You can submit as many entries as you'd like!
  
• Deadline is as of right now Dec. 15th, which should give us enough time to put a skin together, but we reserve the right to move that date, so try and submit as soon as possible.
  
• You're very welcome to post your entries on this thread if you'd like, but I want a PMed copy from everyone as well, with the subject line "Banner Contest Entry" so that I don't miss it in my inbox.
  
• Once the contest has ended, Aya and I will choose our favorite entry and design our very first v5 skin around it, to be released as one of our 12 days of Ratmas.

So that's it! Happy designing, and we can't wait to see what you all come up with. If you don't get chosen, don't fret; if this is successful, we'll probably be doing it again in the future so you'll get another shot.

Merry early Ratmas!
-Lulu and Aya