What did this mean for me? I thought it would be easy money! The contest was unveiled just before October, and I printed the contest rule sheet. It said all entries were to be received by noon on October 31st. I knew I had plenty of time. I however, have always proven most creative (and most efficient) when the deadline is knocking at my door. Naturally, that sheet ended up sitting on my desk for three weeks.
The whole month of October I was thinking nightly about what would make a great shot and would look fantastic on a debit card. I wanted to do something universal, attractive to a general population, and definitely something that stood out from the crowd. I was allowed five entries of my own, which gave me a bit of elbow room.
Knowing that my deadline was fast approaching, I finally set out to gather my images together. My final five were drawn from a combination of some images I had already recently taken, and some I had set out to create especially for the contest. I have my five selections below, displayed as a card:
I was SO sure I'd have at least one of those turn out to be a shoe-in for one of the five winning entries. I put the images onto a CD that I took to work with me on Friday the 30th. I called the man whose name was on the bottom of the contest rule sheet, asking if I mailed them that day whether or not they would arrive in time. He said I'd better email them that night to be sure I got them in by the submission deadline. So when I got home from work that night, that's exactly what I did.
The following week I attended a training course at the Zions Learning and Development Center. On breaks during the course or during lunchtime, we were able to browse the limited company internet. While I was checking my work email, it dawned on me to ask the other employees about when the cards were going to be available for voting. Then the bad news hit me ...
Apparently, the "submission deadline" was also the close of the very contest! Panic came over me as I realized what that meant. No winning design. No clients with my picture on their card. No prize money. I naturally wrote and inquired about the lack of detailed information pertaining to the submission deadline, and its unnatural double role as the contest closure (this letter was also directed to the same man who had told me that I would be just fine if I emailed the entries on Friday night). My answer was simply an apology coupled with, "Thank you for your feedback. It was a first attempt at such a contest and I definitely have some take-aways from it."
1 comment:
Oh, and now two of these designs are on my own cards. :)
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