Last month I designed a Milwaukee Brewers uniform for a contest. The eventual winning uniform will be worn by the team during an upcoming Spring Training game this March.

Earlier this morning, the Finalists in that contest were announced; my design was not among them.

According to the official rules, the contest was supposed to select four Finalist designs. They announced only three (out of nearly 700 original submissions). And those three aren't all that spectacular in my mind. Rather basic, actually. There were many far more creative, unique and original designs in the contest gallery (not necessarily including my own).

In the end, I'm a bit disappointed. Despite the rules and judging criteria, creativity does not appear to be the overall deciding factor. Nonetheless, congratulations to those who *did* put in the time and effort. You may not have been selected as a Finalist, but you showed some great design talent!

Good luck to the three designs that *were* selected. May the best uniform win.

Feel free to take a look at the three winning Brewers uniform Finalists, and vote if you feel so inclined.

And for those who are curious, this was my own Brewers uniform design submission.

UPDATE: - 2:20 PM
The Brewers released this official statement about the issue on their Facebook page:

"A fourth finalist was selected. However, upon contacting the individual who submitted the design after voting was completed last week, it was clear that this fourth finalist was not eligible to participate in the contest. With the complexities of clearing trademark and licensing issues with each design (a process that can require several weeks of advance notice), there was not time to replace the fourth finalist with an alternate design."

That helps clarify the issue some, but I don't entirely buy it. They could have easily substituted the fifth-best-liked design for the ineligible fourth before the Finalists were released -- most contests handle things that way. In addition, their on-site Release Agreement states: "By submitting my photo, I agree to give to brewers.com and its affiliates the perpetual and unlimited right and license to use, edit, modify, duplicate and/or create derivative works from my photo in all media." So I'm not entirely sure what kind of trademark and licensing issues they needed to consider. It took fan complaints just to have them release the above statement, when they could just as easily have clarified things on the voting page from the start and avoided all the confusion.

The Brewers had nearly 700 creative submissions into the contest. I've seen quite a few of them in their online gallery. It seems an awful shame that they ended up putting less than four to a final fan vote.

-Jon
posted by Jon at 11:14 AM  I   I  0 comments