So I’d like to thank Matt, Lisa, PressHarbor, Maja, and Jonathan. Their support for this all-volunteer program is exceptional and appreciated.

Now, I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had asked, if only generally, about sharing some of the feedback that the judges provided with their results. I know that two judges, Small Potato and Bruno, have published rather extensive results. David said he’d be happy to provide feedback directly to those interested, so contact him.

Now I’ve read through all the judges comments a number of times. Most of their comments were short and specific to this or that design. If this were a blog with marketing blurbs, I’d run with it. But it isn’t. Instead, I’m going to encourage them to publish their thoughts directly. So keep an eye on their blogs. I will.

So I’d like to go ahead an open up this blog to all the participants. If you’d like to write a post about your thoughts on design, the designs themselves, the competition, the results, WordPress, etc., then please just contact me (by email) and I’ll brief you on the details. And, as the audience, what would you be interested in knowing from the participants?

Wow. Very suddenly there is very little for an administrator like me to do.

The judges distributed the points as follows:

These scores were confirmed by the Sandbox co-creator, Andy Skelton. Thanks, Andy.

Congratulations to the winners for your fine themes. And an equal congratulations to all participants. You all should feel proud in having participated in something very beneficial to the community and I hope the exposure of the competition and what you may have learned are worthy prizes for all to have.

If you are interested, all the data returned by the judges is available. Also, I’ll be posting some of the quips and tidbits that the judges passed along later this evening tomorrow afternoon, methinks.

In conclusion, I present to you the participants of the first Sandbox Designs Competition. Take a moment to appreciate their designs.

And don’t forget to thank the judges, who put up with my repetitive hassling, nagging, nit-picking, etc. They were excellent to have offered their time, their expertise, and their good will to all the participants.

Finally, congrats to the WordPress community. I hope you enjoy these designs. You know who to thank — the participants/designers.

I apologize for the delay and assure all the participants that I’m making every effort to ensure that the judges complete their task thoroughly and thoughtfully. I know that even after the results are announced that there will be some amount of dissent and/or disagreement, but that is the nature of a competition.

I also wanted to give everyone the option of receiving results as soon as they are ready. I will send an email to all the registered users of the SDC. If you haven’t registered yet, register now.

In the meantime, I’m working on adding the necessary links to each the design pages to launch a live preview of a given design. I think that should be a welcomed feature. And after that, I’ll get links put together from the live previews to the design pages. Whew. Time to roll up my sleeves.

Next is that Sandbox Designs Live is now offering all the designs, well, live. Get a preview of all the accepted designs from the participants.

If you’d like to download all the designs (and relieve my server host) download the Sandbox Designs torrent, which includes all the designs and the Sandbox theme (which you’ll need to use the designs).

Now, you’ll notice on the design pages next to the download link there is a number. While I am tracking downloads, everyone interested in interpreting these numbers should consider a few things, such as people may be downloading the design from the designer’s site. Etc. Depending on how outlandish the metrics become, I may disable this or just clear it every 7 days. Let’s see.

If you’re a designer and would like to update your design (for download), you know where to send the files. I should state that I will not update your design on Sandbox Designs Live until after the results are announced — probably. Since the SDL will serve as an archive for the competition (sort of), I’m not 100% sure that I will update designs on the SDL, instead letting them remain as received. Not sure.

One update to the process is that after some discussion and having to contact a several participants regarding their designs regarding certain ‘particiulars’ (nothing to be alarmed about), I think it is in the best interest of the competition to allow a seven-day period between results being announced and awards being delivered to allow things to ‘clear.’ I think this is reasonable, especially since awards will be delivered via Paypal. Which is quick. I hope this is OK.

Update on judging progress tomorrow evening. Enjoy your weekend.

Please note that downloads are not available currently. Designers are welcome to leave a comment on their design page with download information, if they choose to do so. I will make the designs I received available for download centrally here when Live Previews go, well, live.

So head over and check out The Designs. Leave your comments on the designs there.