It's a new season and with that comes new contests. Well it does in my book. In this back to school special you can show off your talents and bring home some fat loot.

The Brief:

The contest is in two parts; for icons and emoticons. You can enter both if you wish, but only one entry will win.

For Icon Artists:

Create icons in an Autumn theme for My Computer, My Pictures, Recycle Bin, Disc Drive & one more application of your own choice.

For Emoticon Artists:

Create emoticons in an Autumn theme for (happy, tongue, cool, angry) & one more of your own choice.

The theme of Autumn (or Fall) can include anything you associate with these next few months from 'running in the leaves' to something abstract like 'sleep'. The fruits of the harvest or Halloween.

The prizes for this contest are donated from the friendly people at Stardock, and they are:

Icons 1st Prize: Stardock Object Desktop & Stardock ObjectDock Plus.
Icons 2nd Prize: Stardock Object Desktop.

Emoticons 1st Prize: Stardock Object Desktop & Stardock ObjectDock Plus.
Emoticons 2nd Prize: Stardock Object Desktop.

You can check out what these pieces of software can do at the link above.
And that's not all!

Best in Show Prize: Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (space sim, given 9/10 by Gamespot) & Design Anarchy by Kalle Lasn (call to arms published by Adbusters)

And lastly, an opportunity to have your work in one of Stardock's upcoming programs will be offered to the two first prize winners.

The Rules

Le date of closing is Midnight on the 10th of October. Remember that a lot schools and universities start their terms around then, so you may want to make your entry ahead of time in case you're busy. Entries should be submitted into the Autumn Icons Contest gallery under Community Projects > Contests.

One entry per person to each contest. And that doesn't mean if you don't enter for icons you can submit two sets of emoticons, cause yer can't. Entries will be judged on originality, quality and interpretation of the Autumn theme. This last part means that if you have chosen an interpretation that might not be obvious then it'd be a good idea to write about it. The Autumn traditions of Delaware senators might not be familiar to everyone, or me.

Emoticons should be in .gif or .png format. If they are animated and so cannot be included in the same deviation then compress them into a zip and include an appropriate preview image which mentions that animated versions are available.

Icons can be in any format allowed by the operating system they are designed for. They should include a full size preview image. It is not necessary to optimise icons for different sizes although you are welcome to.

For the icon contest you are not limited to Windows icons. For Macs the set must include icons for the Finder, iTunes, Disk Drive, Waste Bin and one of your own choice. For any other operating system, please send me a note.

Judging will be done by me, ^rocksicle, and a short length of pine. And by that I mean ^halfliquid.

The two first place prizes of inclusion in a Stardock product are only if the artist wishes. Entering the contest does not count as agreement to let Stardock use your work, and you can refuse that part of the prize if you wish. Additionally, Stardock will only include the winning artwork if an appropriate product is available. While they'll try their best it may be that's not possible.

Good luck,