CSS Theme Contest (with Prizes!)

Site feedback
1

It is time for the logical sequel to our color scheme contest … CSS Themes!

Discourse has a modest collection of CSS themes showcased in the #theme-full tag, but we’d like to have more! Here are two good reference examples:

Material

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Classic

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Challenge – Create a CSS-only Theme

Unlike our color schemes challenge, custom CSS/SCSS is a requirement for this contest. Though not mandatory, we would also prefer …

It is allowed to load fonts and images in the assets folder but the theme must have a total size of max 500kb.

However, please do not include …

  • Themes with theme components bundled
  • Themes with any settings
  • Any HTML
  • Any JavaScript

How to participate

  1. Set up a new theme

    Start here: Structure of themes and theme components
    (keep in mind the CSS-only rule for this contest, which this tutorial does not take into account)

    If you’re not afraid of some basic command line action then you’ll likely find our Theme CLI very useful.

  2. Upload your theme to GitHub

    All themes need to be submitted to GitHub under an MIT license. If you are not familiar with the basics of version control systems we highly recommend grokking the basics. If you need guidance we’ll be happy to help out in dev.

  3. Upload your theme

    Sign up for an account on theme-creator.discourse.org if you don’t already have one.

    In “My Themes”, click the “Import” button in the bottom left to upload your theme. If it’s been correctly configured you should just have to select “From the web” and then enter the URL of your code repository, e.g. https://github.com/awesomerobot/discourse-classic

  4. Share

    Make your theme publicly viewable by using the Share button at the bottom of of the customizer:
    05
    To share your themes you will need to be a member of the @theme_creator group. If you are not a member request entry here!

  5. Submit

    Once you’ve arrived at a CSS theme you’re happy with, email your submission to team+contest@discourse.org with the title “Discourse Theme Contest by {meta-username}”.

    Please note that this contest is limited to one submission per contestant, so submit your best effort!

Prizes

The Discourse team will select five theme submissions as winners:
:1st_place_medal: $1000
:2nd_place_medal: $750
:3rd_place_medal: $500
4th $400
5th $300

Please note that any of the winning themes may be bundled with Discourse core, at the Discourse team’s discretion. Prize money is payable by PayPal or TransferWise. If neither of these payment options will work for you, please let us know in advance.

Timeline

The contest will run for one month. Please submit your entries by September 1, 2018

Ownership

You will own your theme. We only require that it is MIT licensed. We may however contact winning theme authors to request their theme be moved to the Discourse organisation if we decide to include it in core.

64 Likes
3

Is it pure CSS or is it allowed to use images and fonts?

3 Likes
4

After consulting the team, I can confirm that you can add images/fonts as long as they are bundled with the theme in the assets folder and not linked externally (like Google fonts for example)
In addition, the theme should have a total size not exceeding 500kb. It should be more than enough to handle multiple fonts and images.

PS: OP updated

22 Likes
6

Tomorrow September 3rd is the deadline for this contest :calendar:

Are you making the latest changes before sending us your themes?

We are so curious to see all your themes!! :star_struck:

5 Likes
7

We should probably end the contest end of day Monday September 3rd so people have time to get everything in. :wink:

7 Likes
10

No chance of see the entries?

11

Yes, the entries will be made public. We just need to review and discuss internally first (also anyone who entered is free to share their work here if they’d like).

4 Likes
12

Any ETA? :slightly_smiling_face:

13

Apologies for the delay, I ruminated on how to wrap this up for quite some time. Will have the announcement up within day(s).

5 Likes
14

To make the topic a little bit less stale, I’d like to share my contest entry:

I hope you like it :slight_smile:

6 Likes
15

Good looking theme! :+1:

My only problem is that i can’t click here to open the post (that’s the first thing i did!)

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I have to move my mouse in line with the title for that to work, which is not necessarily intuitive.

16

Apologies for the holdup. 'tis done:

7 Likes