Ben Yates wrote:
There was a proposal to overhaul wikipedia's
front-page design, and
wikimedia's corporate design, by holding a contest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
But designers are mostly opposed to contests, and pro designers don't
usually compete in them (contests also pose problems for organizations
on the recieving end) -- see Talk,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Design_overhaul%2C_2006
So it looks like we have an offer from a visible designer to help us
find pro-bono firms and designers who'd be willing to do the site for
free (just not on spec). We should put out a call for portfolios.
Having been in several organizations that have brought in outside
designers (or design firms) to revamp their websites, I'm pretty wary of
it; the results, while sometimes nice-looking, often display a stunning
ignorance of what the site is actually *for*, and make it nearly
impossible to get actual information from it.
What would be ideal to avoid such a situation is to have a designer who
is very closely familiar with Wikipedia and how both its editors and
readers work. And of course, Wikipedians ought to have a veto over any
final design.
-Mark