Amazon Kindle design contest: now it's your turn to decide who wins!
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jul 29th 2009 4:00PM
posted Jul 29th 2009 4:00PM
So here's what we need from you: pick your favorite by 11:59PM ET on Monday, August 3rd. That's it. We'll take the five top vote-getters and award each with a 6-inch Kindle engraved with their design -- and of course, we'll post pictures of the finished products before they go out to their lucky owners.
Follow the break to see the entries (which you can click to see in larger form). Below each design, you'll see a number -- these correspond to numbers in the poll, which you'll find directly below the entries. Just choose your favorite by number and we'll take care of the rest.
Good luck, contestants -- and good luck picking from all of these amazing entries, readers!
Update: The contest is now closed. No votes have been counted since August 3rd at 11:59PM ET. Stay tuned for the winners!
Right now it is a dead heat...each one has a single vote...although that will probably change as I'm writing this.
But really...what were the chances of that happening?
Very slim. Engadget has like 10 hits a day I think.
HAD to go with 17....fckin loved Fahrenheit 451
1, 2, 9, and 16 are by far the best. would be cool if adafruit will allow us to custom-etch our own kindles.
Actually all webblog polls start with just 1 vote each instead of zero votes. Don't ask me why.
I say 2 ... Fkn 2 Dammit
The 451 is so poetic. On a digital device, the irony.
1 the Amazing Book needs to win, it made me laugh. Now with more automatic deletion or something LOL
A Press Can Dream!
@Brian and Templarian
Yeah that book was awesome! I was originally gonna vote for the Amazing Book but when I saw 451 up there I just had to give it to him. Who needs books in a digital age? BURN THEM! BURN THEM ALL!
(Or just automatically delete them, hehe)
wow #20 wtf
Yeaaahhh... wtf
I know everyone thinks theirs is better than everyone else's, but did you guys look at all of them?
Since mine isn't a finalist, here it is for all to see.
http://imgur.com/3NxbO.jpg
@LR2
Classy. :-)
LR2 that's hilarious
Yeah I know right haha project kindle
LR2 that's priceless
Well that sucks mine didn't make it. (It was definitely better than a few of those)
mine didn't make it either
... and the rules didn't say anything about entries getting narrowed down
Link: http://bit.ly/11k0bJ
I didn't make it either (and I also think it was better than some of these)... Pretty sure the instructions said black and white only - that means no shades of grey. What's going on here?
Yeah, black and white only, those are the rules I followed. I'm running as the write in candidate. Vote For Me!
yeah, wtf engadget, half the damn nominees don't even qualify
there's a reason it was supposed to be black and white because the laser can only choose to hit a spot or not
if I knew I could use greyscales I would have, sorry for following the rules...
I'm pretty sure B&W TV was grayscale. I know they could've just said GRAYSCALE to make things crystal clear, but I pretty much thought it was a given. Lasers have to hit an area to make it darker, therefore it can move on once it's dark enough, leaving different shades of gray/black.
If you have a high enough resolution, a series of black and white dots makes a grey color, as I did in my entry, but then mine didn't make it so go figure.
Scaled down version so that it's in gray scale again:
http://tiny.cc/sdizq
No, black and white was the rule, not greyscale. When I asked ladyada whether half of these would even etch she said, "maybe, we advised only black and white, we'll see how it goes"
Clarifying with my actual entry (not the scaled png):
http://www.filedropper.com/spaghetibw
It looks best at the resolution I edited it in (10240x6500), but easily viewable at anything larger than 2048x1300, but the quality goes down from there. Although it appears gray scale when zoomed out, zoom in and it is entirely made up from black and white dots.
I voted Library Card because it reminds me of elementary school, and I have a boner for nostalgia.
Assembly Diagram is the most creative, though, in my opinion.
I have a boner for Slater
Duh! Who doesn't?!
Well, except Artie... because he's dead.
I voted the library card too -- it's original yet understandable by just about everyone, has nice clean lines, it's always bound to get a laugh or a remark when you show it to someone new... best one in my opinion!
I voted Library for the dig at Amazon's removal of the Orwell books.
I love the steam punk, but had to vote for the library card due in 1984. It's going to be a while before Amazon lives the book deletion thing down.
Steampunk Kindle in second place? Not a bad design, but doesn't originality matter?
If I knew the competition would be this easy I wouldve tried!
Yea I know, some of the ones toward the end were so simple I could even do them. =]
Come on #2! I really think #2 will win given the crowd that reads engadget... But I thought the Chibi was cute :D
Thanks for your support. I told myself if I got over a thousand votes, I would set my design free.
So here it is, in the public domain. You can do whatever you want with it -- it's free now to anyone for any purpose. I'd love to see it on Kindles everywhere... maybe even one for me!
EPS: http://danreetz.com/for_engadget/Kindle_Vector_Final_Public_Domain_Daniel_Reetz_danreetzgmailcom.eps
PDF:http://danreetz.com/for_engadget/Kindle_Vector_Final_Public_Domain_Daniel_Reetz_danreetzgmailcom.pdf
I worked pretty hard on my entry. Here's the 3D model I created to get proper outlines:
http://danreetz.com/for_engadget/workup.jpg
Congratulations and good luck to all the finalists. I am proud to see my assembly diagram among such great competition, and grateful for all the support!
That's awesome of you to put that out for public domain. I'd get your design on the back of my kindle if I... uhh had one. But none the less, awesome work again. ;)
You got my vote. And thanks for releasing the design... I'd put it on my Kindle, but I have no idea where or who to have do such a thing.
Still, I dig the thought you put into this. I hope you win.
The assembly one is ahead, hmmm...
Is it just me, or do the +, -, and ! buttons have blue squares around them?
It's happening to me too.
33 for the SERIOUS reader, hehehe
Mine isn't there either. Some of them are clearly not black and white. What the heck engadget?
Yeah, "black and white" and grayscale are not the same thing. How about picking some designs that can actually be engraved?
Also, I think the rules said, "something that means a lot to you". Not that I'm sure Samual L. Jackson doesn't mean a lot to many people, but...
I would say it is pretty clear that these 23 were drawn at random like the second set of rules states, but they should have ruled out the ones that can't be engraved.
They also mentioned that the engrave able area is around 5x7", which doesn't go all the way to the edges (I measured with reference the measurements of the kindle 2). Some of these either violate that or have complete disregard for the FCC / Amazon logos that would be lying underneath.
Thats what we get for following the rules.
#15 needs to win... that guy made that design for a reason.
And that reason has nothing to do with which of these is the best. "Will you marry me" nonsense is painfully corny.
I may be corny, but you should really see how much she reads... I figured this would be a rather appropriate way of asking. =P
Can I get one with Josh Topolsky engraved on the back?
Yeah - I want the one that looks like Josh on the back.
I want sexy beast Josh on the back too. :D
I'll take 3!!!
I love the message 4 and 6 convey.
should have done one with the nutritional facts
Looks like mine didn't get selected (http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u181/jdcharlantini/Contamination.png?t=1248899148)
Good job everyone.
The assembly diagram looks amazing.
I'm definitely bummed that mine (http://www.smugmug.com/photos/605409938_vnuG5-X3-1.jpg) wasn't picked as a finalist (especially since some appear to have illegal shades of grey... cough... #4 "Peace"... cough). Though of the 25, I definitely respect a number of them as very impressive. Great contest, Engadget -- thanks for the fun & suspense.
What about #1, #3, #20, #22?
Or is their gray just spaced out black dots?
I'm pretty sure that #1 & 3 are legit, and that #20, 21, & 22 are all shady, so to speak. For whatever reason, I felt that #4 was the most blatant in disregarding the b&w rules. Maybe I hate peace.
Mine--#3, Never Stop Reading--is all black and white, just with thin lines any laser worth its snuff can blast out.
Go, lil' Skelly, go!
I'm kind of bummed mine didn't make it either. I probably wouldn't win, but nevertheless I'm really astounded by how 20 and 21 even made it in here considering they use GRAY, not to mention the lack of concept.
This was my submission, Fire and Ink:
http://taodesign.smugmug.com/photos/600964909_BbiB2-XL.jpg
Very cool. Yours should have been there.
I love the #1 Amazing Book of Everything, great satire :-D
For how long will the winner be able to keep the kindle before amazon decides to remove it ???
Write me in too:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28536368@N02/
I'm not sure I had a chance, but at least I followed the rules...
No, I'm not bitter.
Numbers 4, 9, 20, 21, 22 include GRAY.
I'm still not bitter.
man... mine was The Epic of Gilgamesh... translated to binary... in the shape of tablet #1 :(
and not chosen for vote?? how much more gooder can you get than that??!!
I don't really get what they were going for on this one, but I went with the assembly diagram.
you suck engadget. we should be voting on all the designs.
Bummed that I didn't get chosen. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2631/3765276524_d32c5b972e_o.jpg
But I'm voting for #2. Great job everyone.
Yours is actually my favorite of all postings - extremely well done. I would have voted for ya!
Thanks gallobg. I still think #2 is the strongest one up there. But I wish I could have been in the running as well.
Looks fantastic!
Any chance you could throw up the pdf/eps version of your entry?
A shame it wasn't chosen.
Here you go Seni and anyone else who wants it.
PDF: http://www.dhareza.com/misc/DharezaKindle.pdf
I really dug yours man! Mine's #14. I would of figured if mine got picked yours would be there too. :?
Most of the people here upset theirs didn't get chosen had worse designs imo. Everyone is going to think theirs is better than the ones above because THEY did it. It's hard to look at it from a different person's perspective. I imagine they got a few of their people together and picked the ones they thought were best. If you didn't get picked, you weren't original or artistic enough.
Doesn't look like originality was that important if I see the entries.
Engadget sucks!
If you're going to randomly choose entries, don't tell us you're going to "narrow them down", tell us you're going to "close your eyes and point".
Some of these are very good, but most don't follow the guidelines and many are un-engravable. :(
Who designed the steampunk image? I want to engrave that on MY Kindle! I already have free access to an Epilog anyway.
451 must win.
Bit too painful to have that on a DRM reader with 'pull the books out of your hands and burn them' technology IMHO
It came down to "Assembly" and "Library Card" for me. Library Card was too good to pass up, but I really hope both win. Very cool... Amusingly, after Amazon's 1984 fumble, I'm going with a Sony Reader myself.
Agreed. A Kindle from Oceania circa 1984 is too good to pass up.
Not impressed with these options. I'm also surprised there was not a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference to "Don't Panic".
#1 for the old timey Chris Ware styling and the irony.
some of these are utter crap, 5,9,12,21,22 but some are legit good work, 1,2 :( sucks mine didn't make it to the finals. at least i followed the rules...
Welcome to the wild world of marketing, people !
How many more folks came here (to Engadget), just to have a shot at the kindle ? They're playing the numbers.
"Shhhh. Don't be fooled into thinking you're anything more. You're still just a number. That's all."
Don't be shocked, sad, P'O'd, etc. To Engadget...it doesn't matter who wins...just as long as more people click their link. Same rationale as the recession give-aways.
Jaded ? Nah.
It's not personal. It's just business.
Right on Nietzsche! You can be so cute.
Really? people come to engadget for the click? So how do they get informed on it?
#16 is good
Go chibi book goo!!!! :3
I made the Ubik one. There's 2 puzzles on the back. They both require knowledge of the timelines in the book. See if you can figure them out!
the rules said the image had to be within 5x7. Some of those pictures don't fall under that. Especially the one depicted on the entire backing of the amazon.
Oh well.
Yay for 11. Piano cat
Actually, they said they would scale the image for you, that's one of the benefits of a vector image.
Did anyone do "Don't Panic"? It was the first thing that popped into me head.
They already did that on the Adafruit website. I would like that one personally.
my 3 wolfs are pissed they didnt get picked to be in the final 23(?wtf), Engadget has no idea what kind of power and awesomeness my wolfs hold
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f156/gaspain/3WolfMoon.jpg