Cool Hunting is sponsoring a skateboard design contest with their new friends over at Popdeck. The Threadless of skateboard design, Popdeck is a website that allows users submit and vote on designs with the winner getting a cash prize and their entry made into a limited-edition board.

Since Cool Hunting is a bit obsessive compulsive, and since they enjoy design that manifests elements of the orderly disorder, they decided to go with the theme of OCD. Interpret it anyway you’d like, but keep in mind that designs will be assessed both based on this concept as well as originality. The contest will run for three weeks (21 January?), giving you plenty of time to think up your best. In addition to having their design made into a board, the winner will get $200 cash, a free board and be entered into Cool Hunting Hall of Fame.

Create an account at Popdeck, enter the “Cool Hunting Contest,” download a submission kit, and start drafting your design now. Of the top five rated designs, they’ll choose their favorite from the finalists.

Via: Cool Hunting

MAILMeArt has finally had enough work sent via the post. A deadline has been set for 30 January to allow the compilers to start preparing for the MAiLmeART Exhibition and to allow them more time to compile the MAiLmeART Book which will be being published by HOW books. Their website will no longer be being maintained or updated until the Exhibition, and I’ve removed their ‘permanent’ link from the ongoing contests in the middle column. Visit the site to learn more.

Inhabitat and Core77 invite designers to explore the concept of “Greener Gadgets.” Designs should seek to minimize the environmental impact of consumer electronic devices at any stage in the product lifecycle. Areas of sustainability to consider include:

1. Energy
2. Materials / Lifecycle / Recycling
3. Social & educational development

Participants are encouraged to consider their designs as part of the entire product ecosystem, and should think as holistically as possible. Designers may choose to focus their entries on a particular area of human enterprise (learning, playing, communicating, etc.), or a particular context (work, home, school, etc.), a particular material, or a specific device. Entries may also seek to create new paradigms for products and services.

Deadline closes at 11:59 pm EST on 27 January 2008. Visit the Greener Gadgets site for details!

Millennium School is a design competition for school buildings in developing countries located in the tropics. The Millennium School Design Competition is part of the Be Better Build Better Campaign and aims to solicit the best architecture-for-humanity designs from all over the world. Architects shall be brought together in a collective effort to try to find solutions to the problems of school buildings in the developing world, and in particular those that are constantly faced by natural disasters like typhoons, flash floods and earthquakes.

The competition will facilitate the emergence of new sustainable design solutions and appropriate technologies that will improve the quality of school buildings in the developing world. The competition will offer a venue for the practice of architecture for a client group that would otherwise have no access to design professionals that can solve their problems.

Deadline for registration is 11 January 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

For nearly five decades, the Clio Awards has been committed to the mission of celebrating and rewarding creative excellence in advertising and design, honoring one of the most influential forms of communication and its impact on modern culture. The Clio Awards, part of Nielsen Business Media, receives more than 19 000 entries from over 60 countries in a broad range of mediums including Interactive, Television/Cinema/Digital, Content & Contact, Print, Poster, Billboard, Innovative Media, Integrated Campaign, Radio, Design and student work, and are judged by world-class juries made up of more than 100 top creatives from 65 countries. The culmination of the competition takes place each May at the annual Clio Awards Festival, in Miami’s South Beach, attended by an international who’s who of advertising and digital marketing.

Deadline for entry submissions is 15 January 2008 for all entries first appearing between 1 January 2007 - 31 December 2007. Deadline for entries that originally appeared in the first quarter of 2008 is 29 February 2008. The online entry system for the 2008 awards program is currently open at www.clioawards.com.

It’s that time of year again, when Design Within Reach puts out a call out to designers and would-be designers for Design Uncorked: The annual DWR Champagne Chair Contest.

Create an original miniature chair using only the foil, label, cage and cork from no more than two Champagne bottles. Chairs will be judged by a panel of industry experts and the winners will embark on a nation-wide tour. The winning designers will receive DWR Gift Cards. In an effort to minimize the mountains of packaging waste generated in the past, submissions can now be made digitally. Submission deadline is 5 p.m. (Pacific Time) on 7 January. Visit the link above to learn more.

Via: statesman.com

Call for entries for the 4th annual HollyShorts Film Festival (HSFF) begins on Monday, 14 January 2008. Filmmakers from around the globe are encouraged to submit their short films 30 minutes and under to HollyShorts, one of the fastest growing festivals in the US and the premiere short film event in Hollywood, CA. Submissions will be accepted through Withoutabox.com. The 4th annual HollyShorts Film Festival takes place 8-10 August 2008 in Hollywood.

Visit the site to learn more.

At left: Issue Reporting Story First Place, Paula Bronstein Getty Images.

Pictures of the Year International invites you to take an early look at the categories and guidelines for the 65th annual photojournalism competition — the world’s oldest and one of the most prestigious.

You can find complete guidelines along with a printable summary, a Spanish and a Chinese language version. Online registration and entry platform deadline is 18 January 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

The Pacific International Space Center for Explorations Systems (PISCES) announces its second annual Student Design Competition and invites team from universities to participate.

The PISCES design program provides an opportunity to engage students in a rich and meaningful educational experience, derived from working on design problems of current interest, on important technical and programmatic issues that are central to the settlement of space. NASA and JAXA now have serious plans for the future of humans in space, including the continued construction of the International Space Station and human and robotic lunar exploration. Students now in university design programs will be the professionals who will implement the decisions.

A total of up to six awards will be offered this year. Each award will consist of travel funds to bring two students and a faculty advisor to the PISCES annual conference to be held on the Big Island of Hawaii, 10-11 November 2008. At this conference, the university studies will be presented to the PISCES team and the student teams will be able to observe and participate in further planning of the PISCES program.

Any U. S. university may field one or more teams that are interested in the topics of lunar surface facilities,technology development such as ISRU, surface operations, and commercial activities, can participate. A brief indication of interest is requested from university teams by 31 January 2008. Visit the site to learn more about the project, the team expectations, and further deadlines up to the November conference.

To celebrate the flair, colour and creativity of their Brasilian origins, Brahma beer is launching VISTOBRAHMA, a design competition which offers up and coming creative minds the chance to get their work seen. There is a main cash prize of £5,000, as well as the chance to see your design on our packaging throughout the UK.

All types of work are welcome, whether its painting, illustration, photography, street art or anything in between, we want to see it. You can see examples of artists work for Brahma throughout the site and in the gallery.

This competition is open to all residents of the UK who are over age 18 (except employees of the Promoter and their immediate families, the Promoters advertising agency and sales promotion consultancy, and anyone else connected with the creation and administration of this promotion). The closing date for the receipt of all submissions is the 25th January 2008. Visit the site to learn more.