Six years is a long time, especially for a website design! That's how long we've used the red & black scheme you see before you. We think the time has come for a new scheme, a new layout, etc. and we're giving the Linux community at large a chance to whip up a few good designs.

The demands on quality web publishing have grown and expanded a lot. As a popular and well respected internet destination, we need to set the bar very high with our next site design so we've put together a few of guidelines for anyone interested in sending in a design.

• XHTML 1.0 Strict, per W3C XHTML Validator
• CSS 2.1, W3C CSS Validator
• Good web accessibility (Section 508, etc), per WAVE
• Javascript 1.5
• Good cross-platform support (Linux, Windows, Mac, text browsers)
• Space for some standard IAB ad units, specifically "micro bar", "square button", "full banner", "leaderboard", "medium rectangle" and "wide skyscraper" (see their site for specs)

We're looking for a design that we can take and grow over time, so there are a couple of things we'd like to ask for, over and above the guidelines.

• Images must be submitted in both PNG and XCF (GIMP) formats
• Fonts must be readily available without license fees, preferrably licensed under the GPL or other Open Source license
• A description detailing how to make additional/new graphics in the same scheme (including placement of fonts on buttons, gradient, alpha, threshold and other configurable items)

Use the contents of the current home page to base your design on. Get all of the necessary files into a zip or tar file and send it as an email attachment to design @ linux.org. We're going to collect all submitted designs until Oct 31st. On November 1st, we'll post all the complete designs we received and let site visitors comment and vote for their favourite overall design and specific feature(s).

Ultimately, we'll likely use portions of several submitted designs and launch a new site design sometime in late November. Everyone who contributes to the final design will be permanently listed on our credits page.

This isn't a contest. We're not offering prizes, giveaways or any sort of payment. While there will be favourites selected by site visitors, we're going to make use of the best features, whereever they may come from. There won't be a "winning" design. This is your opportunity to show your work and make a contribution to the next few years of Linux Online!

We're looking forward to your submissions!