London, 8th February 2012 – There is just under one week left to enter Nokia’s alphalabs.cc competition, HAVE YOU ENTERED YET!!?

The competition is an experiment which merges technology with the arts. The competition is designed to encourage artists and developers to share the experimental apps that they have developed and created on the Windows Phone 7 platform.

The competition, launched in conjunction with onedotzero during our onedotzero_adventures in motion festival in November 2011 and is open for submissions until 13th February 2012. It will judged by representatives from Nokia and onedotzero.

The winner will take away a grand prize sum of £5,000 while ten runners up will each win £500.

To enter the competition, entrants must simply document their experiments and submit them via alphalabs.cc.

Keith Varty, Head of Ecosystem and Development, Nokia UK and Ireland comments: “This competition is about bold ideas and experimentation, and brings to life the new possibilities that our partnership with Microsoft has created for the ecosystem.” He continues: “The Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7 has created exciting opportunities that participants of the competition will be able to take full advantage of. We’ll be looking for concepts that demonstrate a creative use of the platform, and not necessarily fully finished apps.”

For more information on how to enter and updates on the competition please visit alphalabs.cc.

Back in November last year, onedotzero collaborated with Wieden + Kennedy and Nokia as part of the Nokia Lumia 800 launch to create alphalabs.cc, an experiment that merges technology and the arts.

The competition was designed to encourage artists and developers to share the experimental apps that they create on the WP7 platform. With an extended deadline of 13th February in place this should give you all time to get your submissions in, with results to be announced on 17 February 2012.

During the competition launch, onedotzero’s director Shane Walter introduced three experiments that had been created by selected teams of artists and developers for the purpose of inspiring the audience with real working demonstrations. The work showcases the creative possibilities of the platform and the phone, and was impressively developed in just two weeks.

Check out the edited highlights of the three projects that were showcased on the launch day for a reminder of the inspirational demonstrations of app creations. Certainly worth viewing to get an idea of what is achievable on the Windows Phone platform.

VEQUENCER – STUART WARREN-HILL + TEAM HOLOTRONICA
REDSHIFT – FIELD.IO + TREEHOUSE DEV
KALEIDOBOOTH – MAX HATTLER + INDIESKIES

With just over two weeks to go there’s still time to submit your entries, don’t forget the cash prize incentives for the best experiments:
£5000 for the winner
£500 x ten runners up

Entries do not necessarily have to be completed projects – we want to see the best experimentations of the Window Phone platform.

Here are some UX and design guides for the Windows Phone Platform:

Windows Phone UX Guide MSDN

Design Templates for Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone Grid – Design Using these Grid Templates
Photoshop and Illustrator

Expression Design

If you’ve got any questions, or share your thoughts on your ideas feel free to drop a line to support [at] alphalabs.cc

Check out the previous blog posted on 12th December 2011 for a full overview of the Nokia Lumia 800 launch in November.

Follow the competition conversations on twitter: @alphalabscc

We look forward to seeing your creations!

Last month at the onedotzero_adventures in motion festival, onedotzero teamed up with Veer to help them judge the creative catalyst: design for change competition.

Award-winning graphic artist Barton Damer has scooped the top prize in a joint Computer Arts / Veer competition with his work, Malaria Kills.

Describing the idea behind his Malaria Kills piece, Barton Damer said:

“At first glance I want it to look like the continent of Africa. Next I want you to notice a beautiful African Queen. Then I want you to notice that there are a lot of disturbing things about this ‘Africa’ — malaria being a big one. So you have this tension of a beautiful African queen, but on further observation you notice some of the disturbing elements that make up the artwork.”

Barton Damer wins £2,000 for charity, Malaria No More, along with £2,000′s worth of Veer credits, which can be used to buy images, vectors and fonts for use in future projects. You can find out more about Barton Damer and his work in the February 2012 issue of Computer Arts, which goes on sale on Thursday 12 January.

Runners-up

Barton Damer’s Malaria Kills piece was recently displayed alongside the work of nine runners-up at the onedotzero_adventures in motion festival in London. Each runner-up was awarded £1,000′s worth of Veer credits. The runners-up were:

Richard Davies for The Cruellest Disease
Nick Calvert for Water Aid
Dan Erik Ronnback for The Gears of Mankind
It Starts for Play Your Part
Oleksandr Parkhomovskyy for Esst Mehr Obst
Charles Williams for Young Minds Campaign
Laurie Sumiye for Eat Invasive Species!
T.H. Barczyk for Konrad Lubi Jezdzic…
Orlando Facioli Jr. for We Were Here First
The Creative Catalyst: Design For Change competition was judged by a panel of design industry luminaries, including Computer Arts’ editor Rob Carney; Billy Tennant, creative director at Veer; and Shane Walter, co-founder and creative director of onedotzero.

Check out the video below for a summary of the project and a few words from the judges and Barton Damer.