Vinyl Cache - Logo and Mascot Contest Edits

This page contains additional information about changes we made to the Vinyl Cache - Logo and Mascot Contest announced on the main page. The exact changes are tracked in git an can be followed there.

Edit 1: Changed license to be granted to CC BY

2025-11-03:

We originally published the contest asking for entries to be made available under CC BY-NC-SA license. After publication, it was pointed out to us that this license was prohibitive for inclusion of the logo in some software distributions and could be problematic, for example, for use in commercially distributed books. We do want to allow such uses and, consequently, reduced the license requirement to CC BY, even if it does not restrict commercial use and might allow some commercial use cases which we did originally want to prevent.

Edit 2: Clarification of the Vinyl Cache logo competition

2025-11-06:

Please read the long story below if you can, but first things first: We called for participation in a competition and learned that the idea was bad and our communication insufficient. We do not want to retract the competition, so we want to (try to) remedy the situation with these clarifications and additions to the rules:

  • Please regard the competition as a pitch: Our intention is to see your ideas - we do not need polished, finalized work, but rather drafts or sketches and some idea of how your finished designs usually looks like. This can be in the form of some examples or a portfolio.

    To be clear, please submit:

      1. your drafts/sketches of

      • (A1) Logotype and logomark and/or

      • (A2) Mascot

      and

      1. your portfolio or other examples of your finished designs.

  • The selection process will be guided not by how finished your entries are, but rather by originality and how well your ideas represent our project, given that you showed that you are able to finalize your work.

To make clear that we want to reward the tedious work of finalizing drafts, we will first grant the same price of 250€ (for logo and mascot) or 125€ + 125€ (for logo or mascot) to all 3-6 best entries as submitted.

We will then work with the first winner for logo and/or mascot, respectively, to finalize their work and pay out the remaining 750€ (for logo and mascot) or 375€ + 375€ (for logo or mascot) for the final design.

Now for the rest of the back story

Elena Rossini was so kind to share our call for participation in this competition to create a logo and mascot for the rebranded Vinyl Cache project. Some commentators to her post pointed out that competitions among designers were generally frowned upon and considered exploitative.

To clarify, we are not Varnish Software, but the newly founded Vinyl Cache Association, consisting of currently three members only. The monetary prizes are donated by one of the companies who have contributed significantly to the project under the old name for the past 15 years.

We thank those who pointed out issues with our competition and specifically those who made constructive suggestions. We as technical people have learned a lot and understand that the competition idea was not a good one. There is a matching saying in German: “Gut gemeint ist noch lange nicht gut gemacht” (similar to “Good intentions don’t make you right”, but more as “done right”).

To explain our intentions:

As individuals, employees and a small company, we have worked with designers in the past, who we could have approached and paid directly. The competition idea was motivated by the desire to open up our newfound project and leave our small bubble.

In our perception, work on the project logo & mascot would be a FOSS contribution as per this rule from the contest text (slightly edited for clarity):

  • By entering designs into the contest, you promise to make [the finalized version] available under the CC BY license if selected as a winner. Note that the Vinyl Cache project will have the same rights as everyone else.

So we specifically do not ask for a transfer of any rights to us, but rather to grant rights to everyone as per CC BY. We specifically do not ask for transfer of any rights on non-selected works.

One comment pointed out that the “proper way” (our words) to make logo/mascot work a FOSS contribution was to organize it fully in the open and allow public voting. We think that the people who run the project and make most of the contributions should have the privilege to decide on how the project presents itself, and hence we think that the members of the newly found Vinyl Cache association should have the vote.

We saw the monetary prizes as an added bonus, but we understand that this train of thought was still not perceived as intended. We are sorry. We do not want to exploit designers and will (try hard to) not make such a mistake again.

Since the competition is out, we need to deal with it. Having announced it, we want to stand by what we said we would do, and we want to avoid retrospectively changing the rules too much. If the competition fails with no (good) entries, this will be entirely our fault and we will come up with a better second try.

If you want to participate, please show us your ideas. You do not need to finalize them, please only put in the amount of work which you deem acceptable. We will ask only with winner(s) to deliver finished designs.