UPDATE 12-9-11: We are encouraging people to create infographics that show how great the world is.  We love the submissions we have gotten so far, but we do not want this to be a strictly “Doomsday” infographic contest.  Remember, you can invert the available data to show either side of the fact.

Official Rules- Infographics Contest

Posterbrain.com is sponsoring the Design the Future Infographic Contest (”Contest”). NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Start date is Wednesday November 23rd, 2011 and will end 72 hours after the contest has 50 accepted submissions.

How to Enter
Infographic design should be poster size, sizes can range anywhere from 18”x18” to 24”x36”.  Images must be saved electronically at print size, jpeg format, 150 dpi.  The  ONLY information that can be used can be viewed on this Google doc.   This information was gathered from worldometers.info/ on 11-22-2011.  Email your submission to  poppy@posterbrain.com.  Once your submission is reviewed and deemed appropriate we will email confirmation of your entry in the competition.  Entrants must have a valid email address.  Proof of submission will not be deemed to be proof of receipt by Sponsor.

Winner Selection
From all eligible entries received, Sponsor will select 1 winner based on the judging criteria. The decision of the judges is final in all matters. Winner will be notified by email within 2 weeks of Contest end. Winners notified by electronic mail, must reply with all contact information requested in the notification within ten (10) days from the date notification was sent, or another winner may be selected.
Judges will give points evenly on each of the 3 aspects below for each entrant’s infographic.  Individual point totals will not be available for the public viewing.
Creativity – The way you tie your information together to present your topic.
Aesthetics – The visual aspect that makes up your infographic.
Clarity – How clear the topic and information provided is.  This includes the visuals you use to represent your facts.

33% of judging criteria will be based on how many people “like” your image on our Facebook contest page.  Anyone caught or suspected using an automated vote program can be disqualified, the option will be decided by sponsor.

Prize
Winner will receive a 16GB WiFi only iPad2. Sponsor makes no warranties with regard to the prizes. Prizes are not transferable. No substitutions of prize allowed by winner, but Sponsor reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value due to prize unavailability. Prize is not redeemable by winner(s) for cash value.  If winner resides outside of the United States they will assume responsibility for all charges related to shipping, including but not limited to, shipping charges, import/export taxes, customs charges.

Miscellaneous

Contest is open only to individuals who have reached the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry and who do NOT reside in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the Province of Quebec, Sudan or Syria. This Contest is governed exclusively by the laws of the United States. You are not authorized to participate in the Contest if laws of your resident state, territory or jurisdiction do not allow you to.  Employees of Sponsor and its affiliates, advertising and promotion agencies are not eligible to enter. Void where prohibited, taxed, or restricted by law. All federal, state and/or local rules and regulations apply.  If for any reason laws in the winner’s region, territory or state have laws that do not allow Contest a new winner will be selected.

If there are not 20 submissions by March 1st 2012 there will be no winner and the contest will be canceled.  All entries become the sole property of Sponsor and none will be returned. In the event of a dispute, entries made by Internet will be deemed made by the authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at the time of entry. “Authorized account holder” is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, online service provider or organization (e.g., business, educational institution, etc.) that is responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address.  A potential winner may be requested to provide Sponsor with proof that the potential winner is the authorized account holder of the e-mail address associated with the winning entry. If for any reason the Contest is not capable of running as planned, including due to infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failure, human error or any other causes beyond the control of Sponsor that corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Contest, Sponsor reserve(s) the right in its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process, and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Contest. Sponsor assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, entries. Sponsor is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers, or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of any e-mail or entry to be received by Sponsor on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site, any combination thereof, or otherwise, including any injury or damage to entrant’s or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading any materials in the Contest. Sponsor may prohibit an entrant from participating in the Contest or winning a prize if, in its sole discretion, it determines that said entrant is attempting to undermine the legitimate operation of the Contest by cheating, hacking, deception, or other unfair playing practices (including the use of automated quick entry or quick vote programs) or intending to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other entrants or Sponsor representatives.  No automated entry devices, automated voting  and/or programs permitted. Sponsor and affiliates are not responsible for lost, late, illegible, stolen, incomplete, invalid, unintelligible, misdirected, technically corrupted or garbled entries, which will be disqualified, or for problems of any kind whether mechanical, human or electronic. Entry constitutes permission to use winner’s infographic, name, picture, likeness, and city and state of residence for purposes of trade, publicity or promotion for no additional compensation except where prohibited by law. By participating, entrants and winners agree to release and hold harmless Sponsor and its subsidiaries, affiliates, advertising and promotions agencies, partners, representatives, agents, successors, assigns, employees, officers and directors, from any and all liability, for loss, harm, damage, injury, cost or expense whatsoever including without limitation, property damage, personal injury and/or death which may occur in connection with the Contest, or possession, acceptance and/or use or misuse of prize or participation in any Contest-related activity and for any claims based on publicity rights, defamation or invasion of privacy and merchandise delivery. Sponsor is not responsible if Contest cannot take place or if prizes cannot be awarded due to delays or interruptions due to acts of war, natural disasters, weather or acts of terrorism.
 Any attempt by an entrant to deliberately damage any web site affiliated with the Contest or undermine the legitimate operation of the Contest may be a violation of criminal and civil laws and should such and attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from and such person to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Sponsored by www.posterbrain.com
Hosted by coolinfographics.com

Contest overview can be viewed at http://coolinfographics.com/design-contest/

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and airports are getting busier by the day.  You will be glad to know that airlines are gearing up for the extra air traffic to get you to your location on time.  Some are even creating posters to help their employees.  We have seen humorous posters and serious posters.  Posters with what-to-do in certain situations and posters to promote travel deals.  This poster was created for the 254 graduating class of Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants.  What a cool custom poster!  This will now be framed and hung at the Southwest Headquarters alongside other graduating classes.  Another great example of posters being used internally for business.

Andreas Gursky (pictured above) has done it again.  He can once again boast the title of creating most expensive photograph ever sold.  At Christie’s auction last week the image, titled Rhein II, sold for over 4.3 million dollars.  You can see a picture of it below.  The German photographer captured the image in 1999.  Rhein II is a large poster of the Rhine river in Europe.  This was the second piece in a set of 6.  It was the largest of the 6, printed at 73″ x 143″ for a grand total of 10,439 square inches.  That breaks down to more than $412 per square inch.

He sold another image (one of two parts shown below) in February of 2007 titled 99 Cent II Diptychon.  It was Auctioned at the famous Sotherby’s for 3.34 million dollars.  This was also the worlds most expensive photograph until May of 2011.  At that time Cindy Sherman sold a self-portrait she had taken in 1981.  The image was auctioned at Christie’s for $3,890,500.  I guess Andreas got tired of being second best for 6 months and decided to one-up her.

The prices paid for these images seems a little beyond ridiculous.  So obviously we wanted to make a blog post about it…  Below are our 2 favorite poster images from Andreas Gursky, please enjoy.

Good news!  The poster above is for sale.  Although the price is not listed I have a strange feeling it is slightly out of our price range.

This one is hard to appreciate while looking at it on your computer screen.  You can see that the poster printed from this image is absolutely enormous.  This is a image of Super Kamiokande, an experiment to to research proton decay.  We will not bore you with the science behind it but we can explain what you are looking at.  It is basically a steel tank, 136 ft tall and 129 ft in diameter located in Japan.  The large balls you see are photomultiplier tubers, there are a total of 11,146 in this mine.

And to close, a few words from the man himself.

“I subjugate the real situation to my artistic concept of the picture. Apart from the constantly recurring elements I have already mentioned, another aspect occurs to me which explains the way my pictures function. You never notice arbitrary details in my work. On a formal level, countless interrelated micro and macrostructures are woven together, determined by an overall organizational principle. A closed microcosm which, thanks to my distanced attitude towards my subject, allows the viewer to recognize the hinges that hold the system together. Of course, there are adequate reasons to justify such a formal, schematic representation of reality.”
(Gursky)

We announced the winners of our Halloween costume contest yesterday!  Everyone that entered had such great costumes we decided that they all should win free posters.  Below are pictures of the people our winners.

We even had some pups enter the contest.  I wonder what kind of poster they will have printed with us?  The owner has promised to let them choose.

How cool is this one!  A sushi chef with his full sushi bar.  A lot of work went into it.  I can’t imagine trying to walk around a party in this, but he made it work.

Nerd on a bicycle; breathtaking…

The costume is great and this pose might be even better.  We have been getting a lot of posters of the new Nike/Marty McFly shoes lately too.  Great job guys!

Lat but not least, our most clever entry; the mail order bride!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered.  Can’t wait to see your costumes next year.

PosterBrain has one passion; printing the best custom posters the world will ever see!  The custom posters we print range from silly posters for birthdays to informational posters for businesses.  We love them all equally and put the same amount of time and effort into every poster we print.  We decided to dedicate on blog post on all the different types custom posters that we print everyday.

Custom Sports Posters
We get all sorts of custom posters related to sports.  Anything from Little League to MLB stuff gets printed with us.  It is pretty easy to print an image but some people like to add a little pizazz to their posters.  Above is an example of something that you can do for a son or daughter.  People who have a good understanding of Photoshop can probably do this themselves.  Basically it is a few images layered together with a little text.  If you are not able to do this yourself we would love to recommend someone that offers this service professionally.  Just shoot us an email.

Custom Science Posters

Have you ever tried to explain reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction without a visual aid.  IT IS HARD!  This is one of the reason people have custom posters of their research projects printed with us.  We love it!  Most of the time they are a little over our head (see above poster) but it is nice to know that we are helping the progression of knowledge and research through super complicated posters.  If you need something like this printed for your thesis give us a try, you will not be disappointed.

Rastorize or Haftone posters.

We don’t see many of these but the few that do come through are incredible.  Rastorized and/or halftoned posters is a really neat way to take a small image and print it much larger than you could normally.  Basically the process takes your image and creates a raster image that can be enlarged to any size.  Instead of lines your image is made up of dots (but pretty large dots).  These dots can be enlarged to any size without getting fuzzy.  The larger you make the image the further back you will need to be to see it in all its detail.  Up close it is an intricate design of dots. But take some steps back and keep your eyes on the screen.  Suddenly those dots create the coolest custom poster you have ever seen.  And you can be sure when you make one of these, NO ONE else will have the same one.  The ones above were created from the same black and white image.

Anniversary Posters

We love printing wedding posters but it is even more fun to see some of the anniversary posters that come through.  One thing people like to do to get a one-of-a-kind-poster is find old images of the couple, have them scanned in at a high resolution and print them as posters.  There is a great example above.  A lot are black and white, a lot don’t have the best resolution because they were taken before the era of digital cameras, but everyone still loves them!  These are a big hit at any anniversary party.

The examples above are just some ideas for what you can do for your very own custom poster!  There are so many option we can’t list them all.  If you have something you would like us to mention on our blog please let us know!