PHPClasses.org, one of the most popular websites for the PHP and web developers community has launched a new design theme. The new theme was chosen during the first version of the PHPClasses.org design contest.

The contest was developed using their own site design theme editor created by PHPClasses. In this first edition the work of the designers was focused in the CSS files and the editing of the icons and background images. In this eddition it was not possible to drastically change the html layout of the site, so the result could be called as a “facelift” of the previous looks and feel, but it is not a totally redesign as all the PHP Community hope for future editions.

From the over 600 users tried the site design editor around the world, 34 users submitted design proposals that were voted in the election. IGDonline (@igdonline) won the first turn with 20.98% of the votes, and we classified for a second turn with Guilherme Rivas from Brazil. In this second turn we got the 51.43% of the votes.

At this point, we want to say thanks to PHPClasses.org to give us the opportunity to participate in this contest and let the users express themselves visually. We also appreciate a lot all the feedback we received from users around the world, specially all the nice messages from the Costa Rica PHP Group.

IGDonline interview on PHPClasses.org

PHPClasses.org also gave us an interview in the official blog to talk about this experience. In this interview, Ifat Amit, Ricardo Arce and Guilherme Rivas talk about the contest benefits and limitations, the exposure of this nice experience, and our suggestions to future editions of the design contest.

The before/after picture of PHPClasses.org