Mercenary Contest "winner" ....puhleeeeese

[Rex]

This really bugs me. The Mercenary contest was to find someone to make up new imagery and a new logo for them to use on merchandise and other things. But guess what, the winner used Travis' artwork and the old logo.

Whats the point in that? This makes no sense whatsoever to me. Someone please enlighten me.

Travis' original

Design contest winner

 

[Rex]

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this band. But it defeats the purpose of a contest if the winner doesn't use original material. They could have just used the real files to make this up in a couple of minutes. It looks like this person took a low res file of the cover and stretched it out, which is why its blurry. That and the fact that another person is going to get credit for Travis' work. (seemingly)

 

[Seems like Trav]

interesting.

 

[ColdDarkNord]

owned?

 

[winters epilogue]

Lame.

 

[Eyesore]

Huh...that's pretty weak. Is that band that oblivious that they didn't notice that complete rip-off?

 

[Pyro]

Credit where credit is due..



..and by that, I mean to the awesome artist who created the shirt design. Fuck, I just tried and it took me about 2 straight weeks come up with this (and this topic didn't even exist then):

 

[Everblack]

Let me clarify this for you. We are not oblivious....we are aware of that Travis´ art is used to create the winning design (duh). However, the point of the contest was to create something that we would put on our shirt. The winner got the obvious idea of using elements from the album. We did´nt ask for something completely new....just something that would prevent us from using the typical BIG print cover shirt- So, there you have it.....New imagery, new logo??? Where the hell did that come from?

Mike/Mercenary

 

[Rex]

Bravewords.com > News
Mercenary.dk - News

MERCENARY Invite Fans To Design New T-Shirt

Posted on Sunday, July 30, 2006 at 05:10:18

MERCENARY have posted the following call-to-arms at their official website:

"Would you like to design one of the next Mercenary shirts? Mercenary has decided that one of the new shirts in our merchandise collection has to come from one of you metal guys or gals out there.

The shirt is meant to be one of the shirts to follow the release of our new album, The Hours That Remain, and it will be sold from the website and at our concerts in the future. Since it is an open contest, there are no real guidelines, other than it has to show, somehow, that it's a Mercenary shirt. Whether you use our current logo, a new logo? - or other signs or stuff you come up with is completely up to you.

So turn up 'Soul Decision' and start creating the next Mercenary shirt.

Some of the elements we currently use on either shirts, CDs or covers, are here to use if you need it. Variations of our logo can be found in the "PRESS" section, but remember, we're also looking for something new and fresh to spice up the merchandise stand so feel free to invent the new shirt.

To submit your design or idea please follow these instructions:

1 - Send to: mercenary.merch@gmail.com. REMEMBER: name, age, country and e-mail address.

2 - Please don't send the full layout file (PSD, or other layered). Send a .jpg in about 800-1000 pixels in width and we'll
ask for the complete layout if we choose your design.

3 - It's OK to send more than one design, however, if it's a matter of details you can work on them if we like the basic idea.

4 - Please read the legal stuff before submitting anything here.

5 - Stop reading this gigantic news post and GET TO IT!!!!"

There you go. Maybe I as an artist, misunderstood what was trying to be said. But when I see phrases like "but remember, we're also looking for something new and fresh" and "feel free to invent the new..." and also a suggestion of possibly creating "a new logo" that it immediately tells me that the client is looking for something new and different. Not something they already have total access too.

But I'll humbly apologize if I misunderstood and read that wrong. But you have to be able to see it my way now that I've shown it to you as well. Mercenary are one of my favorite bands, (only after Nevermore currently) and I'd not like to piss anyone in the band off. That wasn't my intent. But when I "understood" that Mercenary was looking for something new, and then saw that the winning piece was a direct rip from Travis' artwork, that made me mad.

 

[Seems like Trav]

:: deleted because it was supposed to be funny, but wasn't ::

 

[Everblack]

Rex >> I see your point and we also got a lot of designs that had´nt anything to do with the cover artwork but giving an artist the possibility to create something completely new does´nt exactly mean that it´s a must. When all is said and done...we looked through the different design and chose this one. Simple and straight forward. But hey, I know what you mean and take no offense.

/Mike

And Travis>> I´m sure you were pretty funny

 

[Rex]

Great, thanks Mike. And I apologize if I rubbed you the wrong way at all. I'd really not want to do that to someone in one of my favorite bands. haha
Thanks for understanding.

And yeah, it was funny Trav. You should have left it be.