Comment Moderation & Plagiarism Concerns

After a few inappropriate comments, we've decided to implement moderation on all comments posted. Unfortunately, we can only do this every coupla days due to our small team, so if you see anything you think we should take a look at, do let us know on our new Feedback Page.

A couple of guidelines for comments

1. Comments should be about the card, not the designer.
2. No foul language or comments that we deem offensive or deliberately confrontational
3. We will soon include a new "Report Plagiarism" link on every card. Please use this and do not comment on plagiarism directly in the comments section of the card. If we believe the card has been copied, we will take action.

Speaking of plagiarism, Foldees.com takes an official stand that we wish to support originality. This means that we might be removing a few cards from the competition, that we feel are not original ideas.

Foldees is broken on Internet Explorer 6!

A friend popped us a screenshot of how Foldees looked on IE6, and we were shocked. Seems it's totally broken and unusable.

We've tested the site extensively on IE7, Safari and Firefox, but unfortunately don't have the resources to test or customise the site for every single version of every single browser available.

So, to all IE6 users, we're SORRY! But you can download the Foldees RECOMMENDED Mozilla FireFox 3 here :)

Don't be a spoilsport

Guys, we've been monitoring the ratings that some people are giving, and it has occurred to us that some people are rating every card with a minimal score except their own.

This is seriously uncool. While we can't judge your opinions, we do want to site to be a true reflection of who has a better design, which is why we put the random ratings engine in place to prevent people from just voting for your friends.

Please note that in an extreme situation, where we have one designer who gets an abnormal amount of such votes (i.e. all 1s except for one entry), WE WILL DISQUALIFY YOUR ENTRY, and remove your card from the site.

If you've already done it, and you want a chance at winning the contest, please encourage your friends and family to vote on their own opinions and not just yours.

Also, apologies if you've been having problems with Sign Up. We've fixed the problem that some people seemed to be having with the Captchas, but if there are any other issues, please please please let us know at support@foldees.com.

Foldees needs your HELP!

Ok guys! We're finally up for reviews and comments! Sorry for the delay, but after we finished uploading the last card (about 5am on a Sunday morning), we had an earth-shattering bug that we had to exterminate before we could opened the site up.

Thankfully, everything's okay now (we hope), so go in and start rating! We need your ratings both to help us choose a winner, AND to help users to pick cards in future!

We also need you guys to help us spread the word! Let your friends know about it through Facebook, Friendster, MSN, your blogs, everywhere! The more people that come to rate the cards, the better for everyone :)

Here's a pretty flyer that you can send to all your friends to impress them.

A small delay.

Sorry guys, because of the huge number of entries that came in yesterday and the day before, we need to delay the launch of our site for 24 hours to approve and collate the entries.

Please come back to Foldees.com on the 27th of July, 12pm (GMT +0800).

Sorry to make you guys wait.

That's a wrap!

This is going to be a short post. Mainly because we've got a million and one things to do before the site goes live in approximately 36 hours.

We just closed the site at about 12.30am to give the last coupla entries some leeway. There's a teaser flyer there in it's place right now, and we're working to get rid of the IP address in the bar now. We will be re-opening (hopefully) at 12pm on Saturday, the 26th of July, for ratings and comments. Please tell ALL YOUR FRIENDS to come by on that date - be it by facebook, MSN, SMS or two cans and a piece of string.

In total, we received an absolutely ridiculous 189 contest submission. Quite a few of these were resubmits with tweaks, or problems with our Template. A few others who submitted late (and there are quite a number of you... tsk tsk) didn't have time to modify your submissions. We are currently collating the rest of the results, but we estimate to have about 70 finalised entries, give or take 5 or 10.

To all those who participated, thank you so much for taking the time to join. We are honestly in awe of the quality of designers here in Malaysia.

In awe.

To those who might not make the cut for various issues, we are very, very sorry. Please do join us for our next contest, launching in September. It's gonna be awesome!

Ok guys, see you in 35 hours. You're all champions to me.

You killed our server!

Just kidding. Well, technically, our server did sorta die, but i suppose it's a good problem to have. Coming into the last 24 hours of our contest, things have been anything but quiet.

We started receiving alot of last minute submissions and modifications to current designs, so much so that approximately between 0030 and 0230 on the 24th of July, the server started protesting. So we killed it and brought it back to life. I think normal people call this a restart :)

Gotta get back to checking submissions now.

Later dudes.

Contest extended by a week to 24th July 2008!

No, we're not going to say the typical because-the-response-has-been-overwhelming bit here. For various reasons, including some entries that require a bit of tweaking before final submission, we've decided to extend the contest for a week, to give you guys more time to polish your current designs or even to submit a few more!

So the timeline for now will be as follows:-

24th July - Contest Closes

26th July - Site open for review and ratings

26th August - Voting closes

31st August - Winners announced... LAUNCH!!! ROFL @$^$#%%OMG LOL n00b!

We've collected about 50+ designs so far, although some do require some tweaking before they're shown to the public. Our target for this contest, is 30 good designs and I've got to say that there are a few that I've received in the past week that really show us what the potential is of designers out there.

Here's are a few of my personal favourites -

 

 

This should give you guys some food for thought.

Our DesignTemplate is now Adobe Illustrator CS1 compatible!!

Thanks to de-funk for letting us know that some people were complaining about CS1 compatibility for the Design Template.

We actually received one complaint about this issue, but we thought it was an isolated case. Guys, if there's a problem, let us know ASAP so we can fix it ya?

Anyways, we've re-saved the files as CS1 compatible now - you can download it here. We have one sight problem though....we don't actually have Illustrator CS1 to test.

As such, please test it to the maxes and let us know how it goes. You can either comment on this post, or just send your feedback to contact@foldees.com. Also, any further suggestions on how to improve the site can be sent to ideas@foldees.com.

On a marginally related topic, we finally checked out Inkscape today. A pure Scalable Vector Graphics editor. Of course, like anyone, we're skeptical about anything that's free, but after downloading it, we were very impressed.

 

As you can see here, the interface isn't too different from Illustrator. It's been about 4 hours of tinkering, and my immediate impressions are this - No it does not have as many features as AI, but somehow, it feels alot smoother. Try it out for your self here.

We might consider supporting it in future, if there's demand for it. If you're an Inkscape user, and want us to come up with an Inkscape template for you to design Foldees cards for our next competition let us know at ideas@foldees.com. 

A new way of saying hello.

Up until now, we've been admittedly cagey about how we're going to distribute your wonderful cards to the world. I mean, as a small Malaysian company, there are obviously alot of hurdles in sending cards all over the world, and ensuring timely delivery.

But before we get to that, lets look at the first ever Foldees cards brought to life. These cards are a few of our favourites, not just because they did the unMalaysian thing and submitted WAY before our deadline, but also because they are just too darned cute.

Emila Yusof's simple (and simply adorable) Happy Birthday card.

An extreme close-up. I don't even know what animal this lil tyke is supposed to be, but it's so gosh darned cute. It's also one of the first designs we received, so the Happy Birthday message is actually quite appropriate :)

The view inside. The text and avatars are both mockups.

This is why we ask you for a nice avatar picture. Better if it's square, but not entirely necessary. Soon, once the site is fully operational, we'll also have unique URLs for your guys so people can check out the rest of your designs.

.......................................

And now, let's have a look at a very different, but no less talented designer, Zummi, with a card that will be popular with anyone who's ever been poked too many times on Facebook (which is anyone with an internet connection, really).

I am fearing the finger. Nooooooooooooo....

This shot also shows the type of paper we're using to print the card. It's Eastern Felt 176g, and it's totally like, recycled dude! It's got a nice texture, and because it's only 176g, even a normal cheap RM150 Dell printer will be able to accept it.

Which brings me to the real reason behind this blog post.

Both these cards were printed on Luthor, our RM150 Dell printer.

Yup, that's right. We've figured out a way to print absolutely wonderful quality cards, right in the comfort of your own home. As you can see, these cards are near-professional quality, with funky designs to boot. What's better, you don't need to go to a shop, and you only pay approximately RM1.00 per card.

For your money, we'll let you customise the card, and download it as a PDF, which you can then print on just about any colour printer from the last 5 years.

As for the paper, once the site is open, you'll be able to buy paper from us (Eastern Felt 176g), with customised envelopes that'll let you make your own cards, whenever you want.

Unlike an e-card, you can sign off, write a personal message, and attach it to a gift. Unlike a Hallmark card, you have your pick of fabulously contemporary designs, in the comfort of your own home.

To be honest, we've tested our own designs on Luthor ages ago during our development phase, but seeing the cards that people actually created and submitted to us turn into reality is really a magical moment for us.

For those still a bit hesitant on this new way of sending cards, we will still offer our own card printing services (by the end of the year). However, we do sincerely hope that this new business model takes off in a big way, because doing something different like this is always loads more fun :)

Meanwhile, keep those contest entries comin in.