Community Avatar Contest

[Naomi]

Pandatar History

Many years ago in a Denny’s in Salt Lake City, a graphic artist who worked for Instructure sat working away on his laptop and drinking cup after cup of black coffee well into the night. When he was finished, he had created a series of round, panda-themed avatars: there was an Australian outback panda, a cosmonaut panda, and one that looked like a certain young wizard with round glasses and a scar on its forehead. There were also some pandas that might look scary or angry, including a zombie panda, and one with glaring red eyes.  

When we migrated the Instructure Community to a community platform that allowed avatars, we decided to use a selection of the panda avatars, or “pandatars,” as the default avatar set. People could still upload their own avatar images and we encouraged that, but the pandatars provided a simple set of defaults for anyone not inclined to upload their own. When we migrated to the current community platform, the pandas came along like the roly-poly family that they are.

And here is where you come in...

Although the pandatars have served the community well, we think it may be time for a refresh. We invite you, the community, to help with this. Please consider making a submission to this contest.

• Please think in terms of images you think describe the Instructure Community: maybe education, community, pandas, technology, collaboration, cute animals, and the like.
• Images should be original works (no copyright or intellectual property violations, please).
• Images should have the same width as height and be 512x512px or less. PNG files are preferred.
• Please limit yourself to no more than five submissions.
• Contest submissions will be accepted until April 30, 2021.
• Voting is open through May 9, 2021.
• Winners will be announced May 10, 2021. Check out the Community Avatar Contest Results blog to view contest results! 

Just for fun, we will be celebrating and awarding prizes to the top five submissions chosen to represent our community. 

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments below.