To promote better blogging, Softduit Media is sponsoring a Word Press theme design contest.
Never designed a WordPress theme before, don’t know how to code?    No Problem.  🙂
All you have to do is go to Artisteer and follow their link to download a free trial through cnet.  Their software can turn you into a WordPress theme designer in minutes(literally).  Just select your layout options, hit the export button and a full WordPress theme that has valid CSS and XHTML code is generated in seconds!
The trial version does generate themes with water marks on them, so you won’t be able to use this theme on your site unless you buy the theme, but you can provide that trial theme to us to enter our contest and win a Home & Academic License of the software for free!
 

Steps

1. Go to Artisteer & follow the instructions to download the free trial via Cnet
 
2.  Install the free trial software (works on PCs or Macs) & generate your theme in a zipped folder.
 
3.  Save your working Artisteer file as a .artx file
4.  Email me your zipped theme and your .artx file attached (should be less than .5 mb) 

note this is the weakest link of the contest, please make sure you receive a response from me confirming that I successfully received your theme, if you want to use a service like YouSendIt.com that’s cool too!

Email Requirements:

1. Your email should include the title WordPress Theme Contest Entry in the Subject,
2. it should include your email address, twitter address, first name and initial of your last name.
3. If you have a blog or website, please include a link to your URL.
4. I will be posting examples of the themes submitted in the contest in a live preview section of Softduit.  This entry will include your first name and last initial. along with a link to your website & your twitter id

Contest Judging & Multiple ways to get Contest Entries

• Through the contest, I will judge the best looking themes (ignoring the watermark).
• The top 5 best looking themes will each get 20 entries into the contest.
• Everyone that submits a theme will get 1 entry per theme for a max of 10 themes or 10 entries.
• To gain an additional entry each day please follow me @brettbum and retweet the following without the quotes 🙂 “ Pls RT @brettbum is sponsoring a WordPress theme design contest at http://wpthemespeed.com “
• You may shorten the URL if you like
• Before the contest ends, I may add additional ways for people to enter so check back to see how things are progressing!

The winner will be chosen on September 3rd.

Bonus IzeaFest Entries for submitting

For each theme submitted for this contest, you will also receive 100 entries into my Izeafest contest on the personal blog of Brett Bumeter at There’s Something About Harry.  IzeaFest is a four day conference in SeaWorld this year in Orlando Florida.  You can also enter the IzeaFest ticket contest to gain additional entries by visiting the rules on There’s Something About Harry.
This IzeaFest ticket is worth over $229! and includes a pass into SeaWorld on Sunday the last day of the conference.  (Conference actually at SeaWorld)
 
Things that can get you disqualified

• Themes not generated by Artisteer will be disqualified.  Themes copied from someone else will be disqualified as well.  If I suspect you are cheating in some way or if my anti-virus software detects something evil in your zipped file, I with hold the right to disqualify your entries.