The UMO - International Cartoon Contest is held by UsabilityMatters.Org towards the World Usability Day. All the awarded and qualified cartoons will be exhibited.
Participation is open to all cartoonists from every country in the world. There is no Entry fee.
Please go through the rules and regulations - and in particular - the conditions applicable to the intellectual property rights.

Theme for the Competition

So tweet earth - toon tweeting for sustainability

Brief:

'ek chidiya, anek chidiyaN; dana chugne baith gayee thi .....' The song conjures up childhood imagery, memories of an entire generation that was still lucky to learn the lessons of life from Mother Nature. For all others who couldn't strike a chord yet, 'ek chidiya, anek chidiyaN' translates to 'a lovely bird and many such lovely birds....'. Those are the opening lines of a beautifully animated song that encouraged harmony and unity in diversity, the mottos that best describe India, through a delightful cameo from Nature.

Most of us used to take delight in watching birds paying us a visit in our very own habitats during our childhood, when today' cities were still attractive enough for nature to cast its beautiful spell with changing seasons, colors, flowers and more. However, all such pleasures of nature are strangers to our cities now. It's something that we have done ourselves, still doing, depriving our younger generations of all such pleasure.

The greater irony is, we seek solace in the virtual worlds. Our bird song comes from MP3s, our greenery in screensavers. And tweet on the web mimicking nature. As we use these products, as we live a synthetic life, we need to think, rethink how our life is affecting our world, our Nature. As creative people, it's time we thought about how our creations, the products and services we create and we use impact our world.

Time we thought about how our design can be sustainable, something that matches the needs to the resources in the most effective way possible.

We invite cartoons which humorously communicate the seriousness of the theme, by rethinking sustainability and recycling. Rethink situations, rethink technology, cars, mobile phones, materials, energy resources and everything else we use day in and day out to keep going. Rethink and depict how the usage of new materials that can fully enter a new life cycle by either going back to nature or going back into the design process as a new product and affect our world..

Ref link - Sustainability

Key words

Sustainability
Recycle to reduce global warmimg
Reuse to reduce energy consumption
Reduce Carbon footprint
Reduce ecological imbalance
Encourage green design
Reduce hazardous product/services
downcycle

Awards and Acknowledgements

A jury will select the top 6 winning entries, the cartoonists will be granted a cash prize award of

• First prize Rs.25,000/- (Rs. Twenty five thousand only)
• Two second prizes of Rs. 10,000/- (Rs. Ten thousand only) each
• Three Third prizes Rs. 5,000/- (Rs. Five thousand only) each
• Five Special mention awards

An exhibition of the winning and short listed entries will be held and UMO will publish an exhaustive works report.

The jury and the judgment criteria

We are in process of putting a jury of well-known professionals and socially active personalities. The names will be announced in due course, depending on confirmation. For Judgment jury will use criteria such as creativity, humor, visual communication, presentation, persuasiveness, originality, cleverness, relevance of content and execution to identify the winner.
An exhibition of the winning and short listed entries will be held and UMO will publish an exhaustive online-works report.

Deadline for Submission

Cartoons will be accepted through September 7th, 2009

Rules and Regulations

Entries : up to 5 cartoons per person
Size(hard-copy): A4 (210 X 297 mm ) or A3 (297X410)
Size(digital): 300dpi and in dimensions that are suitable for printing
Technique : free
Entries in hard-copy/paper will not be returned. Entries in digital format may need to be re-posted if the resolution is not found good for printing.

Exhibition and Prize distribution

17th to 22nd (6days) September at State Art Gallery, Madhapur, Hyderabad, India.

Submitting your entries

Mail your cartoons keeping the competition name in subject line to toons(at)usabilitymatters(dot)org. If you are sending through the snail mail, use the following address:

UMO- 5th International Cartoon Contest 2009
usabilitymatters.org,
Plot no.195, Flat no.1, Sreenilayam Apts,
Kavuri Hills, Besides Pranadha Hospitals,
Madhapur, Hyderabad- 500033. INDIA,
ph: +91-9502759650

Please mention a little background information about yourself that may help identify you with your work and the email id that will help us get back to you with any communication.

Intellectual property rights

UMO may, in its sole discretion to use the art-work (images, photograph, written content) for any purpose, change, alter, amend, add to, delete from and otherwise modify, including but not limited to, any and all cuts, edits, rearrangements and other alterations, additions and deletions.

The responsibility for authenticity of all the submitted content, including the including the art-work and the personal information rests solely with the provider, and UMO will assume no role in case of litigations and copied works. The involved parties shall have to settle the matter themselves, within the conditions the original work was published/released.

We respect your privacy and will not be giving out, or sharing your personal information with any third party, for commercial or non-commercial use.