Smashing Magazine - we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
Smashing Textures Contest
Take a shot, send us the image and win a Canon Digital Rebel camera. In web design textures are needed in background-images and header graphics. Graphic designers use textures to transport some concrete aspects of real-life into the digital presentation. Textures are also used to create an atmosphere which fits to the main topic or idea of the site.
Such textures are usually extracted from photos. In fact, everybody can create them — apart from a camera no special devices or tools are necessary. You just need to find a texture and you make a shot of it. And here is where our readers come in. With this contest we want to encourage you to go out, take a camera with you, shot textures and send them to us.
[By the way, did you know there is a brand new Smashing Wordpress Book? Push WordPress past its limits!]
What are we looking for?
We are looking for original, manually taken shots of textures. This contest is all about creativity. So take your camera, go out and shoot. Basically, almost everything can be a texture. Of course, walls, paper, ceramics, textile, wood, fabrics, metal, sand, plastic, wallpaper, stone and million of other motifs. Abstract or concrete, beautiful and strange — it’s completely up to you.
A good texture doesn’t have to be clean — on contrary, some beautiful textures can be found there where nobody actually looks at. Besides, some texture convey their beauty once you closely observe them. Just be curious and take a closer look around you. You may want to have a look at this article to get some more ideas: Where can I find textures and background images?

Clean fabric textures can be found everywhere — this shot is taken by Lucy Nieto

Water drops build a nice, irregular texture

This is glass fibre from a boat. Photo: Flickr

“Natural” texture photographed in a wood

Texture made out of bricks in a wall

Stone Texture from Ben Cloward

This one is from a burned down hut

Stones texture which can be found in many sidewalks…

Sand texture photographed by Kydroon

Vintage fabric found by Stephanie Cake
Contest Details
So what is required to participate? And which rules should you consider before sending us your textures?
Is there a reward?
Yes. The camera presented below can be yours. One of participants of Smashing Texture contest will win the Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Lens. The winner will be determined randomly.

Deadline
Send us your textures until the 21st of May 2008. The winner will be announced few days after the deadline.
Formats
- PNG or JPG
- The size of textures is not that important, however they should have at least the width of 1000px.
- All images should be packed in one single .zip-archive; the archive should have a specific file name, particularly your name – e.g. john-doe.zip.
- Every participant can send at most 5 textures (pls send only 1, we’ve got so many entries…). Text-files with copyright information, your URL, country and a brief description of your texture should be placed in the .zip-file as well. Please don’t include any advertisement in the archives.
Copyright, labels, watermarks
Copyright information, water marks and URLs are usual for wallpapers, but they would disturb the texture. After all, designers should be able to work with textures after they are presented. Therefore please avoid everything which isn’t really a part of a texture. The participants should own the copyright for the textures they are sending. Textures should be photographed, therefore they shouldn’t be already available somewhere in the Web.
Winner announcement
All interesting textures will be presented as screenshots here, on Smashing Magazine and offered for free download to Smashing Magazine readers. The name and URL of participants will be presented, of course. If there will be enough participants, textures will be sorted and categorized.
Where should the textures be sent to?
The contest ist closed now.
Get creative, folks!
The Co-Founder of Smashing Magazine. Former writer, web designer, freelancer and webworker. Author of several books. Runs the business.
- 103 Comments
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May 9th, 2008 5:44 am@dennis … textures are not limiting at all …
that.s the beauty of textures .not only are they EVERYWHERE, but you can use them for EVERYTHING … so not sure why you think textures have only one theme …good luck if you plan on entering .
- 4
May 9th, 2008 5:44 amI must admit to being reasonably mystified by textures in general. Coming from a programming background rather than an artistic one, I’ve never really understood what they’re for, when to apply them, and in general, the stock textures with Fireworks, for example, are reasonably simplistic. I look forward to these contest results and, hopefully, learning more about textures between now and then.
- 5
May 9th, 2008 5:46 amThe contest is it allowed to foreigners? Or only US-residents?
- 6
May 9th, 2008 5:47 amHow Exciting….!
Having a hard time choosing the good ones to send.
:-D
- 8
May 9th, 2008 5:53 amSo when sending in more than one texture, each texture should be zipped separately….Does this mean that each zip contains exactly one image, or that each zip can contain more images of the same texture (eg different angles, etc) (my understanding is that each zip contains 1 image, but I just want to be sure :) )?
- 10
May 9th, 2008 6:23 amGreat Post….
- 11
May 9th, 2008 6:24 amExciting contest! :-)
- 12
May 9th, 2008 6:38 amGreat contest! Two quick questions: 1) In the text file, you ask for copyright information. Do you have a preference to what to put in here? Creative Commons, etc? 2) I went out and took some pictures just for this contest … Then, I read that we should zip more than pic of the textures. Is just one picutre okay, or does there need to be more than one?
- 14
May 9th, 2008 7:17 amhey! Why you use use Canon camera image in post?
i hate Canon (I love nikon), and i think You should use canon or nikon image.. it;s provocation!
Please, it’s detail, but important for me.
I like smashing magazine, and don’t want stop.
- 16
May 9th, 2008 7:28 amSo the winner will be randomly determined? So, you’re saying that it’s basically pulling a name out of a hat?
- 17
May 9th, 2008 7:52 amI’m with you, nikon are waaay better (it’s preference really)…
but read the prize…. it explains why…
- 18
May 9th, 2008 7:59 amThanks for this beatiful textures!
- 19
May 9th, 2008 8:03 amI am so excited seeing this fabulous contest by SM… I am also participating ‘Only for that fantastic gift’ …
- 20
May 9th, 2008 8:49 amI’m getting to work!
- 21
May 9th, 2008 8:59 amNow then, as for camera preferences.
I work with Canon and like the camera.
I don’t hate Nikon or any other brand. I just prefer Canon.
It is a matter of choice.
The Camera is a tool. So no matter what brand I prefer, it is still a tool !
So please…this is a great contest no matter what. - 22
May 9th, 2008 9:59 amthis will be fun! i give away free textures on my blog all the time (along with tutorials on creating your own), so I’m looking foward to participating.
- 23
May 9th, 2008 10:18 amSven,
Some expecific subject for submition? - 24
May 9th, 2008 10:45 amgreat contest, maybe ’cause i’ve shot the perfect picture for this contest one month ago :>
already submitted it gladfully :) - 25
May 9th, 2008 11:08 amQuestion: by “texture” you mean a tile-able image? (to be used with background-repeat: repeat)?
- 26
May 9th, 2008 12:04 pmI’ve just mailed mine. Great idea.
- 27
May 9th, 2008 12:47 pmIt seems to be great thing
- 28
May 9th, 2008 12:55 pmWow, very nice. I will definetly try and enter something.
- 29
May 9th, 2008 11:38 pm@nbb it is not imperative to use a canon, the canon camera in the picture is the prize
- 30
May 10th, 2008 1:52 am@gGus – I see no reason textures should have to be tileable. The images can fade out, or be used for specific-side headers.
- 31
May 10th, 2008 7:10 amWooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!! I LOVE IT!
- 32
May 10th, 2008 10:38 amcool !
Will send mine next week
- 33
May 10th, 2008 11:21 amVery interesting. Cool thing. I like this site
p.s offtopic:
Why you dont have a forum?Hey, I’ have a design site for webmaster: http://flashripper.net/en/
There a lot of icons i.t.p How is he? - 34
May 10th, 2008 1:37 pmHi, great idea for a competition!
I have a number of textures on my Flickr account that are all under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license. Would you accept them for entry into the competition if I waved this licence, or does the fact that they already are on my account mean that you still wouldn’t allow them?
- 35
May 10th, 2008 2:03 pmYay. Free camera. ^^_
Will send soon. - 36
May 11th, 2008 3:53 amPicking the winner at random seems a bit pointless to me. You may have someone who created some stunning textures only for someone else to win who didn’t create anywhere near as nice textures. I think the owner of the most impressive textures should be given merit for their work.
- 37
May 11th, 2008 4:43 amI agree with Ryan, there should be certain criteria. A Poll would be also a nice thing ;D
Picking just randomly isn’t the answer I guess. - 39
May 12th, 2008 2:14 amHi, is there any gallery of contest n3s?
Nice idea as well as this magazine :) thanx..
- 40
May 12th, 2008 4:28 amTHanks for the reply Vitaly. Totally overread the point of randomly picking a winner. Kinda renders my point useless, so thanks for clarifying that bit!
- 41
May 12th, 2008 6:00 amHi,
When textures will be published? - 42
May 12th, 2008 9:33 amSo when do we publish/link and announce the winner(s)??
- 43
May 13th, 2008 7:04 amDo i get an answer that the mail has been recieved?
I have sent one mail, with a zipmap as im supposed to, but i have noe yet gotten a respond..?Admins; please mail me =)
- 44
May 14th, 2008 1:10 amInteresting competition. I look forward to seeing (and using!) the results.
- 45
May 14th, 2008 2:01 amI’ve just sent my textures, looking forward to the winner announcment.
Thanks for the competition, SM! - 46
May 14th, 2008 9:31 amGreat contest. Keep up the great work.
- 47
May 14th, 2008 11:14 ami love the ideea of this contest!
not bad at all and also usefull for all of ass.
more free resources! :) - 48
May 14th, 2008 11:21 amoh, dang …. “at random”
take a chance, make a decision, go for it…. the coolest texture will be chosen as winner, then i would have some incentive, to sendx my unbelievably cool textures from indian back alleys, but, at random? too boring
- 49
May 14th, 2008 12:52 pmready! i sent my textures but its a download link cause they were in very good quality, hope SM people can download them…
- 50
May 15th, 2008 12:09 amgregory is right, with the winner picked at random there’s little incentive. I’ll be entering some texture shots but it would be nice if there was a chance of winning through skill and not just luck.
- 51
May 15th, 2008 9:05 pmmmm how do i know if my textures are ok? cause i sent a download link cause the textures where in a very good resolution.. thanx :)
- 52
May 16th, 2008 7:25 amSweet – I’m in!
Now I just need to be on the look-out for some kind of texture that no-one would ever think of – or one that others might not be able to find where they live…
- 53
May 17th, 2008 7:58 pmI’m having trouble sending mine! I think it’s because it’s such a big message. I’ve never used zip before, maybe I am doing it wrong? any help apreciated… please
- 54
May 19th, 2008 2:01 amHey, just create a folder and put all your patterns in that folder. Then right click on that folder and select send to and click on Compressed (zipped) folder. Thats it!
- 55
May 19th, 2008 6:13 amGreat, just sent mine
- 56
May 19th, 2008 7:39 pmDid that… didn’t work… I eventually sent them in 3 lots… I hope it was ok to do that…?
Thanks for your help :)
- 57
May 20th, 2008 2:11 amInteresting post, it is so nice to see real textures of the world than the one we find in photoshop! :)
- 58
May 20th, 2008 5:38 amJust sent in my zip archive with 5 Textures :-)
- 59
May 20th, 2008 4:38 pmIs there a specific time deadline on the 21st.
- 60
May 21st, 2008 10:28 amIs the deadline today or was it yesterday?
- 62
May 21st, 2008 2:37 pmHello, the result leaves when?
tanx
- 63
May 21st, 2008 6:25 pmAwesome contest! I can’t wait to see what everyone’s submitted, & especially how people see things!
- 65
May 23rd, 2008 12:27 pminteresting contest!!
good luck to everyone!!
- 66
June 9th, 2008 4:01 pmVitaly and Sven;
I would like to be participatting in this contest.
Is it possible? Can I send you, my pictures?
Regards; - 67
June 12th, 2008 5:28 amHi,
the result leaves when?tanks YOU !!!
- 68
June 20th, 2008 4:45 amHello. has the winner been announced? Are the entries viewable?
- 69
August 29th, 2008 3:41 amHi. You already show my picture, The ““Natural” texture photographed in a wood” by mrhyde_br (flickr). I´m participatting of the contest ?
Tks
- 70
September 1st, 2009 5:13 amHey,
please let me know the winner for this contest.I know its very old post still i wanna know the wiiner and his/ her work..thanx
- 71
September 16th, 2009 7:49 pmWould you accept them for entry into the competition if I waved this licence, or does the fact that they already are on my account mean that you still wouldn’t allow them?aion kinah
- 00
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(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Interesting contest. Textures are very limited as they only have one specific theme.
Looking forward to the winner basically and see on what basis you judge as I couldn’t judge textures to be honest. Looking at the above examples, every one of those would be a winner for me as they come from totally different backgrounds and all have some beauty aspect.