Help The American Square with a new logo and website design

The American Square

TheAmericanSquare.org is a new, Ning-based social network designed to encourage civil, cross-partisan discussion about important political issues. Our parent organization, AmericaSpeaks, is a well-established nonprofit that aims to give citizens a greater voice in the policies that affect them. At AmericaSpeaks, we've already honed the art of bringing together Americans from all different demographics, geographies, and political ideologies to find shared priorities and make tough choices through rational dialogue--even if they disagree. With TheAmericanSquare, we will be expanding into the online sphere, encouraging civil, informed dialogue on policy and politics among people with many different political views.

americaspeaks.org

http://www.govloop.com/ - This gives you a good example of simple branding on a Ning page. We don't like the colors, but we like how the design creates a consistent theme within the Ning framework. We also like the logo off to one side with a graphic on the right side.

http://www.welovebirds.org/ - Here's an example of a Ning site that does something completely different and quite pretty. If you want to go out on a limb and design something fancier than a simple header, logo, and graphic, please be our guest--here's some inspiration.

Our parent organization's web site, http://americaspeaks.org , gives you a sense of the color palate we'd like to work with.

We are working within the framework of Ning, a platform that allows users to build their own social networking sites. For TheAmericanSquare, we're looking for a custom banner with a new logo and image, custom colors, customized navigation items, custom column-section headings, and a custom background. The site should invite Americans from all political backgrounds to join the online community, read blog posts, and participate in discussions about policy and politics.

To view the general format of the site, please visit http://americasquare.ning.com/ and log on using the following email address and password:
email: socialmedia[at]americaspeaks[dot]org
password: 99designs

On the default Ning layout, navigation items are above the header. We would prefer a design with navigation items below the header.

If the winning designer has code skills, we would like to make an additional contract with the winner to make the CSS code for the site design. This is preferred, but not required. CSS code would be produced under a separate contract outside of 99designs (more money!!).

On the banner on the top of the page, we'd like to see a logo and a graphic representing the concept of the site--both set against a solid color background. The logo should use red, white, and blue, preferably taking after the AmericaSpeaks logo and the Our Budget, Our Economy logo (see attachments). It should read "TheAmericanSquare" and should include the tagline "A place for civil, informed dialogue on policy & politics."

In terms of imagery, we're looking for a graphic inspired by (a) a Town Square where lots of different people gather to catch up (but scaled to a national level!) and/or (b) the idea of many people speaking with each other, collectively representing the many voices of America and/or (c) something completely different--we'd love to see where your creativity takes you!

Really, we're looking for a good logo, good imagery, and a good web site design--thus the higher payment for a single web page ;) Plus, as mentioned above, if your design wins and you can also produce the CSS, we'd like to pay you more for the code.

We would like to be able to extract a logo from the design. We'll be judging designs based on the logo, the graphic, and how they look within the Ning layout. Again, you can preview the layout at americasquare.ning.com (you'll need the login info socialmedia(at)americaspeaks[dot]org and p-word 99designs).

Ideally, this will be a calm-looking logo appealing to people from many different political ideologies. We're looking for something unprovocative, but fun and engaging. Careful of deep red predominating over blue or vice versa--we want to appeal to people from many political ideologies.

Can't wait to see your ideas!