I'd also add that... if I could have spoken with the SteemBay team prior to opening the design contest I would have had two important suggestions:
• Decide upfront whether to use the older Steemit COLORS (dark & light blue) and/or the new light green... or to mandate a completely original and fresh look.
• Decide upfront also whether to invoke existing Steemit logo SHAPES (the typefaces, the new green S shape, the older blue wiggly S line shapes) or to stay clear of these to avoid redundancy.
This is important because you may want to stay clear of too much similarity to current Steemit look.. this would increase the "originality" of the logo and thus the SteemBay service!
Of course these points are moot, if it really doesn't matter how similar Steembay may look to Steemit. Jus' sayin'
We did not want to restrict anything and "let run free" on creativity. This gives us also another point of view, how people think about what we are doing