We keep receiving a lot of great works in the UI design contest. However, some of the submissions ignore one or more of these three recommendations:

1. UI mockups that are night theme only are not sufficient for the contest. We understand that dark designs look cooler on demos. But the default theme on Telegram, as well as in both mobile operating systems, is bright. Make sure you upload a day mode layout together the night mode one.

2. UI mockups can be original when it comes to transitions and choice of colors, but departing too far from the default layouts and icons of the operating system can result in less intuitive UIs. A UI is intuitive when it reuses most of the language (icons, colors, layouts) that is already familiar to the user from the default apps (like the UI of standard calls).

3. UI mockups should fit naturally into the existing Telegram app design. If the rest of the Telegram app is utilizing icons, behaviors or fonts that are noticeably different from those used in your mockup, it may result in a visible lack of consistency. If you’d rather redesign the rest of the Telegram app in accordance with your calls UI mockup, you can do that, but in this case we’ll expect the mockups of all the other relevant screens of Telegram from you.

Those recommendations may seem obvious to most professional designers who daily deal with UI integrity and intuitivity. However, many talented but less experienced designers may benefit from adhering to these principles. The art of the UI design is finding balance between the already known and the new, between the standard and the original.

This mockup below is one of the late arrivals for the previous design competition. Replacing double check mark with an eye icon is something we've been thinking about here at Telegram. Well done, great idea and nice implementation.

Another take on folders / tags / categories of chats:

We received 168 submissions for the Voice Calls visualization competition. We will go through all the submissions and will publish the best works here. The prize budget will be increased, although the competition will remain high.

It took a while to identify the winners of the summer Telegram Design Competition, but after having carefully inspected each of the 168 submissions in accordance with the guidelines shared earlier, we identified 23 winners. Each will receive 1000 USD from Telegram:

@ivanliana
@idanial
@grshn
@al_matveev
@deabdullin
@mazelyuk
@moorchik
@eavdalyan
@vpznc
@artemlv
@astract
@UXzavr
@slmach
@userroot
@Mihaylenko_SG
@artkorotkikh
@shkliarau
@maximmuzychenka
@shchuchkin
@pavlik1337
+
@depoon
@gospodispasi
@PhilSpencer

All the winning works will be published in @designers daily.

Next design competition will be also announced here, but hosted on our contest platform. This way we hope to be able to deliver the contest results sooner and make the judging process more open and transparent. While we can’t disclose the details of the next competition, we can give you a hint: cross-platform themes.

Suggested by @ivanliana
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Suggested by @idanial
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Suggested by @grshn
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Suggested by @al_matveev
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Suggested by @deabdullin
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Suggested by @mazelyuk
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Suggested by @moorchik
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Suggested by @eavdalyan
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Suggested by @vpznc
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Suggested by @artemlv
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Suggested by @astract
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