04 February 2022, 17:42

Kia ora koutou,

Today, the winners of Ngā Tohu Pūmanawa Herekore o Aotearoa - New Zealand Open Source Awards (NZOSA) 2021 were announced. I'm delighted to share the fantastic news that Evonne Cheung, the project's resident graphic designer at Catalyst IT, won in the category Kaikoha Pūmanawa Herekore - Open Source Contributor for her contributions in graphic design and front-end design for the project.

The nomination states that Evonne is the longest serving Mahara team member and has worked on the project for close to 15 years. She established and shaped the brand, keeping it contemporary and relevant. We often celebrate open source from the coding perspective, but Evonne is an equally critical contributor to the project because graphic design is incredibly important for any modern web application. Evonne has adapted the brand and given it a major refresh. She also creates additional graphic visualisations and Mahara themes that follow modern guidelines of responsiveness and accessibility. Evonne also creates the actual CSS and performs a lot of the front-end work for Mahara. This synergy between graphic design and front-end has been working very well for the Mahara project because Evonne knows how far she can push a design.

NZOSA judge Aleisha Amohia says, "The Open Source Contributor category is my favourite because it recognises open source communities. Starting a project is wonderful, but it's the communities and contributors that develop it, maintain it, grow it, and keep it alive. Open source software is special because it requires collective effort and passion for a project to build it. The winner of this category embodies those values. Evonne has shown true dedication to open source software through their 15 years of contribution. Their contribution also largely consists of the immensely important and often overlooked design and front-end component of software projects."

You see Evonne's work everywhere in Mahara and also on our project's website: From the logo to themes (she's created the majority of our built-in themes, including the front-end components), to special event graphics, and Thank You cards for contributors each release, and lots of custom design work for our Catalyst clients.

Congratulations, Evonne, and thank you very much for your contributions to the Mahara project over the years to make the software look good, provide theming capabilities to everyone using it, and for showcasing how far you can take the design possibilities.

I'd like to extend my congratulations to all winners of the NZOSA Awards 2021. You can read the press release. The Mahara project itself was a finalist in the category Kaupapa Pūmanawa Herekore - Open Source Project, along with two other impressive finalists. Congrats to Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand Basemap Service for having won in that category.

Ka pai!

Kristina