Although it's not a finished masterpiece just yet, here are my thoughts and ideas for the 2018 steem round.
So how does someone go about thinking up ideas for a community round?
I'll tell you how brainstorming......
Things to consider:
what do we want from the coin??
Obviously it must have the date, this is obvious. I like how last year's coin had it set at the bottom of the coin and I feel this should continue as it gives continuity.
Does it need to have the "steem" logo?
For continuity I feel yes. Although it does have the words steem on the obverse, the steem logo should appear on the reverse. Once again this is in continuity with last year's coin.
What is steemit and why do we love it??
Easy and obvious, but how to incorporate these ideologies on to the coin.
Is this a novelty coin?? Is it a joke?
Although there are some ideas I would love to see on the coin, such as "I ❤️ Ray", these coins are no joke. So I guess putting a giant 🍆 on it and calling it the 
Do we want to have the #steemsilvergold or 
Im still undecided! Yes it's a community coin, but I can also see collectors of silver wanting a coin or 2 and having no idea what they mean, so maybe not.
This was just me sticking some shit on a piece of paper to give me inspiration but I ended up with some Latin words on it, cause I felt it would look cool on a coin.
So I started drawing circles and just ran with it. For me I felt that the coin needed a "chunky" edging to it. I wanted to get some writing around the edge or a nice cymetrical design. So I tried some Latin, following on from last years design I put some minnows to dolphins to whales (you get the general idea).
I love my quotes and I try and drop them in to my posts now and again, it makes me sound intelligent!! So this is where to **"FROM LITTLE ACORNS MIGHTY OAK TREES GROW" **
That lead me on to the "tree of life" or as I'm now calling it the "COMMUNI-TREE" (like it?? See what I did there?) I may run with this idea and have a few ideas on how to improve it, such as having the roots contain words like- quality, knowledge, content & effort. These are the thing the COMMUNI-TREE needs to grow. Then incorporated in the branches the words community, friendship, etc all the things steemit brings to us.
Instead of leaves hanging from the lower branches are minnows, higher up dolphins and on to whales.... You get the idea??
Im torn between the COMMUNI-TREE idea and the idea of having the word STEEM used like a board of scrabble.
Coming of the main word are the words social, quality, rewards, knowledge and community.
I'd probably go for some electronic font? If that's even a thing, but I've noticed a few coins have like a blockchain type of writing, does that make sense? I'll submit better versions when I get more time.
Like I said it's a work in progress but I will submit my final version either tomorrow or soon after.
Also for your feedback I submit 1/2 pints work. Not bad for a 2yr old, better than some out there.
