On 08/30/2011 05:04 PM, Klaas Freitag wrote:
Hi,
I am not an artist and do not contribute very much to artwork (except ideas with which I annoy Robert), but I like to propose something as I think we are in a difficult situation when it comes to artwork.
What I see on the artwork ML shows me that we are not working after a plan or concept. Here and there people come up with backgrounds or splashs which is great and shows a direction, but honestly I think that is not enough.
Obviously there is more to design on the distro than just the wallpapers, the login page or the splash screen. There is widget theming, fonts, application spash screens, the Yast installer and probably more. We need everything two times in a branded and debranded version to get our new trademark policy going.
Thats a lot of work, but can of course be simplified, the least effort version is to have 'just' a wallpaper, which is going to be used as splash and login manager background. Given the timeframe we have for 12.1 thats probably the only solution.
But after 12.1 we face the problem again. And to make it a success I'd like to propose to rather discuss about a concept of design than about examples of design.
IMO an example of a concept could be like this (just as an example, not as concrete proposal for the distro):
==> Old Industrial Grounds ======================
The next openSUSE Distro will be in a design in the idea of old industrial grounds. On the ground you find big rusty iron parts, most of them are broken as nobody took care for years. You find big iron girders, some are bent, with wholes and damages. Big screws lie around, holding fragments together. Rarely there is a larger part giving an impression of power and work that was done with this engines back in its times.
The main colors here are dark brown and dark gray tending to black. Some surfaces are glossy as they are wet. Some plants bring a glimpse of dark green. Details show a bit of brighter rusty brown to red. <==
Something like that could be a starting point of discussion where all involved people could develop their imagination of the scene. After we agreed on this little "atmospheric story", the work starts to transfer it on actual design elements: Fonts, colors, images, icons, logos etc. Again, discussion, but along a commonly agreed idea. The question would not be "Is it a nice picture?" but "Is this picture representing the old industrial ground well?" - still enough room for personal like and dislike....
Again, I am not an artist, but I work in software for long and learned that a concrete common idea really helps if you develop something in a group. And often it can be developed in a different space than the end product will be, ie. a basic idea of a software is best sketched on a whiteboard... Maybe that can help us to get to a more conceptual working style in artwork? I am not sure, but I am looking forward to reading your opinions :-)
regards,
Klaas
Klaas, thanks so much to have written down what I believe as the perfect way to have an artwork-group which embrace the whole aspect of artwork. Perhaps it's kinda of illusion, as most of artist/designer work alone, but I will fight to get that done too. About the industrial, I would change the dark brown by a dark green, and push tags ( a tags cloud about the part of openSUSE project on the wall) and to give a strong signal for 12.1 geeko breaking the wall :D /me start to believe, nights will be short next osc .... -- Bruno Friedmann Ioda-Net Sàrl www.ioda-net.ch openSUSE Member & Ambassador GPG KEY : D5C9B751C4653227 irc: tigerfoot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-artwork+help@opensuse.org