openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines; iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme; iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions; iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
B) Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
This is all for now. Please let me know what are your thoughts/comments on A) & B)
Best Regards,
Eugene Trounev
[it-s]
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Eugene Trounev eugene.trounev@gmail.com wrote:
openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines; iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme; iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions; iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
I cannot agree more with these ideas. There has been a historical lack of progress on the artwork done for the distribution with a palpable loss of graphical identity on the desktop. It seems more than appropriate for the times, given the many changes and deviations on the Linux desktop, to create something still traditional and, at the same time, updated to follow the focus on strong branding for our distribution. I think it is also good to point out that whatever changes we make are strong enough that they will stay in the distribution for a long time. Changing graphics and turning around our design objective with every release can confuse users. Take for example, android, iOS, Ubuntu Unity, or even Gnome 3 and KDE 4. They seem to keep foundational design objectives and only improve on those with time.
B) Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts
I like this one a lot. It shows a difference in loading stages for the OS. On the one side is the booting process and on the other, there is the desktop.
ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based
Love this idea. We know that the boot loader allows very little graphical customization whereas Plymouth does allow a ton more. So we would need to find good balance between simple graphics but also elegant ones.
iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
This suggestion will give strong importance to contributions on Flickr. They have a large user base and many can be attracted into placing high quality photographs on the Flickr pool. We should probably start encouraging our project members who do photography to collaborate in this initiative.
This is all for now. Please let me know what are your thoughts/comments on A) & B)
Best Regards,
Eugene Trounev
[it-s]
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Andy (anditosan)
On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 4:43 AM, Eugene Trounev eugene.trounev@gmail.com wrote:
A) As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guideline;
Love this idea.
Current styling guidelines (seem to ) focus on "how to draw logo" and "resources you can use", but apparently we don't draw our logo that much. If you want to design something, eg themes, all you can find is "color usage", but if you don't know what elements are available, your design is hard to implement.
eg: If you design a G/KDM userlist with password prompt linked to the first user, it's hard to implement. Because it's LightDM style actually. Greeter.dtd has no such implementation.
So it actually forces designers to know Linux coding. such designers are treasures, really hard to get.
iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme;
Icons doesn't matter that much. But DE themes are important for users to distinguish that he's using openSUSE. As upstreams in recent years are putting their hands here and there( that's okay, but the hands should be put at the place they're really good at), we need to better show our existence.
iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions;
It seems that users have established the feeling that "bento is openSUSEish". so I think this idea need to be evaluated carefully.
iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself
How about remove the texts, just keep the gecko?
B) iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
How about Flickr, Deviantart and 500px.com?
Deviantart has groups focusing on Linux theming. Most wallpapers there are licensed under CC license. and most wallpapers there are digital arts instead of photography. There's already an open source culture there.
500px.com are full of "cutting-edge" photography.
Using Flickr itself isn't enough for us to elect nice wallpapers. The recent Fedora 18 wallpaper contest is solely based on Flickr, but its result doesn't seem good enough. In my opinion, Fedora 18's wallpapers are just "default wallpapers" which certainly will be replaced by users themselves.
Marguerite
Hello,
Am Dienstag, 25. September 2012 schrieb Marguerite Su:
On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 4:43 AM, Eugene Trounev wrote:
iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself
How about remove the texts, just keep the gecko?
That depends on the target group ;-)
For "insiders", it is obvious that geeko means openSUSE, so they don't need any additional text.
But for people who don't know something about openSUSE, keeping "openSUSE" in the logo is important so that they know our name and, if everything else fails, can google for it. You'll get much better search results for "openSUSE" than for "green chameleon linux" ;-)
I don't think it makes sense to have a logo that only insiders understand... ;-)
Regards,
Christian Boltz
rebranding is a risky, time-consuming and expensive exercise. And whether you go for an amateurish competition or spend thousands on a top flight designer, you can still end up with a lemon. There's absolutely no good reason to do it. None at all.
for example: http://www.logomojo.com/logo-design/top-logo-disasters http://www.pivotmarketing.com/blog/2011/september/6-lessons-from-rebrand-dis...
Having said that, the logo is not the brand, it's just part of it; but it's a very important part. hmm. this says it well: http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2011/03/your-logo-is-a-business-tool.htm...
Be more thoughtful about how and where the various existing logos are used (does a massive Geeko really need to be front-and-center on everything? perhaps not.) and ways of implementing corporate colors without drowning in green. But rebrand? Really think twice.
On Monday 24 Sep 2012 16:43:22 Eugene Trounev wrote:
openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines;
+1
iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme;
1) Developing a complete icon theme seems to be a massive undertaking nowadays. Either there is a shortage of independently wealthy FLOSS designers willing to work 18 hour days at a hot Wacom for months, or drawing icon themes seems to have gone out of fashion.
2) How likely is it that we will get our fractious desktop tribes to accept a standard openSUSE branding instead of their upstream-blessed livery?
Personally, I'm not against doing either of these things, but these might be speedbumps to the plan
iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions;
Keep a loose definition of 'follow' - the project and the distribution are not identical.
iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself
+1
None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
B) Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based
A good idea.
iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
How will the contest rules be framed so the entries are compatible with the bootloader and the wider theming changes? If you hold a contest, you're kind of bound to take one of the entries.
Will
On Tuesday 25 September 2012 12:39:07 Will Stephenson wrote:
On Monday 24 Sep 2012 16:43:22 Eugene Trounev wrote:
openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we
will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines;
+1
iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons,
desktop theme, window theme;
- Developing a complete icon theme seems to be a massive undertaking
nowadays. Either there is a shortage of independently wealthy FLOSS designers willing to work 18 hour days at a hot Wacom for months, or drawing icon themes seems to have gone out of fashion.
- How likely is it that we will get our fractious desktop tribes to
accept a standard openSUSE branding instead of their upstream-blessed livery?
Personally, I'm not against doing either of these things, but these might be speedbumps to the plan
I wouldn't be heavily against it but I do agree that it's a HUGE undertaking and we're unlikely to be able to make it happen.
iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop
theme conventions;
Keep a loose definition of 'follow' - the project and the distribution are not identical.
Also, don't fall into the trap of trying to change things upon every release - that's a lot of work and while doable for say the slides and marketing artwork, for the websites you'd have to have things automated to a great extend for that to be doable I bet.
iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself
+1
There was a proposal, folks, to get the geeko in line with the slightly changed SUSE geeko. I think there even was agreement that that should happen but nothing got done. Maybe start there?!?
Still, a fully new logo, I wouldn't mind. It's not easy however and the geeko has big branding value.
In any case, you've got my support on these - the issue will be 'who does the work' more than anything else if you ask me.
On Tue, 2012-09-25 at 12:39 +0200, Will Stephenson wrote:
iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions;
Keep a loose definition of 'follow' - the project and the distribution are not identical.
Agreed. Far too often, people equate "openSUSE" to "distro" and we're more than just a distro. If we're going to go with branding, we should treat Project and Distro branding separately.
One thing I have wanted to see over the years is more branding or visibility of Geeko as a character or spirit. I think Geeko is an important image that signifies the community and we should promote it more.
iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself
+1
There was some discussion on this while we were standing outside the hotel yesterday waiting for the ride to the airport. I'm not strongly in favor of changing our existing logo, however on second thought, I think we do have a problem in that the Geeko+SUSE and Geeko+openSUSE logos are too similar that we are contributing to the problem that the world doesn't make a distinction between the two entities.
If I were to change the logo but keep it similar, I would propose to add "Project" under "openSUSE" because we really should be selling ourselves as a Project.
So the logo question before us is: Do we want to continue to match up to SUSE's logo or do we want to dramatically change it to something that is uniquely openSUSE's?
Bryen
Hi,
On Sep 24, 2012, at 10:43 PM, Eugene Trounev wrote:
openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines; iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme; iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions; iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
I agree mainly with your thoughts. We need to have a design guide/brand manual in order achieve a coordinated look and feel across all of the openSUSE "products" (desktop, web, etc.). However, this takes a lot of time and a team of skilled designers with one person in charge - otherwise it rapidly becomes one large discussion about everything and nothing at the same time, people leave, etc. Someone has to, in the end, stand up and make a decision. Naturally, given a first instance it will then evolve over time. I do not think it would be right at this point in time to determine exactly what needs to be changed but rather to define something better and then see how we can implement this across the products.
B) Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
While I agree with your ideas for grub, this remains a technical issue. If the implementation becomes too hard due to technical issues then we naturally need to re-assess our plan. Generally speaking though, grub should probably always use its own design, to whatever extent.
We could do a LOT to improve the wallpaper contest. If anyone is interested we could discuss this in more detail in a separate email.
All in all, what I miss most is someone or a team of someones who coordinate efforts, push info out to the public, and generally keep things going.
Kenneth Wimer
I think a lot of these are good ideas.
I believe Kenneth said it well that to do this effectively will require significant, well explained definition, of a "how to" pull this off for those artistic users who wish to design brand specific.
i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines; iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme; iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions; iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
I do think the website could use some "glitter" if you will as compared to the websites of other distributions (IMHO) it lacks a real advertising value to it. We are after all selling a product even though we don't charge any money for it.
Redesigning Geeko and the logo are an interesting idea. I think we should not stray "too far" from being still similar yet separate from SUSE and I think Bryan has a good idea with adding "project" in there. I think it gives a nice community feel to it "openSUSE Project" sounds nice, I like that.
As for icons and widows and such, I think we should stay with shades of green or whatever specific icons would be appropriate for their usage, but focused on green. Ubuntu has their orange and Fedora has their blue and we have our green and I think that should stay congruent throughout whatever "eye candy" we change.
Will mentioned something that makes a lot of sense and that was that many people (myself inclusive) customize their desktops, icon themes and such from the liveries so in that respect a set of default icons that change can be a project people can submit for possible adaptation to any future distribution, but there are also a lot of people who like to get comfortable recognizing certain icons to specific applications without much change. We might be best to leave this one alone?
Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
I think this all sounds fine. We can use Flickr if that works for everyone else. Whatever we decide on should be easily accessible and easy for people to see and use so more people can participate, vote, add and be a part of the whole process. The guidelines we have are pretty good in the wiki, but could use a little polish so they don't sound so "techy" or boxed in with a ton of rules and guidelines that will scare people off from even making an attempt to produce images we can use in releases.
As I've said before, I'm all for change and doing whatever it takes to help make openSUSE a fun project where people will want to use our product, hang out and be a part of the process in any big or small way that they want to help. I think as long as we don't lose focus on that aspect of it, whatever we decide will probably turn out ok. : )
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Eugene Trounev eugene.trounev@gmail.com wrote:
openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines; iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme; iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions; iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
B) Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
This is all for now. Please let me know what are your thoughts/comments on A) & B)
Best Regards,
Eugene Trounev
[it-s]
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2012/9/25 Eugene Trounev eugene.trounev@gmail.com:
openSUSE Summit has come and gone, and now it's time to draw the line. Many people has been spoken to, many discussions took place and the end result of all those discussions is the following proposal. [Please Note: the proposal is from ME personally, and is targeted at the artwork team AND the developmental team, as I strongly believe in community involvement]
A) It has been discussed on-and-off for some time that openSUSE is in dare need of re-branding, or to be even more precise - of branding, as there currently is practically none. Changing a default wallpaper from one release to another does not constitute a strong, recognizable brand name. As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines; iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme; iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions; iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself None of those changes however are going to happen tomorrow, or even in the next release. If any of these does happen it's only upon the grater community consent and involvement. So, consider this to be an [active] proposal, and start the discussion.
B) Now to the near future (next release). I would like to propose a few changes to the current artwork and styling process. i) To separate the boot-loader image from the desktop wallpaper and make those into two totally separate efforts ii) The boot-loader (including GRUB, boot-splash, and login) will be styled by the artwork team internally and should be as simple as possible and vector based
Is GRUB2 considered or not ?
Thanks, Michael
iii) The wallpaper will be decided upon via contest (just like the last time), but this time around we do it entirely with the collection from Flickr, and demand specific copyright license for each picture submitted
This is all for now. Please let me know what are your thoughts/comments on A) & B)
Best Regards,
Eugene Trounev
[it-s]
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org
On 24 September 2012 21:43, Eugene Trounev eugene.trounev@gmail.com wrote:
As a part of the branding precess (should we agree on one at all) we will attempt to: i) Develop openSUSE specific styling guidelines;
This makes sense, and I think it would be a good idea.
iI) Develop openSUSE specific look and feel including - icons, desktop theme, window theme;
Really? One of the last things we need to spend time and effort on is icons. Goodness knows there are enough of the damned things out there. We have basically settled on two icon sets if I'm not mistaken, Tango for GNOME and Oxygen for KDE, what's wrong with these? I also disagree with having a new desktop/window theme, the defaults work exceptionally well.
iii) Restyle the website to follow the guidelines and the desktop theme conventions;
The web presence is where most of the styling is needed, the desktops are fine as they are. How do we differentiate our GNOME from say Fedora? I'm not so sure, but diverging from upstream even in something like theme is wrong IMHO.
iv) [Possibly] redesign the logo itself
HELL NO! If your reasoning for re-designing the logo is that SUSE redesigned theirs well the simple answer is they had to. SUSE is effectively a new company, and as such they needed to make a clean start and they only slightly modified their old logo. If you saw Nils' opening keynote he jokingly suggested that SUSE should replace the Geeko with a Purple Dog that barked more, people made it clear that any major change to the logo would be disastrous. The logo makes up a large part of who we are.
Regards,
Andy
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