[ubuntu-art] creamlooks-gtk

[Sumit Agarwal]

I think that John Hicks' design is a perfect target goal for Ubuntu  
art. One of the strongest strengths of his design is that it does not  
attempt to be 'Windowsish', 'Macish', or 'Vistaish'. Its an  
independent highly-effective attractive and usable style.

One of the main goals in Firefox 3 is to better visually integrate the  
application into its host OS's. Some have complained that this is  
resulting in a dilution in the Mozilla 'brand'. Overall I agree with  
this goal because most users spend the majority of their day inside  
their web browser. However, it poses a specific problem with the Linux  
version because, obviously, there is no standard Linux look. So the  
Firefox team seems to have settled on a Tango/GTK look. I think this  
is a huge mistake. Firstly, it ignores KDE users (who should switch  
from Konqueror to Firefox!) and anyone with even a vague sense of  
style who is likely to have already changed from the default GTK theme.

So, I really think the Firefox team should take advantage of Firefox 3  
on Linux as an opportunity to 'define the Firefox brand'. Away from  
the preset styles of Windows and Mac, Linux is a chance to build a  
whole identity for Mozilla around the base concepts introduced by John  
Hicks' work. And being that even within Linux most users spend so much  
of their time within Firefox and Thunderbird, maybe we could have a  
faint glimmer of hope that stylistic changes in Firefox/Thunderbird  
will cascade through the rest of the open-source community.

It seems to me that the GNOME/GTK attitude to updating the visual  
style really comes down to 1) it works 2) the million+ of us can't  
agree on a new look and 3) who are YOU to decide what MY desktop looks  
like?!

This is stupid. As it stands, despite the 'open' nature of GNOME/GTK,  
the power to decide what it looks like is in the hands of a few  
people. The people who created the original style a decade ago. These  
same people in all likelihood have moved on to favoring more modern  
looks, but even they can't decide what mine and your desktops look  
like, although they did exactly that at one point.

Maybe GNOME/GTK needs a Linus Torvalds or Steve Jobs? Somebody who  
ultimately approves what gets added and what gets changed, and, more  
importantly, sets the vision for the future? The problem with this  
idea of course is 1) who picks this person? 2) HOW do those people  
pick this person and 3) even if we had a leader like that, there are  
few leaders in the world with the skills and intuition of Linus  
Torvalds or Steve Jobs.

I'm not sure what your point is about Western art  ;)  afterall, Asian  
sumi-e painting is particularly effective at using rich textures  
without gaudy colors or unnecessary outlines.

-Sumit


On Mar 21, 2008, at 1:23 PM, Troy James Sobotka wrote:

> Sumit Agarwal wrote:
>> As I see it right
>> now, the wide borders reflect the very annoying hard-outlined GNOME
>> style icons. This is a trend that seems to be self-perpetuating for  
>> no
>> good reason (look at the icon sheets for Firefox 3. See the Linux  
>> set?
>> Why are we making new icons that look like they're stuck in 1998?).
>
> Julian Oliver wrote:
>> i don't understand why there is this pixel-eating, thick translucent
>> border around the windows.
>
> Agree 100% with these two comments.
>
> The main issue here is that both Tango and the resultant 'style' is an
> extremely far cry from communicating anything close to ideas such as
> "elegant" or "graceful".
>
> The resultant look, with its reliance on heavy, thick, rounded border
> lines -- including the insistence on GTK control border lines -- would
> probably have descriptive words such as "bulbous" and "clunky" chosen
> when offered up on a multiple choice poll.
>
> I have long been extremely vocal about this facet of Ubuntu, but alas,
> the inevitable fallacy of the usability factor is brought up, and the
> status quo keeps marching along - as opposed to actually examining the
> issue at hand.
>
> To compare, have a peek at the beautiful John Hicks work for the
> Thunderbird and Firefox icons (
> http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/work/mozilla-logos ) against just about  
> any
> of the Crayola inspired elements Gnome has.
>
> Again, this is about associations, and thick outlines / borders /
> control lines have no place if one is trying to communicate an element
> of grace or elegance in westernized art.  What are we saying to our
> audience?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> TJS
>
>
>
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