[ubuntu-art] Styles/looks discussion

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Michiel Sikma wrote:
> Just so this is clear: if anything I make is not accepted, then this
> is fine. It does, however, seem very awkward to me that the
> artist-in-chief specifically starts up the efforts to polish the Human
> GTK theme, then applauds efforts I exert in doing just that, only for
> it to be shot down in a random e-mail by someone who informs me that
> such a change is never going to make it in anyway in a very "by the
> way"-like attitude.
Just my take - I didn't read Troy's mail as "by-the-way", it was just
terse because we're all busy! In this case I don't think there was any
intention to dismiss good work.

> I don't know where in the chain of orders this went wrong, but that
> doesn't seem like valid planning to me. At the very least, Troy could
> have attempted to explain it himself.
This is a disadvantage of having some folks at conferences and others
not, because a lot gets communicated in brief interactions. Troy might
not have known that Frank did not know that I don't want to lightly
change the Gtk theme in this round... either way, please don't take
offense here. Good work will be incorporated, Troy was I think just
trying to focus folks' attention on the areas where we've specifically
opened up the floodgates.


>> The current GTK theme was produced by Richard and Daniel, the authors
>> of Clearlooks, working directly with me in London. Of course I'm
>> happy to review updates to that but for the moment I will expect to
>> sign off on those changes personally. That was not clear to Frank.
>>
>> So, by all means continue with GTK work, but present those changes to
>> me rather than Frank.
>>
>> At the moment, having reviewed your current screenshots I think the
>> roundedness is nice but the colour palette is not rich or saturated
>> enough for me. There seems to be a hint of blue on the bottom of the
>> widgets, and the net effect doesn't work well for me. I prefer the
>> deeper more saturated look of the current widget set.
>
> Strange, since the whole is actually more saturated than the old
> version (except the progress bar, which is full orange; see image for
> a comparison). There are also less grey widgets, such as the scroll
> bar or drop down lists which I've given an orange accent.
I quite like the reversion of the window dressing, to the more neutral
colours.

As for the widgets, there are some wins and some losses.
> I do take it you have looked at the latest version, which can be found
> here?
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan/Produce/Incoming?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=michielgtk13.png
>
Yes, this is what I've been looking at. It would be nice for the
screenshots always to be alongside a shot of the current Dapper so it's
easier to spot what's improved!

> It's too bad for me to hear that you prefer the old version. I'll work
> on the GTK to try and improve on the criticisms you've mentioned,
> despite thinking it's already much more consistent than the old
> version, especially since we have not reached the polish phase yet.

Yes, there is room for improvement, but you will need to gate that past
me personally, and I'm afraid I have very, very limited bandwidth for
this. I'm travelling for a month now on business with very little
reliable network comms for web surfing, just dumps of mail regularly.
Please don't flood me or I'll just filter it :-). But if you can present
clear ideas for improvement, with a picture of what we currently have
and what tweaks you want to make, I will try to respond if I have time.

In short, I think there is more productive work to be done on core theme
(login, desktop, splash) and then extending that "look" to all the
myriad places we "present" ubuntu, like the web site, the brochures,
sample content etc.

Mark
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