[ubuntu-art] Quick Update

[Michiel Sikma]

On Jun 26, 2006, at 2:42 PM, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:

> Michiel Sikma wrote:
>> I don't think it's just my opinion that differs. As I've mentioned  
>> before, I've got valid criticism for the Human icon set. I simply  
>> believe it to be inferior to Tangerine/Tango for various reasons.
> Michiel, Human is incomplete. It's your choice as to whether or not  
> you want to help make it complete and consistent, or whether you  
> would rather put time into Tangerine, or Outdoors, or one of the  
> other themes. I don't mind where you choose to spend your time. I  
> think it would be a great contribution to Ubuntu if you help make  
> Tangerine stunningly beautiful. If it's good enough, Tangerine will  
> ship in Edgy, and people can select it and appreciate your work.
>
> Please understand that it is not your sole say what the default  
> theme for Ubuntu will be. Nor is it a democratic decision on this  
> list. It is for the moment my decision, and in time I hope to  
> delegate that to a dedicated art director and an art team. But  
> first that team has to prove that it can make good plans, harness  
> resources, and execute its plans, meeting a deadline.
>
> We spent quite a bit of time in Paris sketching out what that  
> structure would look like, and there is plenty of space for people  
> to work on Human, Tangerine, Outdoors, etc.

Firstly, I'd like to apologize in case it seems like I'm only  
interested in negatively contorting Human. It's not my intention to  
do this. My goal, when starting this discussion, was to give a  
general account of the artistic conditions under which the Ubuntu  
artwork suite was formed and will continue to be produced, and then  
figure out whether such a direction is suitable. I might have gone  
overboard on this occasion, especially since it's currently early in  
the process. I do intend to contribute things rather than just sit  
down and complain; don't worry about that. I guess that I'll think of  
this as a wake-up call, mostly, since I was interested in debating  
with the folks from Oxygen-icons, while this isn't very appreciated  
(in this way) at this time.

>
>> I also don't see why you simply say "guidelines are great, but we  
>> make exceptions". I don't see why you can just admit that some of  
>> the icons in the Human set are inconsistent.
> They are inconsistent purely because we have not had time to  
> complete the set. The current set was produced in a rush during  
> Dapper, I plan to continue to invest in the Human icon set and to  
> work with a growing team of community volunteers to turn it into a  
> fantastic and consistent set of icons. I think you have a great eye  
> for consistency and clarity and would welcome your participation.  
> You can help identify inconsistencies and provide icons which  
> follow the style of Human but improve on the consistency. But if  
> you are dead set on using Tangerine, the please simply focus your  
> efforts there and stop talking-down Human. Make a positive  
> contribution somewhere, not a negative contribution.
>

What I do appreciate is that Human was used in Dapper while it was  
incomplete as an extra impulse to get people to complete it. I'll  
definitely make it one of my things to do to point out things which I  
believe are bad choices in Human. Because, like I've said, Human  
isn't a bad icon set (at all), to me personally, there are small  
things that add up and make a large difference. These aren't things  
that are difficult to solve. In such cases, my main criticism is that  
such icons are usually available in the Tangerine set, but more  
developed and already figured out to not have x or y attributes due  
to possible improbabilities concerning the final look of the product  
once the icons have been assembled and blended into the UI; a lot of  
icons in Human also seem to be made while they are also available in  
Tangerine and yet don't seem to be significantly different  
("reinventing the wheel"). Again, these are just minor things, and no  
reason to stop using any icon theme.

>
>> This doesn't take away that most of the icons in the system should  
>> just come from Tangerine/Tango, as the Tango icon set is likely to  
>> be the style of icons for _all_ default application icons in the  
>> future.
> I think there is plenty of room for Ubuntu to establish a style of  
> its own. I think Tango has been over-rated because it attempts to  
> bind Gnome and KDE together in a way that they do not want to be  
> bound together. I may well be wrong, which is why I don't  
> discourage you from investing your time and energy in Tangerine,  
> but I am confident in my opinion, which is why I'm investing my own  
> time and energy this way.
>
>> It will most definitely become very popular, and I don't think it  
>> is a good idea for Ubuntu to say no to that style because "we want  
>> it to be a little different".
> Distinctiveness is ESSENTIAL. I'm afraid I won't budge on that  
> point. Tango will NEVER be the default theme for Ubuntu because it  
> is entirely un-distinctive.
>

I think that I've been misunderstood on this point a little, though.  
I don't think that it's not a good idea for Ubuntu to make itself  
distinct as a Linux distribution, as it _is_ a very important and  
unique one. I do support the "Ubuntufication" of the user interface,  
but feel that the way to go about this is by ensuring that such an  
attribute does not get in the way of usability, consistency and  
affiliation with the general user interface system of operating  
systems as a whole. Thus, ways to go about making a custom user  
interface flavor for Ubuntu would imply that it's likely not a good  
idea to change icons in a way that they lose some of their iconic  
value, and I believe that this is the case for some of the icons in  
the Human theme. I would like to help resolve such issues.

There is another thing that I would like to address, and it is the  
fact that Tango aims to give people a method of aligning the user  
interfaces of all Linux programs onto one centrally decided standard  
by means of (mainly) guidelines. This is, to me, an extremely  
interesting project, as it's usually consistency that is sometimes  
missing in Linux user interfaces. I feel that the Tango project will  
be very important to Linux user interface development in the future  
and that it should expand beyond just providing an icon set. I think  
that it's important to realize that outside development will always  
be the largest portion of an operating system, and that once this  
portion becomes consistent with itself, Linux will become a whole lot  
more interesting for lots of people to use. Ubuntu should not blindly  
follow this, I agree, but should also not stray too far from what  
could be a great collaboration in the Linux community as a whole.

Of course, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell what the future  
will bring. But allowing Human to blend in with Tango will definitely  
be a good thing. It's already well on its way, and in that sense,  
Ubuntu is leading the way (especially when compared to, for example,  
Fedora). This, however, is the reason why I feel that it's not always  
necessary for the Human icon theme to "re-invent the wheel". Such a  
feeling is partially philosophical.

>
> Sending in "here's a cool picture that is totally different to  
> anything that has been seen before" mails does not in any way help.  
> The art council will lead us through a clear artistic definition  
> process for the different themes, establishing what their  
> highlights and selling points will be. Once that is done, then you  
> can help by selecting one of those themes, joining the team working  
> on it, and quietly helping to shape it into an awesome, consistent,  
> complete theme.

Again, I'm sorry. The last thing I want is to slow down the creation  
process of this distribution. I hope that the art council will help  
maintain a workaholic attitude. I do think that discussions such as  
this one are very useful, and don't see it as just a verbal brain- 
dump. Call me crazy, but I actually think that it might be useful to  
have discussions such as the preceding mails in the future (yet  
slightly more structured, maybe) every now and then, perhaps  
scheduled. I personally think that global evaluation should have its  
place in the planning at some point if there are like-minded  
individuals. But I don't know. Maybe I'm just in the wake of an old  
working method that didn't work. :)

>
> If this team is going to be a proper part of Ubuntu then it needs  
> to be professional. Go through a professional process, pick a  
> direction, deliver the goods.
>
> Mark

Seen as how you felt that this had to be mentioned, I'll respond by  
saying that I (thankfully) don't speak for the whole team. :)

With lots of respect,

Michiel Sikma
michiel at thingmajig.org