[ubuntu-art] Uspash

[Frank Schoep]

On Friday 12 May 2006 18:28, Viper550 wrote:
> Might this look better? The Ubuntu Logo I used on this one is actually
> one I used in an artwork proposal I made a few months ago. Also, does
> anyone have a picture of this ugly new Usplash artwork? I also combined
> it with an idea I saw on the Usplash wiki page, not the whole thing
> though but...

It's definitely better than the "current" splash, but I've still got the idea 
we can make a better splash screen. Here's what I've been thinking of 
tonight:

Things that I want the new splash to show are strong Ubuntu branding, linked 
to the colors used in the login screen desktop. I'm also a fan of keeping 
things simple for end users, which means I want to drop all unnecessary and 
possibly confusing screen elements.

I've also noticed that in practice, drawing text using usplash is slow and 
imposes a bottleneck on the speed at which both my physical machine (with a 
Geforce 7800 GS) and virtual (VMware) machines boot.

So what I'm proposing is dropping the text, and also dropping the black 
background color for a beige tint (used in the login screen). On top of that 
I want the Ubuntu circle logo, placed so that the circle is horizontally 
centered. Below that a solid progress bar (technical limitation).

The logo and progress bar are a darker shade of beige and match colors, this 
prevents aliasing and gives some more breathing room in the palette of the 
image. My current sketches only use 8 colors in the palette.

I've placed a first sketch online:
http://www.ffnn.nl/media/external/ubuntu/usplash/minimalistic-sketch-1.png

The resolution is 640x480 and it only shows what should be in the middle of 
the screen: the empty space should be filled with the beige tint, try this 
1280x1024 version and view it full screen in The Gimp to see what I mean:
http://www.ffnn.nl/media/external/ubuntu/usplash/minimalistic-sketch-1-1280.png

View it real life here (there's a bit of color shifting though):
http://www.ffnn.nl/media/external/ubuntu/usplash/minimalastic-sketch-1-reallife.jpg

I'm not really sure about the thickness of the progress bar, but when viewing 
this full screen and stepping back a few feet, I think it looks really good. 
It's simple, won't confuse users and I think it shows the branding quite 
well. It also saves i18n work because no strings are shown by default on 
bootup, correct me if I'm wrong.

If you're wondering why there is no "Ubuntu" text on the splash it's because I 
like the splash being spacious and to reinforce the circle logo. That logo is 
really nice and it deserves a place in the spotlight here.

In the future, we could make the circle logo spin slowly to make bootup seem 
faster. Our friends in Cupertino are doing something similar to that, with a 
spinning "throbber" kind of like in Firefox. I think we've got our friends at 
Redmond beaten because of an actually working progress bar.

Could you let me know if you love this design or where to improve on it? I'd 
create a real usplash out of it in the weekend if you want to test it in real 
life.

With kind regards,

Frank Schoep