[ubuntu-art] On the day it reverted...

[Troy James Sobotka]

As someone who just got home to a plethora of email
in my incoming box and my mailing list box, I think 
I should at least offer my vantage on this whole
process and outcome.  I designed those bits that were
in Edgy.  For what it is worth, I will attempt to address
the issues I have read thus far.

On Thu, 2006-12-10 at 17:46 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> Reverting to Dapper would not be a great outcome - but it would be
> preferable to shipping with artwork that does not meet our standards.
> We've invested a huge amount of time and effort in the Edgy art
> community process, and thus far we don't have a final set of images
> that IMO cut the mustard. 

Ultimately, the "our standards" should be more spoken
as sab's.  We knew this going in, and we know it going
out.

With artwork, you can _never_ please everyone.  In fact,
it is much like politics -- you hope for a rough percentage
and run with the ball on it.  Ultimately, Ubuntu is different
from politics.  There is _one_ person who needs to be 
happy, and that is sabdfl.  Whether you like it or not,
he wasn't, and the _only_ choice left was to revert as
he did not find any of the work up to his standards.

The following hopefully explains this in full, from the
vantage of someone who participated from the onset.

First, I became active in this because of the clear 
and problematic design issues present in Ubuntu,
namely:
 1) Lack of a cohesive palette, motif, design keyword
    communication.  Compare the GDM to the logon splash
    to the wallpaper and hopefully this is clear.  If
    it isn't, perhaps someone could explain better than
    myself.
 2) Lack of consistency as a byproduct of number
    one above.

To draw an analogy, it was much like having several
discreet pieces of clothing that all would work fine
alone, but when put together failed to offer any
sort of cohesion.

At the beginning of the process, there was an attempt
to lay out a formal design pattern -- moulded after
a pretty standard "target" "brainstorm" "create" "refine"
"implement" pattern.  It was located here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan/

The whole point of the entire process was to have
clear and visible checkpoints for 'client' interaction
and steering -- gradually diminishing options and
working towards a directed goal.

Unfortunately, _all_ of the checkpoints were rather
underutilized.  This was probably the byproduct of
sab's massively busy schedule.  He is a pretty busy
guy with this tidal wave called Ubuntu...

This left Frank Schoep, our Artist in Chief, on his own
to do the filtering and refining.  He did a _truly_ 
amazing job trying to juggle all of the development
issues and artwork aspects, and, despite the outcome,
has proved himself a very valuable asset to the 
Ubuntu project, imho.  

Certain looser design criteria were made clear 
(read the specifications for further information), 
and development proceeded as best as possible given 
the instructions.

Unfortunately, there was zero result to develop
a palette from the "ponder / brainstorm."  There
were zero motifs granted.  Etc.  This led to a very
difficult design phase.  Frank had to hobble along.

Jump to freeze times.  Perhaps because artwork has not
been treated in a development fashion before, when the time
came to freeze elements, Frank had to use his judgement
and rolled with what he felt were the best options
laid out before him.  Enter the newer Edgy work.

Bear in mind that at this point, Ubuntu is NOT like the 
other *buntu's.  Ubuntu is under STRICT watch by sab 
himself -- and hopefully we can all appreciate that.
Ubuntu's success thus far has probably largely been
because of his vision.

What became clearer fact was what the goal of the 
effort was.  Fundamentally, there should have been
more mimesis on the part of the team, as opposed to
believing that there was room for design beyond the
6.06 work.  If you follow the current product of the
conference calling between himself and a few others,
you will quickly see what his ideas for change were.

Unfortunately, we failed to locate these changes at 
the onset.

On Thu, 2006-12-10 at 19:12 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> If you read that document (have you?) you'll see that the art team
> leads explicitly set their own, personalised deadlines that are in
> sync with those of the distro. It's not /the same/ it's an appropriate
> set of deadlines that were a good plan - and it was not followed.

Actually, the deadlines were set in direct accordance with
the schedule released at Paris.  It would have been foolish
to _not_ do this.  In addition to this, the freeze dates
have been relatively clear all along.  I don't think fundamentally
this had _anything_ to do with the outcome.

On Thu, 2006-12-10 at 18:53 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> No - unprofessional is missing all the agreed dates, and not pulling
> together as a team but instead having too many people pulling in too
> many directions.
> 
> Before you react - consider for a moment that the REST of the
> distribution does not run that way. It could never be the tight,
> focused thing that it is if it did. It's up to the art team to rise to
> the level of the rest of the distro, not simply to assume that release
> management processes apply less strictly in the artwork department.

Not quite.  The fundamental issue at hand
was a distinct lack of _concrete_ direction that were met
in accordance with the above schedule checkpoints.  Perhaps 
there was a view that 'quashing' a given direction would have
disappointed the community, but in essence, it was exactly
what the design plan was developed to provide.

I have attached the byproduct of countless hours of last minute
tweaks and changes based on his personal guidance for those 
that missed the links / images.

On Thu, 2006-12-10 at 19:12 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> But design is about visual and spatial engineering - creating things
> that are both beautiful and functional. We CAN expect design to be a
> disciplined professional process.

Reverting to Dapper's work solves this.  It is both beautiful
and functional.  Again, we must accept that ultimately the
definitions of "beautiful and functional" are defined by 
Mr. Shuttleworth's aesthetic.  He has provided his own
money to develop Ubuntu.  He has dedicated a huge amount
of time to make Ubuntu what it is.  He is why we are even
discussing this.  

Dapper is excellence in design for him.  He has spent
his own money and time developing it.  Please appreciate
that.

It has been a wonderful journey...

Sincerely,
TJS

PS:  The design that ended up being in there has
very little to do with my personal aesthetic.  I 
simply tried to take what I believed Ubuntu was
based on its connotations, existing loose brown
tone, and guesswork to devise _something_ that
felt Ubuntu.  Again, without a clear design specification,
colour palette, etc., it was all guesswork.
Aesthetics aside, the design attempted to meet
the loose specifications from the onset _and_
correct some of the issues that I _personally_
thought were present in Ubuntu's look.

For all of the countless requests I have in my 
inbox, you can locate the most updated versions
of the effort at the _bottom_ of the page.  They
are slightly different from what was in Edgy, but
alas, we know the history:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan/Produce/Incoming/CurrentDefault



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