[ubuntu-art] Wallpapers

[Anton Kerezov]

Thank you for the comprehensive answer Damian. I have used dark themes in 
Ubuntu and think that they are not appropriate either. I agree that some 
dark accents may greatly improve the usability, though. Here you can see 
some shots from my Ubuntu:

http://dilomo.blogspot.com/

By the way when will be the official guidelines released? We don't know what 
to do and our will to create something will soon disappears.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damian Vila" <damianvila at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion on Ubuntu artwork" <ubuntu-art at lists.ubuntu.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 3:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-art] Wallpapers


> Hi Anton,
>
> Of course, I'm glad to share the way I work. It will be lengthy, I must
> warn you. :-)
> First of all a disclaimer: excuse me, because re-reading my previous
> mail I think that my translation of the phrase you are mentioning, wich
> I'm glad to answer, didn't sound in English as I intended in Spanish. It
> looks like I can do people "like" my work at will, something any
> designer knows is impossible. What I wanted to say is that I usually
> analize what happens to my designs afterwards and try to identify why
> they have worked or not. Something that I was taught to do in college by
> my professors. Having some kind of feedback about your work is as
> important as knowing your audience beforehand. My teachers insisted in
> this kind of behavior. They always told us that we had some kind of
> responsibility for the messages we were helping spread, so it was
> important for us to know if it reached the audience as intended or not.
> So, as I said, I'm glad to explain why I believe my work was supported
> by so many people, something that gladly surprised me, but that has a
> reasonable explanation.
>
> - The first step in creating the Animal series was observing.
> As you may see in my profile at the Ubuntu forums, I registered some
> time ago, but I have not posted a lot of messages. I spend a lot of time
> observing, lurking if you want, before taking part in something, or
> collaborating in a community.
> One of the mistakes some designers make at the beggining of a project is
> being too impulsive about it. I tend to be passionate about my work, so
> sometimes I restrain from sending something before I have some decent
> knowledge of the community (or the job at hand) and its dynamics. And
> specially, before knowing what is expected. Most of the times, this
> knowledge really helps.
> I believe the best place to know what the Ubuntu user wants is to have a
> look at the forums.
> The "regular" user don't read specific mailing list, or enters specific
> channels at IRC. They express what they want in forums or blogs.
> So I read a lot about what people wanted in the forums before sending
> something.
>
> - The second step was getting an idea, something to start with.
> This was prety easy with Ubuntu. It's african roots are very inspiring.
> The sense of freedom from the FLOSS movement had to be reflected also.
> I'm the kind of person that finds inspiration everywhere. So, It was
> clear at the beginning that it should be african inspired.
> I also try to isolate myself from trendy design sites around the time I
> start working on something. Some people like to look those kind of sites
> for inspiration. I don't need that and feel those sites contaminate my
> work. But this is just a personal choice.
> So, my first idea was to look for images that could inspire me. I got to
> this picture: http://flickr.com/photos/evmurdock/84671834/in/set-1808168/
> As a wallpapers it was rather obvious and not very suitable, but it gave
> me enough inspiration to start with.
>
> - The third step was to see previous artwork and try to understund its
> rules. And also document myself a lot about the subject.
> It was clear that all the previous artwork had a similar palette. So,
> sending something in greens or blues was out of the question. I also
> read the wiki, so, I had enough elements to start playing around. It had
> to be brown, with a touch of yellows, oranges, etc. "Earthy" was what
> came to my mind.
>
> So, by mere association I came to the idea of the animals. It started
> with "african", and then "freedom", "plains", "animals", and then,
> specifically to "lions" and "elephants". I added more animals, to see
> wich ones gave the best results.
> I started my search of animal pictures. I found lots. So I tried several
> approaches.
>
> - The fourth step was to apply what I know to the ideas I had.
> I know that, by Fitts' law, the edges (and specially corners) of the
> desktop are the most useful places, so because of that people tend to
> leave icons near the edges (gestaltic associations takes a role, also).
> It's not a fixed rule, but it helps to start taking decisions. And also
> peripheral vision helps you distinguish what's not in the center of the
> eye, so, the edges needs to be darker than the center to offer more
> contrast and help peripheral vision. I also know that the human eye can
> distinguish more the contrast than the color (the principle used in JPEG
> compression algorithm), so a wallpaper with lots of contrast, or with a
> very clear and contrasted object (like a macro of an object, for
> example, or even the landscape I used as reference) is not the best
> approach because it's too distracting. A good picture is something nice
> to see, but not to have as a background as you try to do your job. It
> was clear to me that a texture was going to work best.
>
> So, so far I had:
> - African animals (Lions, elephants, giraffes, etc.)
> - Texture with few distracting elements
> - Earthy tones
> - Dark edges
>
> So, I started to make the wallpapers. (You can see the proposals at the
> wiki).
>
> -The fifth step was self-criticism
> When I got something I liked, I used it in my own desktop to see if it
> really worked. I thought it was pleasing, and no distracting at all, so,
> it looked good so far.
> But still I had more concerns. I knew that it was very different to
> everything I have seen so far in an OS. And it was specially very
> different from most design trends in other OSs. Ubuntu is a very special
> distro. It's the brown distro. This is very unusual, so it looked
> natural to have an unusual wallpaper. But, was it good enough for the
> most popular Linux distro?
> Since it satisfied the formal needs, I decided to give it a go. And I
> thought it looked pretty decent. So I put them in the wiki.
>
> -Sixth step was listening to the feedback
> From then on I just adjusted the wallpapers as the feedback from other
> designers and users started to reach me. I removed the branding,
> adjusted the lightness and made some minor corrections until I got to
> the final designs.
> I really thought that the Lion wallpaper was going to be the one with
> more possibilities, since the lion fur is more close to brown, but I was
> surprised to see that the elephant was the one people liked most
> (elephants being mostly grey, not brown.)
> The "secret" of the elephant was given to me by my 3 years old son: even
> though I erased the most prominents aspects of the photograph (the eye,
> the ear fold, etc.) he immediatly recognized it as an elephant. The
> "Lion" was more abstract, less emotional (inspiring I'd say).
>
> So, by what people told afterwards at the forums, it was a popular
> wallpaper not only because I put all my knowledge into it and tried to
> make it work, but because people thought there was a connection between
> the wallpaper and Ubuntu (the Ubuntu site stress a lot that it's an
> african distro), it was a "fair" and not whimsical use of brown, and
> although it was a texture, the motif was easily recognizable, without
> being intrussive. And also, I believe a lot of people thought it was
> original, very different from Windows' or Apple's wallpapers, and that
> really helped.
>
> So, there you have it.
>
> I took the time to read what people said at the forums after Gutsy was
> launched, and that gave me more ideas. But it was too late to use them.
> If I feel in the mood, I'll probably make a couple more of that series,
> for people to use with Hardy, but those would not be submitted to the
> wiki, since the requirements are different now.
> I also have a couple of ideas that respect the guidelines, but I feel
> less inspired by the idea of a dark UI. I just don't like dark
> interfaces and believe that are harder to read than light ones. I try to
> have my own style, and I'd try to avoid a dark interface for a popular
> product if it was by me. And I strongly believe that a dark interface
> for a LTS Ubuntu is a bad idea. But that's only my personal opinion
> based on my taste. I think everybody will have his/her own opinion on
> the subject.
>
> That's all. If you have further questions I'll be glad to answer. I hope
> this mails can be of some use to somebody. I always liked to share what
> I know, that's why I gave Web Design lessons many years ago and write a
> blog about design (though, not very frequently.) I think that, if you
> share your knowledge with your colleagues and learn how to take and give
> a good advice, you're contributing a lot to your profession. Of course,
> always having respect for others and being courteous.
> Regards,
>
> Demian
>
> Anton Kerezov escribió:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I would like to ask Damian (if it is not too impudently) to tell me
>> more about the way he creates wallpapers and how are they accepted by
>> so many people? Any specifics on the elephant wallpaper?
>>
>> Thanks
>
>
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