[ubuntu-art] Title Page Design on the Planet

[Thorsten Wilms]

On Mon, 2010-03-15 at 16:31 +0100, Gilles Coulais wrote:
> 2010/3/13 Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ at freenet.de>:
> > Hi!
> >
> > I decided to show the next round of the Ubuntu Manual title page design
> > to a wider audience, so please have a look at:
> > http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/ubuntu-manual-title-page/
> 
> Hi Thorsten, all
> 
> My personal point of view :
> >From all of your proposals, c is definitely the one I prefer, because
> it looks more simple, and may have a better impact on new users of
> ubuntu (ok, not so helpful so far ;) ).
> 
> Some comments on it :
> - I'm not sure about the mouse pointer on the Ubuntu logo. It's not
> specific to version c, but from my point of view, the logo without the
> pointer would be better. the pointer suggest that the logo is a
> button. But as the button is the logo, you can't change it, and
> finally can't really suggest it actually is a button. I think I
> understand your idea (Do you suggest something like : "Ubuntu, just
> click and run ?")

Besides the obvious title and author, there are 2 things the title page
should get across:

To pretty much everyone that this document has to do with computers.
That's the reason for the pointer, but also the computer icon.

For our audience, there should be a hint at the content. This should
also work as motivation (answer to "why should I read this?"). The job
of the icons. I considered mere words instead, but that would have a bit
clunky.

I really don't see a problem with the logo/button combination. The
important part are the inner shapes and I don't mess with those.

Though the last variant from
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/ubuntu-title-page-2/
does away with the pointer for symmetry.


> I'm not very fond of the dots version. But maybe I didn't get what
> byou wanted to express.

The dots seem to be polarizing. This element comes from the new Ubuntu
identity. I think it emphasizes the technical character, precision and
engineering. In this sense it goes well with parts of our Manual message
(solid, secure, capable ...). It does however have the potential to work
against the friendly aspect of our tone and stands in contrast to the
organic feel of our font choice.

Within the Ubuntu identity, I think the dots are actually meant to point
in the engineer and corporate direction, away from consumer/end-user.
Luckily our audience will not be aware of this :)


Thank you, Gilles!


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/