Explaining the Edgy Eft artwork plan

[Frank Schoep]

Hello everyone,

During the developer meeting today, mdz came up with the seemingly  
simple question: "do you have an idea when artwork will start to land  
in edgy?" I'm afraid the answer is going to be a drama in three acts,  
but without the drama, so I'll start explaining.

The first portion of the answer is the description of the proposed  
plan we're following for the community artwork. This plan is  
described on the Wiki on the following page:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/ArtworkProcess

In short, it's dubbed T4P, named after the phases we've identified  
and described:
- Target Identification
- Ponder
- Propose
- Produce
- Polish

Right now, we're finishing the "Propose" phase, which means we'll  
start producing artwork in a set direction soon. When the next phase,  
Produce, is finished, we'll have artwork ready for use for the four  
community artwork targets: the usplash, login manager, login splash  
and wallpaper. To answer the question when this will be done, let's  
head into the second act.

Second act: the concrete schedule for Edgy artwork. This is basically  
the theoretical T4P plan mapped to the calendar for Edgy, it is  
available here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan

We're right on schedule, I'm planning to finish Produce this weekend.

The Produce phase will be done before the FeatureFreeze on the 7th of  
September. After that we'll take the existing artwork and polish it  
to the point you won't believe your eyes, at least that's the idea.  
That final polishing is finished by the BetaRelease.

That kind of concludes the second act, there's one more thing. Well,  
multiple actually. There's artwork that needs to be done outside of  
the community things. This consists of the work Theme Teams are  
doing, media artwork, polishing the GTK theme, polishing the icon  
set, completing the High Contrast icon set, creating SOK keyboard  
layouts and theming Firefox and Thunderbird.

For all those things, I'm following a rather complicated schedule,  
but all of the activities are planned to be done on or before the end  
of the community artwork progress. Basically this means that artwork  
package changes and commits will all be done before the 5th of  
October. The Theme Team dates are available on the Edgy Artwork Plan  
Wiki page as well:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan

Matt, I hope this answers your question. If you, or anyone else, has  
any questions, remarks or comments, I'll be right here. Thanks for  
reading, everyone.

With kind regards,

Frank Schoep