Karmic Artwork

Sat Sep 12 12:34:22 UTC 2009

2009/9/12 Pasi Lallinaho <open at knome.fi>

> Simon Steinbeiß wrote:
> > On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:17:00 +0300
> > Pasi Lallinaho <open at knome.fi> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Here is the current state of the artwork cycle for Karmic. There hasn't
> >> been that much discussion, so I would be really glad if you could give
> >> your opinions on things.
> >>
> >>
> >> 1. Wallpaper / gdm theme
> >>
> >> There is a draft version of the wallpaper/gdm theme on emonk.fi [1]. As
> >> on the Jaunty cycle, I think we'll just use a modified gdm theme as the
> >> background. Maybe lighter colors for the tree for wallpaper mode? This
> >> wallpaper works for both wides and normal monitors. Cody suggested it's
> >> a bit too blocky for his taste, but what others of you think? Personally
> >> I think it's a good depart from the earlier style [2], but it could
> >> maybe be a bit lighter. (As I look it now, it needs some more texture at
> >> least.) Opinions please.
> >>
> >
> > I'm not saying I don't like the gdm mockup, but since you said you're
> looking for opinions
> > I'll say I'd prefer something more abstract (without the tree and birds).
> >
> >
> I understand your point. However, if I remove the tree and the birds,
> there is basically nothing left. Personally I think this would make for
> a good wallpaper, but not something that should make you go "Wow!".
>

Currently with the new gdm we have a gtk window in the middle of the screen.
I think the tree and birds could be used to encircle the window and decorate
the background without being too overcrowded. The tree could be on the left,
and we could make sure that for most screen ratios / little-medium
resolutions we would have a few birds above (top & middle right) and on the
right (right and top to middle) of the window, flying in the same direction.

> >> 2. Icon theme
> >>
> >> We are currently using Gnome Brave [3]. Steve suggests that the new
> >> community-based theme Humanity [4] would be worth using. I agree, but we
> >> should test run it [5].
> >>
> >
> > I prefer Humanity, even though gnome-brave isn't a bad choice. I think
> Humanity (minus
> > the orange; I assume you would recolor it - at least the most important
> parts) just looks
> > a bit more modern and elegant.
> >
> >
> Of course we would have to recolor it. If it turns out coloring takes a
> long time, we might have to reconsider to just keep with Gnome Brave.
>

Recoloring will be needed for the icons that are everywhere. App icons,
categories, folders. I also want the Human notification icons and some
UNICOLOR media icons (strong preference for the Breathe ones - Human ones
are cool too). Also, we may want to do a few custom icons (a media-dynamic
icon for instance which is used by exaile), and maybe some custom icons
going with the theme for the apps we ship by default (i'm saying that but i
don't have an exemple).

But we really don't need to recolor every single icon. Smooth yellow isn't
shocking at all in the midst of blue.

>> 3. GTK+ theme
> >>
> >> We want to refresh our GTK+ theme. Steve suggests that we use something
> >> Alvaro [6] -based, and personally I'm totally fine with that. Overall it
> >> looks quite good and with some tweaks to the menubar and colors, I think
> >> we're fine. Opinions?
> >>
> >
> > Hm. I liked Murrina-Xubuntu a lot, I hope you would recolor Alvaro that
> way. Other than
> > the color-scheme I don't have a strong opinion on which murrine-theme it
> will be. (Maybe
> > I'm just too ignorant to see the big differences between them :) )
> >
> >
> There isn't that big differences. But as Alvaro is ready and somebody
> has tested it and made sure everything works, it's easier to depend on
> it than MurrinaXubuntu, which also uses a gtkrc for the old Murrine,
> thus one would had to rewrite it anyway.
>

My idea was the following : the current default theme has way too much
contrast and just hurt eyes with bright screens. And it is, sorry, NOT
APPEALING AT ALL. Alvaro is a great base theme. It has 2k downloads, and
some themes based on it too. It is performing very well in gtkperf (at least
here, feel free to send me benchmarks :p), and the gtkrc is rather simple. I
used it for several months and didn't notice any glitch with the xubuntu
apps. I think we can make two themes out of it :

a) Albatross, which would retain most of Alvaro and use my Alvaro xfwm, and
an unified and dark title bar, with a dark panel, and a shiny blue as a
selected_color. This would be our "dark based" theme for Xubuntu. We dont
ship OOo.org which sucks for dark themes, dark themes fans will be happy and
we will finally offer more than just the XFCE themes and our own one.

b) Seagull (because bird names are funneh, and we will have birds in our
GDM) which would be a light theme, with light grey panels and a bright title
bar meant to look good with the Default xfwm's active and inactive look. It
would use a brighter blue and we would tweak it here and there to look good
with the smooth side of the Humanity icons. We would be  going from a very
contrasted gtk theme and icon theme to something much smoother, which i
believe is important when you use your computer daily.

> >> 4. xfwm theme
> >>
> >> I propose we still keep with the Xfce default. I like it, a lot.
> >>
> >
> > We had this discussion on #xubuntu-devel a while ago - I still like
> joining the menu-bar
> > and xfwm.
> >
> I personally don't like joined menubar and xfwm. What is the view of the
> majority here? Opinions please. As it's relatively easy to change the
> xfwm, I think we should go with the default Xfce one if we are in a
> standoff situation – the default will not be as controversial than a
> joined one. I think. :)
>

As I said above, some themes are just too sexy when the title bar and xfwm
theme are unified - while others look really good without unifying these.
The default Xubuntu theme should use the default xfwm, because that one
rocks and is part of our visual identity too. That one can't have unified
title bars, but it's really not a problem as long as the title bar is not
darker than the inactive xfwm window look.

> >
> >> 5. U/Xsplash / Live CD boot menu
> >>
> >> Do we want a basic logo only? Do the technical reasons keep us from
> >> doing anything else? Can we still change the U/Xsplash at this time? Is
> >> the image the only thing we want to change or are we going to do
> >> something with the throbber et cetera? Or will we just use the Ubuntu
> >> theme [7], change the colors and the logo? Will Michael be able to help
> >> with Usplash, if we need help? Cody, I need especially your input on
> >> this one.
>

Something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlCVrtgxVcI&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1rocks
but I don't think it's implementable. I'll try to grab some of Mat
Tomaszewski's time monday to talk about the limits of xsplash theming. I
think the pink iteration 6 in
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Karmic/Boot has very nice shapes,
and that with a blue background could look just fine. We could just replace
the Ubuntu 9.10 + the logo above the slider by a single XFCE mouse, of
approximately 1.5 times the width of the logo, in the middle, and add
nothing else. Thoughts ?

> >>
> >
> > I think recoloring the Ubuntu-theme would be fine.
> >
> > Sorry that I wasn't very active lately, but I've been travelling a lot
> and that minimized
> > my internet-access and irc time drastically. From October on this should
> be better again.
> >
> No problem. Great to hear from you again, though – welcome back!
> > Alrighty, keep up the good work and kudos to Pasi for creating such nice
> artwork -
> > you are the master of blue!
> >
> > Simon
> >
> >
> Thanks for the compliments. We rock!
>
> --
> Pasi Lallinaho
> Xubuntu Marketing Lead
> Web-designer, graphic artist
> IRC: knome @ freenode
>
>
> --
> xubuntu-devel mailing list
> xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
>

-- 
Steve Dodier
OpenPGP : 1B6B1670
IRC : SiDi on irc.freenode.net
Jabber : sidi at im.apinc.org
steve.dodier at gmail.com
https://launchpad.net/~sidi
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