The Future of release names

[Máirín Duffy]

On Wed, 2012-05-09 at 12:17 -0500, inode0 wrote:
> Much of the fun I think comes from the unpredictable nature of the
> process now. And also much of the anticipation and excitement about
> Fedora artwork with each release comes from the same unpredictability
> coupled with art that often is spectacular and surprising.

It might be full of anticipation and excitement for some, but it's
definitely full of dread and pain for the actual artists. It's hard
enough to come up with the artwork without the added challenge of having
to somehow relate to a release name that in many cases is unrelateable.
(Thank goodness Alexander was able to pick out the fireworks from
beefymiracle.org for 'Beefy Miracle' - if folks think the release name
itself is offensive, I can't imagine artwork literally inspired by what
are essentially sticks of meat to be much better...) And let's not
forget Sulphur.... >:(

> If the theme were always flowers (or whatever) and the release name
> were always a choice of flowers (or whatever) I think the whole
> business will become very boring very fast. So I hope we can find a
> way to keep what makes choosing a name fun and what makes each Fedora
> release exciting for the artists and for the folks who look forward to
> seeing the new art each release.

A lot of the theming schemes suggested thus far are far more useful for
generating visual ideas than randomness-and-anything-goes. For example,
titles of Shakespearean works could easily develop into scenes from
those works. Types of tea & coffee could inspire artwork that is local
to the regions of the selected tea/coffee (similarly to how gnokii came
up with a spectacular Malaysian-art style tiger for FUDcon in
Malaysia). 

Anyway, please, please don't use artwork as support for the current
process - it is us artists ourselves who have been complaining loudly
about the current process and are harmed by it.

~m