[Design-team] Constantine

[Máirín Duffy]

Was wondering if anybody had thoughts about this - I put a bit of work
into it and haven't gotten any feedback yet! :)

If it sucks let me know.

~m

On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 20:09 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 17:46 -0500, Michael Beckwith wrote:
> > Keep in mind everyone that just because the codename is "Constantine" 
> > doesn't mean that we HAVE to include the guy in the theme somehow. We 
> > can go off on some inspiration derived from reading about him and 
> > whatnot and just make sure the tie in is there.
> 
> I found some inspiration in W.B. Yeats' 'Sailing to Byzantium' [1].
> There are some interesting themes in there (and even a link to steam...
> er.. byzantine-punk). I'll just throw these out there; they may all suck
> but crappy ideas can inspire awesome ideas so if they inspire something
> in you let's talk about it:
> 
> - Mortality vs Immortality - Byzantine art & culture flourished over
> 1000 years (330-1453) and is still known of today - We can relate this
> to Fedora - Fedora does not try to only look 'cool' on the surface and
> not have much substance underneath; Fedora is very concerned about
> quality and doing the right thing. Fedora hopefully is at the forefront
> of promoting a culture/philosophy and producing a quality system that
> will bring order and the right way forward. A few ideas on representing
> this: have a simple & transparent (or not quite drawn-in) subject grow
> in complexity & depth and become more opaque maybe. Or go from weak to
> saturated colors and/or values. The message would be along the lines of
> Fedora's hopeful grasp towards greatness/eternity.
> 
> - The natural/impermanent/imperfect vs. technology/permanent/perfect -
> building on the above theme... Yeats makes reference to Byzantine
> Emperor Theophilos' singing mechanical golden birds (he also had
> mechanical golden lions as well, hmmm... :) ) I feel like themes that
> deal with technology vs nature usually pose technology in the 'bad guy'
> light and nature in the 'good guy' light, so it might be interesting to
> send a message that poses technology (Fedora) as an ally of nature (the
> people using Fedora) to make it better (to improve Fedora users' lives).
> Visually this could maybe take a steampunk bird form hehe.
> 
> - Order from Chaos - Constantine was known for bringing order to the
> chaos of the Roman empire at the time he began rule and Constantinople
> seems to have served as a central hub / symbol of that order. Perhaps
> Fedora is the Constantinople to the chaos of crappy, proprietary
> software. The message would be that open source software is inevitable
> and is the way forward to order and progress.
> 
> - Liberation through enlightenment - '... Consume my heart away; sick
> with desire... gather me Into the artifice of eternity.' Liberation of
> the soul from worldly desires... liberation of the software and more
> generally culture from worldly desires...? worldly desires = closed
> firmware and patented codecs? hehe
> 
> - Unity/Coming together to make something great - and could quite easily
> be communicated with the golden mosaic designs already being discussed -
> alone one tile is nothing special, but the tiles together can make a
> beautiful piece of art. Along similar lines, Constantinople itself was a
> trading center where many cultures intersected.
> 
> ~m
> 
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_to_Byzantium
> 
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