[Design-team] Summary of today's meeting / ideas for council presentation

Wed Oct 7 04:01:30 UTC 2015

Hi,

Have to say something to the points

2015-10-07 3:19 GMT+07:00 Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org>:

> Hi,
>
> We had a meeting today, and myself, mleonova, riecatnor, and tatica
> attended. Here is a quick run-through of what we discussed; ***please***
> feel more than welcome to reply here and continue the discussion:
>
> Tickets
> =======
>
> #360 Fedora LiveUSB Creator artwork
> -----------------------------------
>
> https://fedorahosted.org/design-team/ticket/360
>
> mbriza joined us for this discussion; mleonova created a mockup of two
> variations, one with the spins/labs icons in fedora blue, another with the
> spins/labs icons in a patterned grey. (the concern to be addressed with
> this is that the gray icons looked like they were inactive / not selectable
> in the UI context.) We decided to go with the patterned gray versions.
>
> mockup: http://i.imgur.com/6BXS7lF.png
>
>
> #403 Icons for new FAS website
> ------------------------------
>
> https://fedorahosted.org/design-team/ticket/403
>
> riecatnor shared her first drafts of the icon designs and asked for
> feedback. Some points that were brought up in the discussion:
>
> - the first row and fourth row were the favorite designs.
> - we weren't sure what the 'platform' icon should be in the original
> request; riecatnor will ask reporter
> - we wanted to see the icons in context in a UI screenshot, but the app
> was down during our meeting so we couldn't see what the app looks like to
> try to imagine the icons in context. riecatnor will ask reporter for
> screenshots / to set site back up so she can take screenshots and maybe
> mockup the icons in context.
> - need to confirm with reporter the target icon display size - may need to
> snap artwork to the pixel grid if its sufficiently small
> - try in the group icon to maybe do a shoulder line for the center person
> and taper it off about halfway down
>
>
> New Meeting Time
> ================
>
> So far the largest number of folks can make 9 AM EDT / 1 PM UTC on
> Wednesdays, but we are waiting on more folks to respond to the survey. If
> you have not filled out the meeting time survey, please do so now at this
> URL:
>
> http://whenisgood.net/hype2fi
>
>
> Design Team Fedora Council Presentation
> =======================================
>
> We'd like to make a presentation about the status of our team to the
> Fedora Council. Matthew Miller posed the following items as suggestions as
> to what the preso could cover:
>
> <mizmo>   - the current state of the subproject
> <mizmo>   - future plans
> <mizmo>   - things the team needs from the rest of the project
> <mizmo>     - any blockers we can help unblock
> <mizmo>     - big resource requests?
>
> Here's what we talked about, but if we missed anything or if you have big
> ideas, please let's discuss here on list!
>
>
> Current State of the Design Team:
> ---------------------------------
>
> Our current state is good.
>
> We had a Fedora Activity Day this past January 2015 (
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD_DesignTeam_2014) as a sort of reboot
> for the team, and we accomplished lasting progress at that time. We cleaned
> out our ticket queue and set up a new system for ticket filing and reviews,
> and we re-established our regular meetings which we're still doing. Our
> ticket queue remains fairly clean and sane post-cleaning, meaning our
> maintenance processes are likely working. Similarly riecatnor and threebean
> redesigned the Fedora Badge design new ticket submission process and are
> getting more detailed and better-written badge request tickets as a result.
>
> One upcoming issue is that I've been running the meetings and will be out
> on medical leave Nov/Dec - Feb/Mar, so we need to get on a new meeting
> schedule ahead of time to try to get into a routine with other folks
> leading the meetings.
>
>
> Future Plans:
> -------------
>
> mleonova is working on a project to clean up our swag assets and put
> together a directory with print-ready, pre-approved Fedora swag designs.
> More on her project here:
> https://mashaleonova.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/sharing-in-open-source-and-swag/
>
> mizmo has been working on the Fedora Hubs project (
> http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/category/fedora/fedora-hubs/ ) and ongoing
> updates to Fedora websites (e.g. redesign of www.getfedora.org for new
> Atomic focus http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2015/09/15/fedora-atomic-logo-idea/
> )
>
> Any other folks with big plans please shout out so we can add them to our
> list!
>
>
> Things Design Team Needs from the Rest of the Project:
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is where we spent the bulk of our discussion time. :)
>
> 1) Design Team FAD 2016
>
> We talked about potentially holding another Design Team FAD (Fedora
> Activity Day) sometime in 2016, after March, and the focus could be both
> recruiting new folks (maybe hosting at a university or colocated with a
> design event where we could get some recruits) and working on badge
> artwork. Riecatnor mentioned the badge artwork queue is quite long and we
> need help.
>

March is fine for me, could work but we have to watch the date then. I
planned to go to CLT in March, would be fine I can combine these to jump
over the Atlantic is fine for me but flying twice in a month around the
globe is different.

>
> 2) Show Me the Content!
>
> We often get asked to design materials without being given content to use.
> Sometimes this manifests in designs filled with lipsum that end up needing
> substantial changes when the real content comes in, sometimes it manifests
> in designers writing the content themselves. For the rest of the project,
> the takeaway here is that we really need the content before we can do a
> workable design in a timely and efficient manner.
>

++

>
> 3) Recruiting and Retention
>
> We do struggle a bit with recruiting and retention. One idea we came up
> with was to have more events - virtual events - like office hours where new
> folks can show up to get help. In terms of retention a frequent reason
> we're aware of for folks leaving the team is different work schedules or
> general business.
>
> 4) Need Specs + Printer Info + Reasonable Time Please
>
> Commonly we're asked to do design tasks that involve printing (paper items
> or swag) but not provided specs or contact information for the
> printer/producer of the items. This ends up causing extra work for the
> designers who sometimes need to completely reformat a design for when they
> finally get specs for the printer, and unfortunately sometimes results in
> the design being produced incorrectly (riecatnor cited the Flock Rochester
> booklets as an example of this.) The integrity of our designs should be
> treated as seriously as the integrity of Fedora's code, so we need
> appropriate specifications and printer information to ensure the designs
> are produced correctly. (And enough time to do this all in!)
>

+1,

>
> 5) Need a Better Swag Strategy
>
> This is kind of my personal pet peeve, but we did talk about some kind of
> higher-level strategy regarding the swag art we produce for folks making
> swag since from the design team's standpoint it's rather ad-hoc:
>
> - Is there a place for discussions about how much swag we produce, the
> environmental impact, the strategic necessity of the swag being produced,
> etc.
>
> - Could we put some bounds on swag production to help manage it, for
> example, certain types of swag like T-shirts are okay to produce for
> premiere Fedora events (Flock, FUDcons) but for smaller events like FAD we
> won't do it or we'd have less impactful items available (like stickers?)
>
> - Could we consider alternatives to T-shirts, and maybe produce
> higher-quality shirts (like high quality polos) that are given 1 per
> contributor and per event make collectible pins available that could be put
> on the shirt or bags or other items? (E.g., like these sort of things:
> http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/10033428/Images/pelk15.jpg
> )
>

not a good idea, for pins you have to produce in 1000 pieces to reduce the
cost for the pre-production otherwise they become more expensive as shirts.

>
> - There are some regional differences in swag production; Tatica mentioned
> LATAM does not have more than one T-shirt run a year and not many shirts
> are produced. So any changes in policy would need to consider regional
> differences.
>

Thats quiet fun, because EMEA has none and NA also, last shirts we produced
was the contributor shirts. So maybe there should be stopped to think that
they get lesser then others!

The swag production is in the hand of the Ambassadors and that is a good
way, the only problem for NA is that the Ambassadors there take less care
of it and wait until Ruth or Spot taking care of it. It worked very well so
far for EMEA as the region learned to take care of this well, there is
always swag available, buttons, pins, case badges and stickers that is what
is produced regularly. Higher valuable swag gets produced also, we had eg
mugs or basecaps. Sure they was produced in low quantities but this is ok,
because they are not for the Ambassadors to keep. So its quiet ok to have 1
mug or 3 caps on an event, if they are used right, I take mine always to
the talk and give them away for questions. Most Ambassadors in EMEA do that
this way, there are some exceptions like Zoltan who produces expensive swag
on its own and behind our back.

Well I and not only I feel unwell with the "Swag plans" that come out from
Zoltan and Ankur. I had a long discussion with first one on Flock as he
wants to do a "welcome pack" for new Ambassadors containing swag and not
only me is totally opposed to that. We had on earlier time swag distributed
to different places and that was always on one end to much and they other
to short, since we have centralized the production and storing, there is no
problem i I have an event I just have to say in the ticket system what I
need and I get it. Of course I can not do this 3 days before the event, so
its just that the Ambassadors have to learn to request it early enough.

I try very hard to establish the same system for APAC. We tried it already
for F21 and it worked not so well, but we had some discussions on this
topic on FUDCon Pune, so looking forward to the FAD for APAC in December. I
had some discussions with people that thought its more expensive to send it
around but its the opposite, first of all we get rid of the problem to have
it distributed uneven, second and most problem is I can not guarantee the
quality in Asia. I have right now this problem I have stickers from EMEA
and China and India all looking very different, not speaking about that
chinese one are just paper and that I have to cut them with scissors or
give away the whole sheet, what is a waste in my eyes. Same for DVD I have
right now Indian DVD F21 and F22 and EMEA F22.

So what has to be done, is just establish the system that EMEA has in the
other regions and adopt it where it is necessary. Just to say there are
differences in swag distribution is incorrect, all the regions have nearly
the same budget, what can be from the perspective of EMEA and NA unfair, as
here production costs are much higher as in eg Asia. I give you an example,
I produced last year for the F21 Release Party, Base Caps and they was
embroidered and I did pay 2.50$ for one, costs was higher as we only
produced 15 caps. Trying the same in EMEA would cost me arround 10-15€,
means 12-18$. If APAC plans more carefully, they would get out of their
budget more swag as EMEA does.

br gnokii

>
>
>
> Any other thoughts or ideas, please feel free to throw in!!!
>
> ~m
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