[Design-team] Introduction for Thorsten Panknin (thopan)

[Thorsten Panknin]

Hi,

just subscribed to this list after joining the Matrix chat.

I'm from Germany, so not an English native speaker.

I'm new to the Fedora community and currently figuring out what I could 
contribute to. Besides text-related work like translations and editing 
German texts, I'm currently getting back into design.

I completed a two-year occupational retraining as an online media 
designer 20 years ago (yes, really), but never worked in the field due 
to health issues. I am still, or rather again, interested in basic 
vector stuff with Inkscape, especially since the multi-page feature got 
introduced. I contributed a few vector works to the Openclipart project 
eons ago, which are still available and stem from my time with the 
German Inkscape forum back then. I'm not really a raster design person, 
I actually don't like pixel work much.

I just installed Penpot locally (thanks to the great Podman article by 
linuxgrrrrl) and would like to get into grid-based design work, too, 
say a 12-column design grid. I love it when stuff is aligned to other 
stuff and to the page. And I like basic typography. I'm not a great, 
creative designer I'd say, meaning that my stuff is mostly 
informational and a bit neutral, maybe using some nice font and color, 
but not creative as "make a funny page about cats, it should be cute an 
colourful". Not sure if you get what I mean.

I sometimes translate rules-light roleplaying games to German and 
mostly provide a PDF as well, but mostly as ashcan versions without 
much image design, because I lack the routine. If you're interested in 
seeing some of my PDFs, please ask. I'd rather noch put links to my 
stuff in here unsolicited. I'm currently applying a 12-column grid to 
my stuff so I get some rhythm to my designs. Looking forward to 
Penpot's release on Jan 31st when new layout features should be 
released, including a Flex-based layout. Hoping that will make 
multi-column text frames possible.

I sometimes suffer from Imposter syndrome and would love honest 
feedback, because mostly I work alone and that can be hard.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or in the Matrix chat 
of the Design team where I started lurking.

Cheers,

Thorsten from Germany