[Design-team] Wallpapers guidelines draft

[Nicu Buculei]

On 08/08/2009 05:13 PM, William Jon McCann wrote:
> 2009/8/7 Máirín Duffy:
>> On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 19:41 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote:
>>> All submissions or contributions:
>>>
>> [ snip ]
>> This section is great, no comments - well one suggestion, we could call
>> out good sources of appropriately-licensed image sources.
>>
>>> Subject matter:
>>>
>>>   * Must not contain brand names or trademarks of any kind
>>>
>>>   * Must not contain material that is inappropriate, offensive,
>>> indecent, obscene, hateful, tortuous, defamatory, slanderous or
>>> libelous
>>>     - No sexually explicit or provocative subject matter
>>>     - No images of weapons or violent imagery
>>>     - No alcohol, smoking, or drug use imagery


No weapons would have ruled out Samuele's Invinxible from F10 (which was 
very popular until we learned about its licensing problems) and would 
probably rule out Jayme's Constantine.
However, I don't see the sword in Constantine's hand (in Jayme's 
wallpaper proposal) as a weapon, but as a leadership symbol.

>>>   * Should not contain images of people (contemporary, historical, or
>>> fictional)

I thought the "no images of people" is due to extra legal troubles (need 
for signed model release forms and such). I think if the legal steps are 
followed, then people should be fine.

For example I think Ubuntu's "circle of friends" was brillinat for its 
time: 
http://media.photobucket.com/image/ubuntu%20%252522circle%20of%20friends%252522/chrispollard/background.jpg

Highly controversial, yes, but this was part of what made it brilliant.

>> Why is this? What about characters? The human figure? The human figure
>> abstracted?
>
> That would be fine as long as the character doesn't convey a message
> or ideology, give the appearance of preferring a specific region,
> culture, race, politics, religion, etc.  We should make this more
> clear I suppose.  An invented character without any of those
> attributes should be fine.

Characters are good: Tatica's "kids" concept is awesome 
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tatadbb/3723154997/). Myself, I had really 
fun time creating characters for my comic. If Zod was not FC6 but now, I 
can think of the characters we would play with...

>>>   * Should not contain images of pets, or captive or mistreated animals
>>
>> The latter part I understand, but I'm unsure of the concern with images
>> of pets. E.g., a horse could be considered a pet and Samuele submitted
>> some very nice imagery with horses... e.g. if we're just trying to avoid
>> the flickr-zomg-look-at-my-cat syndrome we should just call it out...
>> but we've never had a problem with people submitting pictures of their
>> cat.
>
> If the animal is in a domestic or beast of burden setting I think we
> are best to avoid it.  If the horse does not appear with a saddle,
> reins, in a corral, etc it can be assumed to be a wild horse - and
> that would be fine.  This is a very subtle issue.  This goes to one of
> the "experience tones" (adjective list) I mention below.  "unfettered"

Here I was expecting again a legal background: to use photos of 
someone's pet, you may need signed property release forms.

>>> Specific guidelines.
>>>
>>
>> I wouldn't consider these guidelines so much as suggestions or ideas...
>
> Actually, I do consider them guidelines.  I think these should be the
> way we focus what is produced and submitted, and also the criteria for
> how we judge them.
>
>>>   * Default background:
>>>    * The following adjectives should be used to select an appropriate
>>> design:
>>>     - Fresh
>>>     - Light
>>>     - Calm
>>>     - Clean
>>>     - Modern
>>>     - Harmonious
>>>     - Unfettered
>>>     - Elegant
>>>     - Graceful
>>>     - Hopeful
>>>     - Delightful
>>>
>>
>> These seem like great suggestions to get artists into the right mindset
>> but I wouldn't consider them exclusive nor all absolutely required.
>
> This is one of the most important parts of designing an experience
> that is consistent and harmonious - and in the right key.
> I think we should come up with a relatively short list of experience
> "tones" like the above (should have been 12 not 11).  Each artwork
> submission should strive to exhibit some of these - and we should
> judge them based on whether they do and by how the result feels.
>
> So let's try to come up with how we want Fedora to feel.  The above
> list is a starting point.  The 12 tones of Fedora.

I agree about those being suggestions, not a check list. We may want to 
break the rules from time to time and go with something like 
"steampunk", which is somewhat the opposite of "modern". Or "fresh" 
would mean we won't ever use again a moon or an underwater view?

Also, some items  like "harmonious", "elegant" or "delightful" are so 
vague and subjective that one can't quantify them.

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/
photography: http://photoblog.nicubunu.ro/
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/