[Design-team] The Theme

[brian hurren]

what if we create our own repository of open source clip art containing useful elements that can be modified and cut up as needed. we can start searching the net and contibuting our own creations now. Sort of like a scrap book. 

--- On Fri, 19/6/09, Máirín Duffy <mairin at linuxgrrl.com> wrote:

From: Máirín Duffy <mairin at linuxgrrl.com>
Subject: Re: [Design-team] The Theme
To: "Fedora Design Team" <design-team at lists.fedoraproject.org>
Received: Friday, 19 June, 2009, 1:55 AM

On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 09:42 +0300, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> On 06/17/2009 08:39 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> > I wonder if we could take an approach instead of creating the base image
> > from scratch this time, to go out and search the best of openly-licensed
> > content and try to provide a thematic selection? That way there is much
> 
> And have no default? What we will do, run a wizard at the first login so 
> the user can chose his theme?

We still need a default. We could pick one of the ones we select to be
the default one, but have others along the same theme available as
options. Adding another dialog I think isn't a good idea.
> 
> > less pressure on us I think.... because the creative process is not
> > always so consistent in terms of time/effort involved, if we make a
> > selection of things already available perhaps we can deliver on a more
> > predictable schedule? (and get some publicity/exposure to artists who
> > aren't already on the team but already 'get' open licensing - maybe it
> > will help us convince them to join our effort :) )
> 
> Honestly, I am not a big fan of this approach, is like us dropping the 
> ball and acknowledging we are not able to create ourselves something 
> good enough.

Well it doesn't mean that we couldn't, for example, take a sourced image
we decide should be the default and manipulate it or make some changes
to it. Also, we'd still have to create from scratch all the various
banners and splashes, etc. Or it could even be we select something we
think is awesome and openly-licensed and use it heavily as inspiration,
but we can still create an original work.

To be honest, I'm just really exhausted having everything be last-minute
and involve so much effort in a short-notice period of time. The problem
is, right now, as team lead the buck stops with me so if we're not ready
it's my responsibility to drop everything in my life and spend late
nights coming up with something. If we didn't have Samuele helping out
the past couple of releases we might have something horrible like the F9
background again - but at the same time we can't lean on Samuele all the
time either.

It seems like it would be nice, at least for just one release, to take a
breather, try out an approach like this, and if we decide we don't like
it then there is no reason we shouldn't abandon it. 

The main problem for me is that every time the topic of release art
comes up, I don't think 'fun' and 'cool', I think 'pain' and get a
feeling of dread and despair :( And that's not cool. And after going
through all that hard work and time, still we get negative comments (and
I understand we can't satisfy everyone, but that on top of having to
work so hard and not have much fun, makes it even less enjoyable.) I
feel that this problem should be addressed so we can make theming fun
again, but I'm not sure how. This was the idea I came up with but I'm
very open to other proposed solutions.

Is this fair or am I being overly dramatic?
> 
> > The theme that unifies the selected images could be derived from the
> > codename. It would be great to have a whole cohesive set of images for
> > users to choose from too instead of just one like we've always done.
> 
> Let's see the codename, but I am skeptical we will be able to find 
> enough quality, Free images for an entire set with different personas.

We don't have to have so many. We can aim for, 2 general-purpose, 1 for
pink-pony lovers like me, and 1 to appeal to children. Three personas,
four images, to me this seems quite do-able?
> 
> > This would still involve some effort from us too, to convert/crop photos
> > to the ratios we support and whatnot.
> >
> > We could have a competitive element to determine which one of the
> > selections is the wallpaper by default?
> >
> > It might be cool too, to work up a list of personas, each of which we
> > should try to aim a wallpaper at. For example, the Windows XP base set
> > of wallpapers has the flower and the pink wallpaper for girls...
> 
> I hope we will do something with wallpaper extras for F12.

I know. How did we fail on this in F11, just not enough time /
preparation? Do we need a packager to help?

~m


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