Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi all! I know it's a little late, but I'm trying to reply all the emails I wanted to have replied already... On 22-02-2011 12:59, Nik wrote: [...] I don't think Paulo or myself would consider ourselves ready for leadership responsibilities. Yeah, I'm actually new not only here in this team, but in the Design and UX themselves too. Leadership is not a possibility. I am not a consistent contributor and you cannot rely on my constant availability here, such is the nature of my work. I'm seeing myself in the exactly same position. I follow all the discussions, but my work breaks me to replying and be more active on this mail listing. Paulo is a Design PRODIGY and a truly gifted and enthusiastic addition to our team, but is new to the team and project. He will surely be a great leader, in time. Thank your for the PRODIGY; it's a lot overdone, but still made me smile! :) Three people have remained active, proactive and loyal to this team for the last 10 years: Bernhard, Christoph, You [Ivan]. [...] As it was said before, they already do the leadership job naturally, through their respectable [and highly needed) opinions. Maybe it's just a formalization issue for this fact. ~Paulo -- Paulo José O. Amaro Computer Science Student Federal University of São João del-Rei WebDesigner / Linked Empresa Júnior Blogger / casatwain.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Ah, good to hear from you Ivan! On 2/22/2011 4:46 PM, Ivan M. wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 3:40 AM, Nikn...@tdf.nikashsingh.com wrote: I would really appreciate if some of the Design leadership (Bernhard, Christoph, Ivan) commented on whether they thought this plan is feasible. Or updated it with times that are more appropriate. I share Christoph's reservation about the term 'leader', but I do think we need a clearer project structure - it might just be a matter of semantics (i.e., choosing a better word than 'leader') since some people have established themselves very well in the project (including Paulo and, of course, you), and it would help new people to distinguish whose words (currently) carry more 'oomph' in the project. I wish you, Bernhard and Christoph would reconsider this, or at least discuss it amongst yourselves. Right now we have informal leadership from the three of you, and many of the long-term members recognise this, but without formality, there is no way of our many newer members to be aware how much has transpired before or why your opinions/recommendations should (rightly) be considered to carry more weight than the average response. This is a meritocracy, we have meritorious members, without recognition of their status, how are new members supposed to know who to listen to so we don't keep making the same mistakes as before. The word (leader) itself might be uncompromising or lacking subtlety, but if we get right down to the *truth* of the matter, what the three of you are doing is leading/guiding the team's efforts. That is leadership. So that there can be no confusion amongst members, that is what you should be called. Any other compromise description serves no clear purpose than to obfuscate your true role in the team. Other projects (within LibO and outside) have leaders. It makes it easy to know who to consult, who to listen to, who has experience that will ensure the best results. And if LibO is going to /TRULY/ be different from OOo then we have to learn from the mistakes made in that project: One of the biggest problems was that everything seemed Designed-by_committee. What resulted was good (no ... GREAT!) Designers -like Paul- who wanted to use their little free time to contribute HIGH quality work to the project and became frustrated at the lack of leadership-authority and the constant and endless contradictory Design requests from the community. And left. Now, you've all mentioned you know that Design-by-committee doesn't work, so that can't be the way things are done in this project. Otherwise it's doomed to have the same problems as before. And frankly, I'm not interested in making 5 million alternatives for the 5 million tastes in this community, I don't have the time. What is infinitely important to recognise is that while all members are entitled to provide feedback and can identify what they like (taste), not ALL members have Design-eyes and can determine what works visually in context to our overall style (Design sensibility). *What I want, as a contributor,* is a leadership team who has Design credibility and an eye for detail, who can guide the final product in a Design direction that is the equal of some Linux distributions (which are truly well Designed). *Be brave, be confident and just take the step that needs to be taken in order to bring that structure and stability to this team that we both know is needed.* I don't think Paulo or myself would consider ourselves ready for leadership responsibilities. I am not a consistent contributor and you cannot rely on my constant availability here, such is the nature of my work. Paulo is a Design PRODIGY and a truly gifted and enthusiastic addition to our team, but is new to the team and project. He will surely be a great leader, in time. Three people have remained active, proactive and loyal to this team for the last 10 years: Bernhard, Christoph, You. I think most of this team already understands who you are and why you command the community respect you do. I think they trust your judgement and loyalty to the product. If we know all this, then all that is needed is formalisation of this acknowledgement. Can we take this opportunity to establish ourselves as a credible and organised facet of this project and just elect a leadership team? I realise it is awkward for you three to make such a recommendation. Instead, I will be making a formal statement/request for election later this week. As a member who has spent roughly 5 years contributing to this cause, I feel confident in making this request. I hope that will give you, Bernhard and Christoph enough time to consider your stance on the matter. And I hope that will give the members of this team enough time to contemplate who they trust and how we will benefit from a more strategic process of guidance and leadership. Which will put this team in a position of strength and ensure that our efforts are
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Paulo, sorry for being that late - but I can only second David's opinion that it looks absolutely awesome. Of course, it might interfere with our upcoming design motive, the darker colors are different to what we've presented before, the ... STOP ... just looking at it is a pleasure to the eyes. Thanks a lot! :-))) It seems, we have to announce these banners ... to get them used. Cheers, Christoph Am Dienstag, den 22.02.2011, 01:52 -0300 schrieb Paulo José: On 20-02-2011 23:54, David Nelson wrote: I really like this. Thank you! :) ~Paulo -- Paulo José O. Amaro Computer Science Student Federal University of São João del-Rei WebDesigner / Linked Empresa Júnior Blogger / casatwain.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Leadership (Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!)
Hi Nik, all! Oh well, you raised a pretty tough topic ... you seem to be good to point out things like that ;-))) Am Mittwoch, den 23.02.2011, 02:59 +1100 schrieb Nik: Ah, good to hear from you Ivan! On 2/22/2011 4:46 PM, Ivan M. wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 3:40 AM, Nik n...@tdf.nikashsingh.com wrote: I would really appreciate if some of the Design leadership (Bernhard, Christoph, Ivan) commented on whether they thought this plan is feasible. Or updated it with times that are more appropriate. I share Christoph's reservation about the term 'leader', but I do think we need a clearer project structure - it might just be a matter of semantics (i.e., choosing a better word than 'leader') since some people have established themselves very well in the project (including Paulo and, of course, you), and it would help new people to distinguish whose words (currently) carry more 'oomph' in the project. I wish you, Bernhard and Christoph would reconsider this, or at least discuss it amongst yourselves. Right now we have informal leadership from the three of you, and many of the long-term members recognise this, but without formality, there is no way of our many newer members to be aware how much has transpired before or why your opinions/recommendations should (rightly) be considered to carry more weight than the average response. This is a meritocracy, we have meritorious members, without recognition of their status, how are new members supposed to know who to listen to so we don't keep making the same mistakes as before. Although I didn't invest the time to think about this intensively, here are some initial thoughts. To me, the thoughts are totally valid and quite understandable ... at the same time, the issues relate to very contradictory points. On the one hand - and this is pretty design specific - it is important to speak with one (visual wise, and usability wise) voice via the product. On the other hand, this community tries to overcome the many leaders (*) and support a community based on meritocracy. So having some kind of guiding role seems helpful to me ... but how to establish this without interfering with the TDF mission statement? To (also) not discourage others from joining? For example, you referred to elections - something which had been established quite some time ago on the German OOo developers list (they have detailed rules for establishing their official representative). But, there are - of course - some downsides like organizational overhead, ... (*) At the FOSDEM, somebody said to me, that OOo was the team of leaders. Everybody had a leadership role - of course, that's somehow incorrect, but his is how the external people perceived the project. What it makes even harder (for me), that we have more (insanely) skilled people than ever before ... so assigning (like Ivan said) more 'oomph' will be pretty tough :-) Funnily, the same questions arose when we thought about the Steering Committee - before we went public with the TDF. We ended up with a selection of people who cover all aspects of the community, the product development and the business stuff. And to enable consistent and fast decisions, the number of people was limited right from the start ... Phew, I have to admit that I'll require a bit more time to elaborate this topic - and I'd like to invite the others to join. Ivan, Bernhard, all ... any thoughts on offering a guidance/contact person/veto role? Or do you think (this is what I currently hope) that the normal community process - having a more stabilized environment - will work perfectly well? Because, at the end, it is hard to emphasize merit if other/new members prefer to work on stuff they are personally interested in ... Apropos - today was not a Design team day (as you may have noticed), and tomorrow (didn't knew that before) I'll have the chance to see a friend (after a lng time). So, I'll be back on Thursday ... sorry for missing / ignoring some of the other important topics here. I'd like to ask you (all) to continue with the banners and the motif stuff :-) Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Christoph, On 22-02-2011 19:12, Christoph Noack wrote: sorry for being that late - but I can only second David's opinion that it looks absolutely awesome. Thank you! :-) Of course, it might interfere with our upcoming design motive, the darker colors are different to what we've presented before, the ... Yeah, I tried to keep it simple and still different from the previous work, since I read the intention it's make it atemporal and no branding related (I can't remember where I read it, so maybe I've misunderstood it). STOP ... just looking at it is a pleasure to the eyes. Thanks a lot! :-))) Thank you very much. I wish these banners can be useful someway, still they are different from the current branding. Otherwise, there's no problem at all. I'll understand. ;) Cheers, ~Paulo It seems, we have to announce these banners ... to get them used. Cheers, Christoph Am Dienstag, den 22.02.2011, 01:52 -0300 schrieb Paulo José: On 20-02-2011 23:54, David Nelson wrote: I really like this. Thank you! :) ~Paulo -- Paulo José O. Amaro Computer Science Student Federal University of São João del-Rei WebDesigner / Linked Empresa Júnior Blogger / casatwain.com -- Paulo José O. Amaro Computer Science Student Federal University of São João del-Rei WebDesigner / Linked Empresa Júnior Blogger / casatwain.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Why don't use a tasks management software . This allow to make fast decision . Something like this : http://trac.edgewall.org/ See the features Trac is a web-based software project management and bug/issue tracking system emphasizing ease of use and low ceremony. It provides an integrated Wiki, an interface to version control systems, and a number convenient ways to stay on top of events and changes within a project. -- My sites: http://catalin-festila.blogspot.com -about me http://tv.free-tutorials.org - video tutorials http://python-catalin.blogspot.com - my python blog -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Nik, Paulo, and all the other Followers :), Am 20.02.2011 um 15:18 schrieb Nik: *So the schedule looks like this:* Brainstorm ideas: Monday 21st Feb - Tuesday 22nd Feb. Design vectors: Wednesday 23rd Feb - Thursday 24th Feb. Decision: Friday 25th Feb. Revisions: Saturday 26th Feb. Finalised: Sunday 27th Feb. Wy we have to rush on this? After some initial presentations on this List I had some Loong Discussions (FOSDEM was for me nearly only NOACK ;-) He is nice, but don't wan't to start a discussion with him, you end talking hours/days with him ;) - You should listen to him. He knows his stuff). In this discussions I realized that we can't really do it like in the real world of Design and we shouldn't do this. Why? In the last couple of days I tried to work for Libreoffice, but with my studys I realized that a Day had not enough hours. I think other which are motivated to work with us understand this. It's nearly impossible for me to invest so many hours on Libreoffice in this short of Time. It's an insane Schedule Never less, I love the motivations and directions in which we are heading. My Schedule-idea is a lot slower, because we have something already in place so we can take time to work on the new Design motifs. It's never a good idea to hurry in an FOSS-Community and to do it right and for all possible aspects we should take a really slow but INTENSIV Schedule. Everyone should present his Ideas/Wishes/Presentations on his personal Wikipage and we will present this ideas like that to the others. If we have this, we can discuss and vote for the ideas here on the Mailing list and make a Schedule on the Ideas we all have. [I think the Feature Request on many sites works like this. You make a List with a little (or big) Presentation of every idea and the User (outside and inside) can vote on the ideas.] If we really wan't to rush this, I think that all of my ideas will not see the light the outside of my head and will be presented to your eyes. This would also be dismotivating for some others here. Places where I think we have to rethink: - LibreOffice Product Placement Website - Community Website - Some specialised Marketing Pages... - Other Graphical things (..pleas insert your places here..) ATTENTION: - We are a not localized Mailinglist here, so we should keep in Mind that we have to realize our work in a way so that the Localizer can easy Translate it in their own language. This will lead in an improved look for all L10N's. They won't be all the same, but like that even the L10N's without a Designer can use the work of the Design-Team.) -Houbsi www.crazyhstudio.net P.S.: It might be sound crazy, but like in Forums we should install a reward system. Like Points and Titles (They can be give them more power or only to boost our Ego's) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Mike, I'm about ready to send out to the entire Design list in a sec, but I just felt compelled to respond to your questions first. On 2/21/2011 7:02 PM, Mike Houben wrote: Hi Nik, Paulo, and all the other Followers :), Am 20.02.2011 um 15:18 schrieb Nik: *So the schedule looks like this:* Brainstorm ideas: Monday 21st Feb - Tuesday 22nd Feb. Design vectors: Wednesday 23rd Feb - Thursday 24th Feb. Decision: Friday 25th Feb. Revisions: Saturday 26th Feb. Finalised: Sunday 27th Feb. Wy we have to rush on this? After some initial presentations on this List I had some Loong Discussions (FOSDEM was for me nearly only NOACK ;-) He is nice, but don't wan't to start a discussion with him, you end talking hours/days with him ;) - You should listen to him. He knows his stuff). Christoph was understandably concerned about resources/time for the coordination of this task. That resource is me. The time is mine. Christoph is in support of this, as I have volunteered to do things (document progress) that would usually fall to him (or Bernhard) and occupy their time. Christoph and I go a ways back, he knows I value his input, and I'm pretty certain he reciprocates =) In this discussions I realized that we can't really do it like in the real world of Design and we shouldn't do this. Why? In the last couple of days I tried to work for Libreoffice, but with my studys I realized that a Day had not enough hours. I think other which are motivated to work with us understand this. It's nearly impossible for me to invest so many hours on Libreoffice in this short of Time. It's an insane Schedule I understand your concerns, not so long ago I asked for the slow and steady approach on the website list. I prefer careful consideration as everyone does. But make no mistake, this is a SMALL task with a BIG benefit. It doesn't (nor SHOULD it) require too much deliberating and discussion. The reason for the fast pace; - We are being realistic, this time-frame coincides with the availability of members who can actively contribute to the task - There IS an urgent need for this, more items will be designed everyday until this becomes available, each different to the last - There is a very serious semantic discrepancy between the graphic symbols being used to decorate items and their meaning in that context. This higher-level abstract visual element will remove our current dependency on symbolism we have that is not versatile enough for consistent cross-format use. - Right now the groundswell around LibO is high, if we wait for the right time to come for us to Design these things, we will find we are already fixed into graphic elements that were adopted along the way due to use/exposure, rather than careful Design alignment. The right time is now. Never less, I love the motivations and directions in which we are heading. My Schedule-idea is a lot slower, because we have something already in place so we can take time to work on the new Design motifs. It's never a good idea to hurry in an FOSS-Community and to do it right and for all possible aspects we should take a really slow but INTENSIV Schedule. That is the traditional wisdom yes, but you cannot apply that to every circumstance. I need you to understand that this Time schedule is not rushed, it is focused, yes, fast-paced, certainly, but rushed suggests there is no forethought/planning or time to reflect and improve. That is not the case here. It is possible to work efficiently and that is what I propose. Anyone who has worked in a Design firm is capable of (and indeed, familiar with) rising to the challenge. Everyone should present his Ideas/Wishes/Presentations on his personal Wikipage and we will present this ideas like that to the others. If we have this, we can discuss and vote for the ideas here on the Mailing list and make a Schedule on the Ideas we all have. This will happen, it will be discussed on this list and ideas will be posted on the wiki. Everyone will have a chance to participate, it will be conducted openly for all to see. No one reports to me, I'm simply coordinating efforts. I agree with the community voting where it is applicable, but we do not VOTE for every item that is Designed, that is impractical, just the big ones (eg. logos). This is a meritocracy after all and the three judges assigned to this task are meritorious, senior, trusted, unbiased and established members on this list. No one would doubt that, of that I'm more than certain. A decision made by them will be respected by our team and can be made very quickly. [I think the Feature Request on many sites works like this. You make a List with a little (or big) Presentation of every idea and the User (outside and inside) can vote on the ideas.] If we really wan't to rush this, I think that all of my ideas will not see the light the outside of my head and will be presented to your eyes. This would also be dismotivating for some
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi all, this might also be a mail that'll get a bit longer ... sorry for that in advance :-) And this it might be the last one for today, please bear with me while I want to express a warm Welcome to the ones who newly arrived: hi Catalin, hello Sean! Okay, back to the initial topic, the motif. Where to start? Well, I've carefully read all the mails in the thread once again and tried to understand the different opinion, proposals, ideas, concerns, ... But, there might be some misunderstandings on my side, so please express your thoughts as well. *** Topic What? Why? And how? *** When I browsed through the comments, and also the concerns summarized by Mike, I've noticed that some of us (like me *g*) might not yet fully know what this initiative is about. Thus, I'd like to summarize the idea how I got it - just to make :-) In Scope: The aim is to create a unique motif [1] that helps to let our visual artwork to appear more unified by taking account the already established branding guidelines [2]. The motif is created by a collaborative process that takes place on the Design Team mailing list. Besides the motif itself, documentation and examples will be made available to ease its use. Out of scope: The initiative is not meant to ... * Replace the current branding / visual design guidelines * Change the logo to a larger extend * Rush the (some time ago) announced Community Branding process that might still take place if required Rationale: The visual artwork created over the last months (product, website, promotion, ...) already differ in its style. The motif is required to strengthen the visual consistency of us - referring to both the community and the product. Outcome: As Nik already said in another mail, everything will be discussed on this list and ideas will be posted on the wiki. Here I'd like to add that (although it might be quite natural) it might be insanely helpful to address some of our products - like Nik already for the website (explaining his thoughts). *** In-Between Documentation *** But this leads to the how it will be made. And here I'd also like to comment - a lot of people will be addressed (maybe concerned, so to say). So although I understand Nik's thoughts with regard to how many stakeholders are part of the game, I propose to at least communicate a daily (given the current schedule) status to one of the official communication channels like the TDF Planet. So, Nik, your neglected blog needs to be there *g*. Otherwise, I fear, a larger part of the community won't understand why the motif is so important ... for most it might just be anything. To me (purely personal impression), this seemed to work rather well in the past - even if we had to strongly focus on certain things. For example, some concerns by Sean might be reduced when knowing that some of his questions are answered in the blogs I wrote in the past ... so if anybody wants to have a look at the first steps of our community and the initial branding, I'd recommend starting here: http://luxate.blogspot.com/2010/10/agreeing-on-childs-name-simple-task.html By the way, the nice things Nik posted concerning the meaning of single elements (e.g. pale inner border -- depth of paper stack) need to be documented as well. Although here off topic, somehow important to me :-) *** Available Stuff *** When we started with LibreOffice, the thing that might be close to a motive was the triangle pattern that can e.g. be found here: http://luxate.blogspot.com/2010/11/libreoffice-33-artwork-improvements_18.html Advantages: Unique, perfect fit to the document symbol, neutral Disadvantages: Required a lot of space, needed to be re-positioned sometimes (different edges, so the intended branding effect was less strong) *** Thoughts *** Of course, most of these explanations (or let's call it tries) cannot hinder creativity ... or (even better) stop people from digging even deeper into this. Since Paulo made some thoughtful statements concerning how he perceives the project, here is a link to some information Thorsten put together a while ago. Maybe it helps to incorporate some of his thoughts ... http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Visual_Identity_Briefing *** Topic Stock Photography *** Having own stock photography is a great idea, and something which was badly missing for OpenOffice.org. And although some of us might own nifty DSLRs, there might also be other sources ... we might ask there as well? Like the LibreOffice community, there are other groups being e.g. addicted to photography. I'm sure that some of them might help us - very similar to how we currently get hit by people's friendliness with regard to the foundation funding initiative. Or, we might cooperate with photo magazines that usually do some kind of challenge (although I don't like the word and its meaning). For example, one of the German publishers that were very supportive during the last years, both offers IT magazines and
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Great description of the How, Why, Scope, Outcome, Rationale, etc. Should it be captured for the wiki? On Feb 21, 2011 6:31 PM, Christoph Noack christ...@dogmatux.com wrote: Hi all, this might also be a mail that'll get a bit longer ... sorry for that in advance :-) And this it might be the last one for today, please bear with me while I want to express a warm Welcome to the ones who newly arrived: hi Catalin, hello Sean! Okay, back to the initial topic, the motif. Where to start? Well, I've carefully read all the mails in the thread once again and tried to understand the different opinion, proposals, ideas, concerns, ... But, there might be some misunderstandings on my side, so please express your thoughts as well. *** Topic What? Why? And how? *** When I browsed through the comments, and also the concerns summarized by Mike, I've noticed that some of us (like me *g*) might not yet fully know what this initiative is about. Thus, I'd like to summarize the idea how I got it - just to make :-) In Scope: The aim is to create a unique motif [1] that helps to let our visual artwork to appear more unified by taking account the already established branding guidelines [2]. The motif is created by a collaborative process that takes place on the Design Team mailing list. Besides the motif itself, documentation and examples will be made available to ease its use. Out of scope: The initiative is not meant to ... * Replace the current branding / visual design guidelines * Change the logo to a larger extend * Rush the (some time ago) announced Community Branding process that might still take place if required Rationale: The visual artwork created over the last months (product, website, promotion, ...) already differ in its style. The motif is required to strengthen the visual consistency of us - referring to both the community and the product. Outcome: As Nik already said in another mail, everything will be discussed on this list and ideas will be posted on the wiki. Here I'd like to add that (although it might be quite natural) it might be insanely helpful to address some of our products - like Nik already for the website (explaining his thoughts). *** In-Between Documentation *** But this leads to the how it will be made. And here I'd also like to comment - a lot of people will be addressed (maybe concerned, so to say). So although I understand Nik's thoughts with regard to how many stakeholders are part of the game, I propose to at least communicate a daily (given the current schedule) status to one of the official communication channels like the TDF Planet. So, Nik, your neglected blog needs to be there *g*. Otherwise, I fear, a larger part of the community won't understand why the motif is so important ... for most it might just be anything. To me (purely personal impression), this seemed to work rather well in the past - even if we had to strongly focus on certain things. For example, some concerns by Sean might be reduced when knowing that some of his questions are answered in the blogs I wrote in the past ... so if anybody wants to have a look at the first steps of our community and the initial branding, I'd recommend starting here: http://luxate.blogspot.com/2010/10/agreeing-on-childs-name-simple-task.html By the way, the nice things Nik posted concerning the meaning of single elements (e.g. pale inner border -- depth of paper stack) need to be documented as well. Although here off topic, somehow important to me :-) *** Available Stuff *** When we started with LibreOffice, the thing that might be close to a motive was the triangle pattern that can e.g. be found here: http://luxate.blogspot.com/2010/11/libreoffice-33-artwork-improvements_18.html Advantages: Unique, perfect fit to the document symbol, neutral Disadvantages: Required a lot of space, needed to be re-positioned sometimes (different edges, so the intended branding effect was less strong) *** Thoughts *** Of course, most of these explanations (or let's call it tries) cannot hinder creativity ... or (even better) stop people from digging even deeper into this. Since Paulo made some thoughtful statements concerning how he perceives the project, here is a link to some information Thorsten put together a while ago. Maybe it helps to incorporate some of his thoughts ... http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Visual_Identity_Briefing *** Topic Stock Photography *** Having own stock photography is a great idea, and something which was badly missing for OpenOffice.org. And although some of us might own nifty DSLRs, there might also be other sources ... we might ask there as well? Like the LibreOffice community, there are other groups being e.g. addicted to photography. I'm sure that some of them might help us - very similar to how we currently get hit by people's friendliness with regard to the foundation funding initiative. Or, we might cooperate
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Marc, I just forgot to reply this one... On 19-02-2011 23:31, Marc Paré wrote: [...] Many thanks again for these banners, which are marvellous. Thank you! :) Could these be added to the http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/FoundationChallenge page? We also need some English version of these banners for external website use. Sorry, I can't help. These days I'm getting some problems to edit wiki pages with tables and non-trivial stuff. Maybe it's just me, but it happens on Chrome and Firefox. :/ Could you help me with it? These banners not only serve the purpose of helping with the funding drive but also promote the LibreOffice brand on external sites. Once we have enough of these banners in various sizes and languages, we should make an announcement on the mailing lists letting our membership know of their availability. Thanks for this explanation (I was thinking to ask something like that actually). Sadly today I had no time (my classes started today and then I've many work to do... :/ But I'll try to work on more proposals soon. :) Cheers, ~Paulo -- Paulo José O. Amaro Computer Science Student Federal University of São João del-Rei WebDesigner / Linked Empresa Júnior Blogger / casatwain.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Nik, all, My access to the internet is still limited so I'll be brief, but it's great to see a feasible idea that will jump-start some progress (that said, it doesn't have to be strictly 1 week, but I'd say a deadline is a must). Given the context - as you aptly outlined - and your commitment, I'm more than happy to add a +1 to this (and Christoph's latest email too). On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 3:40 AM, Nik n...@tdf.nikashsingh.com wrote: I would really appreciate if some of the Design leadership (Bernhard, Christoph, Ivan) commented on whether they thought this plan is feasible. Or updated it with times that are more appropriate. I share Christoph's reservation about the term 'leader', but I do think we need a clearer project structure - it might just be a matter of semantics (i.e., choosing a better word than 'leader') since some people have established themselves very well in the project (including Paulo and, of course, you), and it would help new people to distinguish whose words (currently) carry more 'oomph' in the project. On 2/19/2011 9:28 AM, Christoph Noack wrote: [...] Hi Paulo and Christoph, I will work on some Community banners seeing as how they are urgent. I think Paulo can work on the same thing without doubling our efforts seeing as how multiple banners are needed. Whaddaya reckon? you know, some people do also miss normal web banners. Yes. Most of them are called Marketing executives ;) But they invented Google-ads to satisfy /that/ crowd. +1, and I'll end this email with a smile :) Regards, Ivan. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Le 2011-02-21 23:18, Paulo José a écrit : Hi Marc, I just forgot to reply this one... On 19-02-2011 23:31, Marc Paré wrote: [...] Many thanks again for these banners, which are marvellous. Thank you! :) Could these be added to the http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/FoundationChallenge page? We also need some English version of these banners for external website use. Sorry, I can't help. These days I'm getting some problems to edit wiki pages with tables and non-trivial stuff. Maybe it's just me, but it happens on Chrome and Firefox. :/ Could you help me with it? These banners not only serve the purpose of helping with the funding drive but also promote the LibreOffice brand on external sites. Once we have enough of these banners in various sizes and languages, we should make an announcement on the mailing lists letting our membership know of their availability. Thanks for this explanation (I was thinking to ask something like that actually). Sadly today I had no time (my classes started today and then I've many work to do... :/ But I'll try to work on more proposals soon. :) Cheers, ~Paulo I have no problem adding these to the http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/FoundationChallenge page, but before I do, is there some kind of Design group approval process to go through before these go on the wiki page? I am part of the group but really concentrate on the Marketing team group. Cheers Marc -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Christoph, Design! I'll respond to Christoph's Email below, but generally, lack of time has prevented work on the motif until now, quite understandable. While I have some time free I will be using it to lead the charge on the Design of a motif in 1 week. *That will start tomorrow (Monday 21st February).* I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up if they want to contribute. Over the next 2 days we will discuss this matter here on this thread and I will collate opinions on a wiki page. Thank you Paulo, Rob, Tobias, Daniel and Rick for the support so far (by the way guys, if you're interested in helping -even down the track- it'd be great to see you on the Design team member list so we can start getting to know each other; http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Team). But just to keep this discussion on track, the website mock-up was just to emphasise the power of using 1 corner. It wasn't really a Design proposal for the website because that is not likely to be re-designed for some time, we can plan for it of course, but working on redesign right now is probably not a good idea. Just wanted to draw focus back on the Motif; - This will be undertaken in parallel with current fund-raising activities - I will coordinate efforts, but will have no decision-making power (read end of Email) - We will be *done by the end of the week* - EVERYONE is welcome to take part -Nik On 2/20/2011 11:39 AM, Christoph Noack wrote: So what is the problem at the moment? The material that gets created varies ... everyone in the community (you mentioned the CDs, banners, leaflets) adds his own personal style / interpretation. It's hard to take care of that, even for the reference material (a.k.a. what we can create for the others) it's hard to keep track. Let's be realistic: I don't think having a Design motif will fix this problem. I think having a Design motif will improve this problem. Why? Because - looking at the requests during the last weeks - many of the requests are still unanswered. Many of us are busy - you, Ivan, Bernhard to just name a few people who have a higher workload at the moment (independent from LibreOffice). So even if we decide on a common motif, it's likely that we are not able to incorporate it. Thus, the community takes care ... and is less strict with regard to the visual quality (in terms of design language). I will respectfully disagree on this point. If we have a Design motif, we won't /have/ to answer the outstanding requests: we will empower the community to do it themselves in a manner more consistent to the way we would do it if we had the time. Having it as a basis will prevent many community members thinking about creating a new Design from scratch. I think this currently happens because there is a lack of graphic resources for people to use if they have to make, for example, a CD label. But with an easily available motif, we would be addressing that shortage. And I don't think its a matter of restriction, its a matter of facilitation. It will help US as much as the community... Imagine we are asked to make business cards tomorrow, urgently; - We will use the logo, that is the one fixed element - The rest is up to the Designer really, they will probably use the borders from the icons because that is consistent with all the Designs so far, but realistically, what good are borders on a business card? especially when bleed is so crucial. - They might use the vignette, but radial gradients band on poor printers - They might use a corner, that would be nice, but overall the card would look bland and unexciting. Having a Design motif (or a few variations of one style) would give us immediately an additional resource to use when tackling every new Design task. It will also mean that every task will look more consistent than if there were no recurring motif. So my question is: If we can take care of such decisions within the next days, I'm totally happy. But on the other hand, we really have to move on and show that we are productive ... now. I'm surely not exaggerating if I say urgent concerning the funding elements means we've missed some deadlines already. Believe me, I understand the fund-raising is the priority, I will be working on that in parallel. I don't mean to take effort away from this exercise, I just think it is unrealistic to think that we will get a quiet moment in the near future that would be a more appropriate time to create a motif. And every job that goes out in the mean time will just look like a document icon, even though an icon is not the appropriate message in that context. So I still wonder whether an improved motif helps, or a more focused work on the open items - even if it results in slight variation of the outcome. (I know, it is an chicken-and-egg problem - if we know how to do things, they can be achieved much faster, but we have to achieve some things now...). I see it slightly differently, I think it is futile
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Nik: Le 2011-02-20 09:18, Nik a écrit : I will respectfully disagree on this point. If we have a Design motif, we won't /have/ to answer the outstanding requests: we will empower the community to do it themselves in a manner more consistent to the way we would do it if we had the time. Having it as a basis will prevent many community members thinking about creating a new Design from scratch. I think this currently happens because there is a lack of graphic resources for people to use if they have to make, for example, a CD label. But with an easily available motif, we would be addressing that shortage. And I don't think its a matter of restriction, its a matter of facilitation. It will help US as much as the community... Imagine we are asked to make business cards tomorrow, urgently; - We will use the logo, that is the one fixed element - The rest is up to the Designer really, they will probably use the borders from the icons because that is consistent with all the Designs so far, but realistically, what good are borders on a business card? especially when bleed is so crucial. - They might use the vignette, but radial gradients band on poor printers - They might use a corner, that would be nice, but overall the card would look bland and unexciting. Having a Design motif (or a few variations of one style) would give us immediately an additional resource to use when tackling every new Design task. It will also mean that every task will look more consistent than if there were no recurring motif. My apologies for butting in: This is exactly what is happening. This is the reason why I started organising the Marketing resources wiki pages[1] so that we could eventually start being more consistent. Once the design motif is completed it will certainly help the marketing team. Keep up the great work people! Cheers Marc [1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Christoph, all, On 19-02-2011 22:39, Christoph Noack wrote: [...] So my question is: If we can take care of such decisions within the next days, I'm totally happy. But on the other hand, we really have to move on and show that we are productive ... now. I'm surely not exaggerating if I say urgent concerning the funding elements means we've missed some deadlines already. I agree. It's why I was in doubt about if we would use the motif in these banners. They actually seem most urgent. [...] My personal take would be to invest 50% of the available time to work on / improve the open issues. The remaining time, my very personal opinion, are spend wisely by working on the motif improvements. But, we need somebody who can guide / manages this effort ... is this something you might want to do (I totally trust you). [...] I wanna to join to the documentation task, but the wiki system is not working very well to me anymore. Now I just can edit the HTML version of a page (neither wiki code or Rich Editor are working). :/ It makes everything very difficult, since I don't know what is allowed in the wiki system and some error are happening too. :( [...] Good night ... waaah ... again less than 5 hours sleep to go; even My teacher tried to make us calm in the beginning, saying that it is usual to sleep just 3h by day. He completes: Long sleep, Weekends, Vacations, and so, they are all Collective Illusions. The people *think* they can do it... My answer: - Poor people*... Cherrs, ~Paulo *us! ¬ ¬ -- Paulo José O. Amaro Computer Science Student Federal University of São João del-Rei WebDesigner / Linked Empresa Júnior Blogger / casatwain.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Paulo, all! Am Sonntag, den 20.02.2011, 14:28 -0300 schrieb Paulo José: On 19-02-2011 22:39, Christoph Noack wrote: [...] [...] Good night ... waaah ... again less than 5 hours sleep to go; even My teacher tried to make us calm in the beginning, saying that it is usual to sleep just 3h by day. He completes: Long sleep, Weekends, Vacations, and so, they are all Collective Illusions. The people *think* they can do it... My answer: - Poor people*... [...] *us! ¬ ¬ Hehe, that's just great! ;-) It seems we had different teachers - they told us: The day has 24 hours. And if this isn't sufficient, then one adds the night as well. @ Nik: Thanks (!!!) for driving this effort. Let's see what we can achieve during the next days ... so many other things are waiting to be super-hero'd by the Design Team. Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi all, One more. A banner at Wide skyscraper format (160x600px). This time I only had time to make the dark version. It uses the great Nik's cartoons and some elements from the first banners: PNG Image: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v2-dark.png SVG Source file: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v2-dark.svg As usual, all effects are in separated layers, so it can be done so simpler than is needed. Also Spanish and German texts in respective layers. Regards, ~Paulo -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi, :-) 2011/2/21 Paulo José paul...@gmail.com: PNG Image: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v2-dark.png SVG Source file: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v2-dark.svg I really like this. David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
[libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hullo Design! (whoa, once again, LONG Email, sorry, but these issues were circumnavigated, they really need to be brought up). This will seem counter-productive to say but I REALLY don't want to slow us down! Especially now in this time of urgency. *(I even have a very quick and stringent timeline/plan for execution of these suggestions at the bottom of this long email)* But I've been putting this off for some time already and the situation will get worse if we do much more without considering it; There are many *many* things that need to be designed RIGHT NOW: banners, cd covers, collateral, ads, website graphics, flyers. The Community cannot wait any more. Because we are unable to provide all of this right now, the community will go ahead and make their own (often harmful to our desire for a professional image). It is already happening. Right now we are asked to make banners, the point of which is to be seen by as many people as possible. I don't think we're ready for that yet to be quite frank. But we have to, nonetheless, it's for the best cause! Since the MIME-type icons have been the only major work so far to go through rigorous iteration within this community, their design is being appropriated onto all the formats we are working on; - The fund-raising banners are using the pale innerborder + dark outerborder + clipped corner treatment from the logo/icons - The impress templates are using the radial gradient / vignette from the icons (this is a great project/initiative by the way) - Paulo has turned the icons into --may I be so rude as to say-- F#©k!n% GORGEOUS wallpapers! =O But there is a problem. These design elements made sense on the icons; - Coloured outline: a folder lining - Pale inner border: depth of paper-stack - Radial gradient: top-lighting of pile - Clipped corner: from our logo But they don't make sense everywhere, and right now they are being carried over to other formats due to convenience/consensus-status. *This problem and the other one mentioned above, could be fixed if we created a Design motif or theme;* - We could use it (the motif) without mixing metaphors - The /community/ could use it without having to design from scratch and undoing our work on brand consistency This wasn't a problem in OOo because there was; - The Seagulls = theme (openness, sky, flying, freedom) - The wired gulls (as fugly as they were) = motif The usual process for this (I know most of you will know this, but bare with me one sec) is that; 1. The chief characteristic of the company/org is identified. Specified as a desirable image/perception. 2. A strong logo is created, which allows for; 3. The extrapolation/derivation of a design motif. (preferably VECTOR and simple, it will need to be printed on LARGE materials) 4. They form the basis for a start to the style guide, including Brand guidelines and colours which reflect the image/perception 5. High quality stock photography is used to support (which is glaringly absent in LibO) 6. Templates are made available to all, to make it easier to adhere to this consistent image/perception I think it has (wisely) been decided that our LibO design /theme/ is: paper. To build on user familiarity with a paper office. Good, check. I'll skip my reservations about the logo and deciding colours without a theme for now. If anyone has a D90+ / 450D+ or other higher quality DSLR, please consider taking some stock photography we can use (the potential subject matter would need to be discussed in another thread). Right now the closest thing we have to a motif is the clipped corner, which is promising, BUT... At the moment *all* things are inheriting a bordered box and corner which creates many cornered boxes on one page, this isn't a great move. It reduces the effectiveness of the corner design if it is in too many places, being used like a layout element rather than as a branding element. For example, it is present on the LibO homepage in 6 places right now, with no rhythm or alignment. One very prominent clipped corner on the page should be enough. This isn't to say it shouldn't reappear elsewhere, but the dark grey floating corner element should NOT appear elsewhere in the layout. Repetition isn't always a sign of consistency, sometimes it's a great sign of limitations. For example, I've uploaded a (nasty and rough) example of how I would imagine 1 corner would suffice and make a bigger impact; http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Onecorner.jpg It could also serve some important purpose: download button / back-to-top button / or if LibO is feeling adventurous and moves the Logo to the top-right, it could serve as the home button. But this is all branding-speak. What I want to say, loud and clear; *WE NEED A DESIGN-MOTIF. URGENTLY.* I propose the following timeline because it is necessary and because I have heard a few people (Johannes? Paulo? Jaron?) suggest they may be available soon. - *2 or 3 days*
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Just wanted to send a quick note to say I agree with everything said above. Love the quick and dirty site mockup, too, Nik. I'd love to help with the design process and will likely offer my opinions when stuff is created. I'll look at doing a couple designs myself this coming week, though I'm out of town this weekend. Also, if anyone would like help on any specific items, keep me in mind. I'm ready and willing. Rob On Feb 19, 2011 11:52 AM, Paulo José paul...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nik, all! On 19-02-2011 12:40, Nik wrote: [...] But there is a problem. These design elements made sense on the icons; - Coloured outline: a folder lining - Pale inner border: depth of paper-stack - Radial gradient: top-lighting of pile - Clipped corner: from our logo Yeah, you're right. These elements are not part of a motif, they are just styling elements, not related to a own concept. I absolutely second it; we actually need a motif. [...] I propose the following timeline because it is necessary and because I have heard a few people (Johannes? Paulo? Jaron?) suggest they may be available soon. - *2 or 3 days* to discuss on this list ideas about what the motif should be. What the perception should be. - *1 or 2 days* to design a vector composition - *1 day* when Bernhard+Christoph+Ivan (as the most-active and senior members of the Design list) decide on 1 motif - *1 day* to refine as per feedback. So this could be all done in a week if we are agile. Ok, starting from now with some thinkings of mine on some concepts that come to me when thinking about LibreOffice: (Notice: I'm not a design professional, I never studied design and all my knowledge come from [few] experience and reading. So if I'm saying bulls**ts, please correct me). - As a portuguese native speaker and english reader, the word Libre is easily recognized as Livre (Free, In freedom), and Office makes me think about programs related to the office work (not properly the office ambient, since in my language it's called escritório - very different). Flying in these concepts, I imagine a program that allow you do everything you want for a office job, or still a program that is not limited by nothing (have no limitations). Some concepts came from our Logo: * *Freedom* * *Independence* * *No limitations* Since these are some concepts achieved with the logo, we could focus the motif in other concepts we would like to express (of course, no forgiving these ones). As a recent member of this community, I think this project have the follow concepts to express: - *History*: This is a project with many experienced people, with a large historic of participation in StarOffice and/or OpenOffice projects. Now they are in the new LibreOffice, but his experience came from these past projects. LibreOffice is not a childish project. - *Revival*: Although its experience, the life led the OpenOffice people to start a new project, with new people, new face, new directions and fresh air. - *People*, *Community*: The most important thing in a open source project are the people. They are actually the project. The contributions, the opinions, the hard work, the personal growth, the challenges. All these things are lived by the people, not by the software itself. And the LibreOffice is one of the best examples. An additional concept I strongly feel, but may be just me: -*Imagination/Creativity*: The white/empty paper in our logo gives me a huge desire to draw something in that, or writing a good text, express some crazy equations or everything else my imagination can create! It's a mysterious element which inspires me good feelings. [...] In the mean time, I strongly recommend that the fund-raising banners be made *IN AS SIMPLE A WAY AS POSSIBLE!* So that they do not hint at a Design/style that we will not adhere to long-term, or create a perception of a Design direction which has not already been decided. Yeah, I second this. :) I would really appreciate if some of the Design leadership (Bernhard, Christoph, Ivan) commented on whether they thought this plan is feasible. Or updated it with times that are more appropriate. I think their help will be highly needed, with very helpful opinions or good designs, as usual. Hi Paulo and Christoph, I will work on some Community banners seeing as how they are urgent. I think Paulo can work on the same thing without doubling our efforts seeing as how multiple banners are needed. Whaddaya reckon? Apart from the Whaddaya word (a challenge to translate, Nik :P), I think it depend if we will use the new motif in these banners or they are even most urgent. (I believe you explained it on your message, but I didn't find it now). I was thinking to start working in some ideas today, but I'm not sure anymore, since my research group is asking for me. Thank you so much for leading this topic, Nik! I agree to everything you said and I'm sure we will see a great Community's
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
i love the website-design proposal!! it doesn't just look AWESOME but could also make the website more usable, as you said. Am Sonntag, den 20.02.2011, 01:40 +1100 schrieb Nik: Hullo Design! (whoa, once again, LONG Email, sorry, but these issues were circumnavigated, they really need to be brought up). This will seem counter-productive to say but I REALLY don't want to slow us down! Especially now in this time of urgency. *(I even have a very quick and stringent timeline/plan for execution of these suggestions at the bottom of this long email)* But I've been putting this off for some time already and the situation will get worse if we do much more without considering it; There are many *many* things that need to be designed RIGHT NOW: banners, cd covers, collateral, ads, website graphics, flyers. The Community cannot wait any more. Because we are unable to provide all of this right now, the community will go ahead and make their own (often harmful to our desire for a professional image). It is already happening. Right now we are asked to make banners, the point of which is to be seen by as many people as possible. I don't think we're ready for that yet to be quite frank. But we have to, nonetheless, it's for the best cause! Since the MIME-type icons have been the only major work so far to go through rigorous iteration within this community, their design is being appropriated onto all the formats we are working on; - The fund-raising banners are using the pale innerborder + dark outerborder + clipped corner treatment from the logo/icons - The impress templates are using the radial gradient / vignette from the icons (this is a great project/initiative by the way) - Paulo has turned the icons into --may I be so rude as to say-- F#©k!n% GORGEOUS wallpapers! =O But there is a problem. These design elements made sense on the icons; - Coloured outline: a folder lining - Pale inner border: depth of paper-stack - Radial gradient: top-lighting of pile - Clipped corner: from our logo But they don't make sense everywhere, and right now they are being carried over to other formats due to convenience/consensus-status. *This problem and the other one mentioned above, could be fixed if we created a Design motif or theme;* - We could use it (the motif) without mixing metaphors - The /community/ could use it without having to design from scratch and undoing our work on brand consistency This wasn't a problem in OOo because there was; - The Seagulls = theme (openness, sky, flying, freedom) - The wired gulls (as fugly as they were) = motif The usual process for this (I know most of you will know this, but bare with me one sec) is that; 1. The chief characteristic of the company/org is identified. Specified as a desirable image/perception. 2. A strong logo is created, which allows for; 3. The extrapolation/derivation of a design motif. (preferably VECTOR and simple, it will need to be printed on LARGE materials) 4. They form the basis for a start to the style guide, including Brand guidelines and colours which reflect the image/perception 5. High quality stock photography is used to support (which is glaringly absent in LibO) 6. Templates are made available to all, to make it easier to adhere to this consistent image/perception I think it has (wisely) been decided that our LibO design /theme/ is: paper. To build on user familiarity with a paper office. Good, check. I'll skip my reservations about the logo and deciding colours without a theme for now. If anyone has a D90+ / 450D+ or other higher quality DSLR, please consider taking some stock photography we can use (the potential subject matter would need to be discussed in another thread). Right now the closest thing we have to a motif is the clipped corner, which is promising, BUT... At the moment *all* things are inheriting a bordered box and corner which creates many cornered boxes on one page, this isn't a great move. It reduces the effectiveness of the corner design if it is in too many places, being used like a layout element rather than as a branding element. For example, it is present on the LibO homepage in 6 places right now, with no rhythm or alignment. One very prominent clipped corner on the page should be enough. This isn't to say it shouldn't reappear elsewhere, but the dark grey floating corner element should NOT appear elsewhere in the layout. Repetition isn't always a sign of consistency, sometimes it's a great sign of limitations. For example, I've uploaded a (nasty and rough) example of how I would imagine 1 corner would suffice and make a bigger impact; http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Onecorner.jpg It could also serve some important purpose: download button / back-to-top button / or if LibO is feeling adventurous and moves the Logo to the top-right, it could serve as the home button. But this is all
RE: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hello everyone, I'm still quite new to this project, so I apologize ahead of time if this email is just crazy talk. It seems to me that the theme of this project is to empower users to change simple paper resources into powerful office documents with ease. While this is perhaps oversimplifying it, it would seem that maybe the theme of this project should symbolize that. For example, the paper icon should appear once and only on the outside of the design. Otherwise, it appears that there is several smaller pieces of paper on top, which looks odd (sorry for the lack of specificity). A good example of this is Nik's rough draft: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Onecorner.jpg (which is awesome). Also, it might be helpful to decide on a mascot (sorry if my ignorance is showing) and an overarching color scheme for the suite, not individual programs. I notice that green seems to be a predominant color for the website, but it also seems to be the main color of the spreadsheet program; furthermore, the color of main screen icon is blue (in the windows version at least) when that seems to be the color for the writer program. I guess what I'm getting at is that any banner or suite specific design/marketing device should have a consistent look that doesn't match any specific program within the suite. For example, (and I'm sorry in advance to invoke a Microsoft example) Office 2010 has a suite color scheme of yellow while its individual parts have their own colors, Access has red and Excel has green. I'd be quick to point out that this is not a Microsoft specific phenomenon, so I would ask that this not be made into a we should mimic Microsoft idea. -Daniel Merker From: Tobias Bernard [berto...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2011 3:35 PM To: design@libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF! i love the website-design proposal!! it doesn't just look AWESOME but could also make the website more usable, as you said. Am Sonntag, den 20.02.2011, 01:40 +1100 schrieb Nik: Hullo Design! (whoa, once again, LONG Email, sorry, but these issues were circumnavigated, they really need to be brought up). This will seem counter-productive to say but I REALLY don't want to slow us down! Especially now in this time of urgency. *(I even have a very quick and stringent timeline/plan for execution of these suggestions at the bottom of this long email)* But I've been putting this off for some time already and the situation will get worse if we do much more without considering it; There are many *many* things that need to be designed RIGHT NOW: banners, cd covers, collateral, ads, website graphics, flyers. The Community cannot wait any more. Because we are unable to provide all of this right now, the community will go ahead and make their own (often harmful to our desire for a professional image). It is already happening. Right now we are asked to make banners, the point of which is to be seen by as many people as possible. I don't think we're ready for that yet to be quite frank. But we have to, nonetheless, it's for the best cause! Since the MIME-type icons have been the only major work so far to go through rigorous iteration within this community, their design is being appropriated onto all the formats we are working on; - The fund-raising banners are using the pale innerborder + dark outerborder + clipped corner treatment from the logo/icons - The impress templates are using the radial gradient / vignette from the icons (this is a great project/initiative by the way) - Paulo has turned the icons into --may I be so rude as to say-- F#©k!n% GORGEOUS wallpapers! =O But there is a problem. These design elements made sense on the icons; - Coloured outline: a folder lining - Pale inner border: depth of paper-stack - Radial gradient: top-lighting of pile - Clipped corner: from our logo But they don't make sense everywhere, and right now they are being carried over to other formats due to convenience/consensus-status. *This problem and the other one mentioned above, could be fixed if we created a Design motif or theme;* - We could use it (the motif) without mixing metaphors - The /community/ could use it without having to design from scratch and undoing our work on brand consistency This wasn't a problem in OOo because there was; - The Seagulls = theme (openness, sky, flying, freedom) - The wired gulls (as fugly as they were) = motif The usual process for this (I know most of you will know this, but bare with me one sec) is that; 1. The chief characteristic of the company/org is identified. Specified as a desirable image/perception. 2. A strong logo is created, which allows for; 3. The extrapolation/derivation of a design motif. (preferably VECTOR and simple, it will need to be printed on LARGE materials) 4. They form the basis for a start to the style
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Nik, thanks for your - so to say - encouraging mail. But at the same time I'm sorry that I wasn't able to through the whole thread - so please bear with me. It was an incredibly exhausting week ... so my point-of-view might be a bit unusual (in comparison to what I've currently comment on). Funding website stuff, private mails, funding request letters, publisher banners, review by the local teams - all these things consume a lot of time. So, basically I agree with most of your points. I also noticed that our branding changed a bit ... or maybe it's better to say, that we see some development. From the initial visual style (simple gradients, single triangles, triangle patters, ... the plain TDF logo), we gradually incorporated Paulo's style. Personally I think, we gained a lot with the added details. So, let's state that there is something - and most of the stuff is still documented at: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Branding So what is the problem at the moment? The material that gets created varies ... everyone in the community (you mentioned the CDs, banners, leaflets) adds his own personal style / interpretation. It's hard to take care of that, even for the reference material (a.k.a. what we can create for the others) it's hard to keep track. Why? Because - looking at the requests during the last weeks - many of the requests are still unanswered. Many of us are busy - you, Ivan, Bernhard to just name a few people who have a higher workload at the moment (independent from LibreOffice). So even if we decide on a common motif, it's likely that we are not able to incorporate it. Thus, the community takes care ... and is less strict with regard to the visual quality (in terms of design language). Same goes for the development - the open point Collecting Easy Hacks is already some months old, but I'm totally unable to work on that - and earlier requests didn't attract others *g*. This is also something that needs to be done to start some cooperation with the devs ... Not to mention the website that needs some love as well. So my question is: If we can take care of such decisions within the next days, I'm totally happy. But on the other hand, we really have to move on and show that we are productive ... now. I'm surely not exaggerating if I say urgent concerning the funding elements means we've missed some deadlines already. Otherwise, the remaining community will take care (which is good), but will apply a different style (which is less good). Example: If we look at the funding website (challenge.libo.org), then there is still a preliminary banner showing 44% progress. Would this be even better, if we would have applied a style that is based on what we already have in place? I assume we are not even close to create (just as an example) an improved banner for the page. So I still wonder whether an improved motif helps, or a more focused work on the open items - even if it results in slight variation of the outcome. (I know, it is an chicken-and-egg problem - if we know how to do things, they can be achieved much faster, but we have to achieve some things now...). My personal take would be to invest 50% of the available time to work on / improve the open issues. The remaining time, my very personal opinion, are spend wisely by working on the motif improvements. But, we need somebody who can guide / manages this effort ... is this something you might want to do (I totally trust you). Of course, all the others should join here. But if we lack somebody who can invest the time here (collecting opinions, maybe documenting them, ...), then I think the time is not ripe yet. By the way, maybe I missed that, how does this relate (to you) to the community branding we've talked about earlier? Am Sonntag, den 20.02.2011, 01:40 +1100 schrieb Nik: I would really appreciate if some of the Design leadership (Bernhard, Christoph, Ivan) commented on whether they thought this plan is feasible. Or updated it with times that are more appropriate. Hehe, nice to read the term leadership - but I don't know whether this is really appropriate. Maybe some experience when working in the community and with devs. So without thinking about the given times, I've shared my current perception of the situation. Good night ... waaah ... again less than 5 hours sleep to go; even during the weekend :-) Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
I forgot to comment about the website proposal: I think its very good, very promising! :) Also I did an initial try on the banners on the size of Medium Retangle (300x250px). I think I made it simple and not very much Branding related: Light theme: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-light.png SVG Source: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-light.svg Dark theme: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-dark.png SVG Source: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-dark.svg Hide/show the layers to get German and Spanish versions. I hope I've formated these versions correctly. Soon I come back with other sizes/versions. Regards, ~Paulo On 19-02-2011 18:35, Tobias Bernard wrote: i love the website-design proposal!! it doesn't just look AWESOME but could also make the website more usable, as you said. Am Sonntag, den 20.02.2011, 01:40 +1100 schrieb Nik: Hullo Design! (whoa, once again, LONG Email, sorry, but these issues were circumnavigated, they really need to be brought up). This will seem counter-productive to say but I REALLY don't want to slow us down! Especially now in this time of urgency. *(I even have a very quick and stringent timeline/plan for execution of these suggestions at the bottom of this long email)* But I've been putting this off for some time already and the situation will get worse if we do much more without considering it; There are many *many* things that need to be designed RIGHT NOW: banners, cd covers, collateral, ads, website graphics, flyers. The Community cannot wait any more. Because we are unable to provide all of this right now, the community will go ahead and make their own (often harmful to our desire for a professional image). It is already happening. Right now we are asked to make banners, the point of which is to be seen by as many people as possible. I don't think we're ready for that yet to be quite frank. But we have to, nonetheless, it's for the best cause! Since the MIME-type icons have been the only major work so far to go through rigorous iteration within this community, their design is being appropriated onto all the formats we are working on; - The fund-raising banners are using the pale innerborder + dark outerborder + clipped corner treatment from the logo/icons - The impress templates are using the radial gradient / vignette from the icons (this is a great project/initiative by the way) - Paulo has turned the icons into --may I be so rude as to say-- F#©k!n% GORGEOUS wallpapers! =O But there is a problem. These design elements made sense on the icons; - Coloured outline: a folder lining - Pale inner border: depth of paper-stack - Radial gradient: top-lighting of pile - Clipped corner: from our logo But they don't make sense everywhere, and right now they are being carried over to other formats due to convenience/consensus-status. *This problem and the other one mentioned above, could be fixed if we created a Design motif or theme;* - We could use it (the motif) without mixing metaphors - The /community/ could use it without having to design from scratch and undoing our work on brand consistency This wasn't a problem in OOo because there was; - The Seagulls = theme (openness, sky, flying, freedom) - The wired gulls (as fugly as they were) = motif The usual process for this (I know most of you will know this, but bare with me one sec) is that; 1. The chief characteristic of the company/org is identified. Specified as a desirable image/perception. 2. A strong logo is created, which allows for; 3. The extrapolation/derivation of a design motif. (preferably VECTOR and simple, it will need to be printed on LARGE materials) 4. They form the basis for a start to the style guide, including Brand guidelines and colours which reflect the image/perception 5. High quality stock photography is used to support (which is glaringly absent in LibO) 6. Templates are made available to all, to make it easier to adhere to this consistent image/perception I think it has (wisely) been decided that our LibO design /theme/ is: paper. To build on user familiarity with a paper office. Good, check. I'll skip my reservations about the logo and deciding colours without a theme for now. If anyone has a D90+ / 450D+ or other higher quality DSLR, please consider taking some stock photography we can use (the potential subject matter would need to be discussed in another thread). Right now the closest thing we have to a motif is the clipped corner, which is promising, BUT... At the moment *all* things are inheriting a bordered box and corner which creates many cornered boxes on one page, this isn't a great move. It reduces the effectiveness of the corner design if it is in too many places, being used like a layout element rather than as a branding element. For example, it is present on the
Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!
Hi Paulo et al: Le 2011-02-19 20:04, Paulo José a écrit : I forgot to comment about the website proposal: I think its very good, very promising! :) Also I did an initial try on the banners on the size of Medium Retangle (300x250px). I think I made it simple and not very much Branding related: Light theme: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-light.png SVG Source: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-light.svg Dark theme: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-dark.png SVG Source: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibreOffice-The-Challenge-Banner-Paulo-v1-dark.svg Hide/show the layers to get German and Spanish versions. I hope I've formated these versions correctly. Soon I come back with other sizes/versions. Regards, ~Paulo Many thanks again for these banners, which are marvellous. Could these be added to the http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/FoundationChallenge page? We also need some English version of these banners for external website use. These banners not only serve the purpose of helping with the funding drive but also promote the LibreOffice brand on external sites. Once we have enough of these banners in various sizes and languages, we should make an announcement on the mailing lists letting our membership know of their availability. Cheers Marc -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
