On Jun 25, 2006, at 11:55 PM, Kenneth Wimer wrote:
Hi,
On Jun 25, 2006, at 11:23 PM, Michiel Sikma wrote:
On Jun 25, 2006, at 8:25 PM, Kenneth Wimer wrote:
On Jun 25, 2006, at 7:21 PM, Michiel Sikma wrote:
On Jun 25, 2006, at 4:31 PM, Troy James Sobotka wrote:
This will require some new language.
Basically, Human icons are in and staying -- as per sabdfl.
This will be a component of the 'Human Look', which is what
we are sticking with (albeit trying to finish it, polish it,
and finish the set.)
I don't understand why it is so pertinently important to keep
Human in. In all objectivity, it's simply a suboptimal icon set
when compared to Tango. I also don't see why any of the
arguments that I have given have to be ignored. Like I stated,
Human doesn't seem to follow any proper guidelines at all. If it
does, then I would like to read their rationale for arbitrarily
designing some icons from different angles.
I see it as a good decision for branding the gnome desktop for an
Ubuntu product. I do not think you are being ignored but rather
that your opinion differs from others, especially those who make
the decisions for artwork inclusion in the aforementioned
product. Note as well that in artwork, guidelines are great, but
for every rule there is an exception.
I don't think it's just my opinion that differs. As I've mentioned
before, I've got valid criticism for the Human icon set. I simply
believe it to be inferior to Tangerine/Tango for various reasons.
Generally, I feel as though this same opinion exists among more
members of the art community.
Until now, this opinion is not exactly a consensus. As noted
previously in other mails, some of these decisions are not up to us
as a democratic entity.
Sure, this isn't a democratic vote that I would want to be reliant
on, but rather a discussion to figure out which of the icon sets is
the most aesthetically pleasing. It's my opinion that the Tangerine
set is. It follows guidelines more strictly, hasn't gone overboard
with insane levels of orangification (does the user-desktop icon
really need to attempt to show the default wallpaper in the smallest
icon size? Does the Internet icon really need to be a large orange
sphere?) and has more probability of being consistent with pretty
much the whole general style of the non-Ubuntu Linux art of tomorrow.
Consistency is still an important thing, and as of yet, Ubuntu is not
a trend setter in the art or UI world. Tango seems to be just that.
I also don't see why you simply say "guidelines are great, but we
make exceptions".
Note that I did not say that "we make exceptions" but rather that
all rules have exceptions in the real world.
So? That doesn't mean it's useful as an excuse as to why, for
example, the network-server icon is shown from the front, while the
drive-harddisk icon is shown slightly from above. This is a reason
for revisiting some of the icons and perhaps improving them. In fact,
with the style of the Human icons, they could perhaps even be
produced with the Tango guidelines. They're very viable guidelines
and work for the style that Human has.
I don't see why you can just admit that some of the icons in the
Human set are inconsistent.
I have not denied this fact, but simply tried to explain why it is
so. There is also a valid reason to brand a project so that it
stands out as an individual within the greater group of related
projects.
I don't mean inconsistent with other distros; I mean inconsistent
with itself, as explained above. This isn't marketing-related, it's
simply art-related.
Don't get me wrong, though. I don't think that the Human icon set
is bad by any standard, but I simply feel that a more open process
would enable us to get rid of such things. It's imperative that
inconsistency is taken care of in any case. This doesn't take away
that most of the icons in the system should just come from
Tangerine/Tango, as the Tango icon set is likely to be the style
of icons for _all_ default application icons in the future. It
will most definitely become very popular, and I don't think it is
a good idea for Ubuntu to say no to that style because "we want it
to be a little different".
It is not a case of wanting it to be a little different, but rather
to make it look distinctively Ubuntu and beautiful.
That still doesn't respond to any of the other things that I have
just mentioned. Besides, is marketing really a proper reason for
inconsistency in artwork? It's a user interface that's the face of a
system, afterall, and from what I can tell, Ubuntu seems to want to
market itself towards those who would partially base their decision
on whether to start using Ubuntu based on the user interface,
friendliness and usability.
And if that is the case, then I cannot see any use for some of the
design choices that the Human set has made. Like the gigantic red
knob at the top-right of the screen; what's that good for? It
completely drowns attention towards that point. It also mistakenly
labels shutting down as something bad. Or, similarly, the giant
orange knob at the "cancel" buttons, which even causes (caused?)
graphical errors on some occasions. Human seems such a very intrusive
icon set at places where it really shouldn't be.
In cases such as these, Tangerine/Tango is a more suitable
alternative due to the icons being made mostly by a long-time Linux
artist who uses the system on a daily basis and knows that such
decisions aren't really proper. I would certainly want to propose
alternatives in such cases, but with the current style of
development, I don't have any faith that such a proposition would be
accepted.
Seeing as the decision has already been made I suggest you
produce a viable alternative by working in a group with other
like-minded individuals - if the result is seen as better in
everyones eyes than what exists now we can perhaps change this
decision in future releases.
I don't see why. The Tangerine/Tango set already exists, is more
complete, has more people working on it, has a more open design
process, also makes Ubuntu ready for the future concerning design
consistency. Just because some people felt it was necessary to say
no to it for Dapper doesn't mean it shouldn't be possible to re-
evaluate it for Edgy.
The cycle for edgy is well underway, and due to the later release
of Dapper a few months shorter than expected. This fact alone is
enough for one to come to the opinion that we should fix what is
there rather than start with a whole new set of problems (which we
first have to discover, document, etc. before we can even fix them).
I don't see how this is relevant to Tangerine. Say that,
hypothetically speaking, we were to decide that Tangerine is indeed
more suitable to this distro than Human; in that case, it wouldn't be
difficult to switch to using that icon set, as it works flawlessly
and is more complete.
Michiel Sikma
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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