Hello artists, As you all might know I've been busy drafting the directions for the Produce phase based on all submissions that came in during Propose. I've been getting opinions and feedback from a whole range of people, from the Ubuntu community forums (thanks to Ubuntu Demon) to the members of the Community Council and as far as I can tell, we're good to go.
First things first, of course - so let me show you the results I summarized and turned into artwork directions based on the material available to me. These results of the Propose phase are documented here on the Wiki and will serve as the basis for steering artwork production during Produce: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan/Propose/Results Before you start worrying, let me describe the contents of that page: to describe the artwork direction I've discerned three components that make up our artwork. The three components are style, look and palette. I'll explain each one. A style is an overarching compositional guide for each artwork target. As you might remember, an artwork target is one of the following: usplash, GDM theme, login splash and the desktop wallpaper. Each style I described takes into account the global look and feel of each target and applies a single compositional theme to it. The three styles I described are Circles, Rounded and Failsafe, see the Wiki for sketches and references. The next component, looks, is a guide for the textures of the elements in our artwork. A look describes the textural contrast between foreground and background elements. I've described two looks for the Produce phase: "Matte and Gloss" and "All out Gloss", both are described in more detail on the Wiki. A look also prescribes the use of a certain logo style, but we can interchange these if desired. Last, but surely not least, is the third component: palettes. A palette provides base colors to use for your design. I've created two simple triangles to start with: one consisting of the base Human colors and one derived from the Dapper wallpaper image. I've also created two purple triangles for use with Kubuntu artwork. These are not officially endorsed by Kenneth Wimer, but act more as a starting point to create something purple. The plan is to combine styles, looks and palettes to create concrete artwork in (3 x 2 =) 6 directions of which we'll continue to polish the most promising ones. I left palettes out of the equation because we'll be working in source formats for this phase which can be seen as palette-agnostic, because palettes can be changed quite easily once you have access to the source file for the artwork. The source format point is actually very important. To be able to quickly accommodate to changes and to try different compositions we need to work in an open fashion using SVGs and XCFs as a base (please try to avoid PSDs and XARs as those formats might be troublesome). PNGs and JPEGs are fine for showing previews, but make sure to share the image's sources as soon as possible to allow for extensive collaboration. I created a new "Incoming" page specially designed for posting submissions for the Produce phase. It is located under the actual phase status page on the Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan/Produce/Incoming We'll be deviating from the initial time plan for Produce since the process has experienced a few unplanned delays. For now, we'll start producing artwork in the styles and see at what pace we're progressing. If you decide to jump in and produce artwork in a given style and look, please update the Produce phase status page on the Wiki. There is a table on that page containing all combinations of styles and looks, please add your name and a short notice on what you're doing so that duplicate work / entries can be prevented initially. Once we've got all combinations in at least one variation, you can create and refine existing combinations as well. The table of combinations is located here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkPlan/Produce I hope this e-mail, and especially the new goal, are clear. To help you out, here's a one paragraph summary: Choose a style and look from the Propose results page, check on the Produce status Wiki page if no-one else is working on the combination, then update the Wiki page. Create artwork for each artwork target in the chosen combination, then post preview and links to the sources on the Produce incoming Wiki page. That's all there is to it right now. If you have questions or comments, let me know - I'll have a lot of Ubuntu time next week with the UDS in Wiesbaden so I'll be all ears. At the moment, we've got a lot of momentum within the artwork team and we've got a LOT of people who are really happy with what we're doing right now. Let's work together on making the Edgy artwork as awesome as possible, I know we can do this! I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you all for reading and sticking with the team even through the hard times, you're amazing. With kind regards, Frank Schoep -- ubuntu-art mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
