more natural colors

[Mike Chalmers]

On 12/12/06, Máirín Duffy <duffy at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> > On 12/12/06, Máirín Duffy <duffy at redhat.com> wrote:
> >> I think a lot of the themes we've got proposed have natural-looking
> >> palettes - a lot are focused on the night sky, with various shades of
> >> light and deep blue.
>
> Mike Chalmers wrote:
> > The colors I speak of, are natural colors of pure life, trees and
> > grass and earth. Not fire, metallic water, futuristic technological
> > designs, lustful colors, metallic trees, stuff like that. Red Hat is
> > definitely unnatural colors as is Fedora. I think if we think about it
> > we can realize that, especially as artist.
> >
> > Things like blue metallic water, for example, compared to regular blue
> > water is incomparable. Or metallic silver trees compared to green leaf
> > trees or leaves in the fall.
>
> How about the blue night skies in some of our FC7 mockups?
>
> > There is no way you can say the Red Hat's colors are natural if you
> > think about it. You can't just name any color and say it is natural
> > because it looks like red on trees. There is a big difference.
>
> I'm not really following. I don't think it's fair to say the color red
> is unnatural in all cases so hopefully I am misunderstanding you there?
>
> Certainly you can talk about a color's treatment in the context of a
> color palette or its usage in a piece of artwork as being unnatural or
> not. Even if you restate it in that way, however, I would still argue
> Red Hat's treatment of the color red is certainly not predominantly
> 'unnatural'. Other words come to mind ('bold' since it's bright and
> attention-grabbing, 'different' as most tech companies go silver or
> blue) but I really can't say 'unnatural' comes to mind. Not that RH's
> graphic design is something we really have any say over in the Fedora
> art team :)
>
> I think you may be on to some helpful critique here that we could apply
> to our FC7 artwork. To make an effective case here, however, and provide
> us with more useful feedback you really need to cite specific examples
> and qualify some of the statements you are making as they come across as
> somewhat vague to me. E.g., *which* Fedora artwork looks 'unnatural' to
> you? (provide links to screenshots or mockups) Why exactly? What parts
> of each piece communicate 'unnatural' to you?
>
> > Fedora's colors remind me of the movies The Matrix.
> >
> > I am not knocking Fedora, I love it. It just hurts me that the colors
> > aren't used to a more natural earthy approach.
>
> Mike, I think I'm understanding you a bit more but I wish you could
> provide more specific feedback. :)
>
> What about the theme mockups I cited doesn't come across as natural to
> you? I'm really confused:
>
> [1]
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPOC?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=wallpaper-moonlight2.png
>
> [2]
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPOC?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=flyinghigh-moonlight.png
>
> [3]
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFedoraBorealis?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=fc7themeproposal-fedoraborealis-night2.png
>
> Do you think any of these appears unnatural? Why, specifically? It can't
> just be the colors - there's a lot more that gives a piece of artwork
> its feel than the specific colors in it, you know? What does each one
> remind you of that isn't unnatural? Why?
>
> Blue is a color that appears quite often in nature. If you would like to
> see themes that use a particular palette you like (you mention grass and
> earth a lot - green and brown - rather than the sky which is in fact
> blue when we are lucky :) ) then there's certainly nothing stopping you
> from taking some of the proposals we have on the table right now and
> experimenting with different color palettes in them. But I don't really
> think it's quite accurate to sweepingly judge all Fedora (and Red Hat
> for that matter) artwork as 'unnatural' based on the names of the colors
> involved rather than the treatment of the colors in them. Like I said
> above, it would be more fair to cite specific examples.
>
> While the Fedora logo's colors won't be changing anytime soon, we can
> most certainly investigate non-blue options as far as the color palette
> for the theme artwork goes.
>
> ~m
>
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Thanks, Máirín. I mean no harm to Fedora, believe me. I will do my
best to answer your questions later. I am not the best artist though,
actually I would call me a drawer with dreams, lol. :-)

Kind Regards,
Mike