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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>

I wrote down a list of some things to say but decided since I am not
an artist I will not say them. I am just going to ramble a little
bit.:-)

I think that things like this are a start,
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=31128 . I am not an
artist so I will have to leave the colors and stuff to y'all. Yes
Máirín, that mockup does come across natural to me. I think that a lot
can be done with natural visual effects, too. Now that is something to
look into.

Things that remind you of nature which is life, which must be taken
with great care and love. The glass icon theme has some kind of visual
effect with the grass behind some of the icons. That is a somewhat
natural effect. It kind of reminds me of mist, which is in nature.

I just like things that are real, and not synthetic, as David said. In
my opinion nature has a very calming sense to it, which Beethoven
said. Beethoven wrote an entire symphony based on nature!

Wood is an amazing thing, in my opinion. The colors that you can get
from it are simply put  miraculous. Colors of grass, trees, tree
leaves, fall, earth, dirt, blue water, clear water, green water,
lakes, oceans, things on other planets, are all miraculous, peaceful,
and real.

The problem with technology is some people associate as being
unnatural, which it doesn't have to be looked at that way. Sure the
components are not like nature but that doesn't mean that the things
on the display don't have to be. Technology is an amazing thing. They
make a lot of games and movies unnatural. Which is not good for
people's minds. Although there are a lot of games that are natural,
don't get me wrong. Here is what I consider a natural game,
http://www.paradise-game-us.com/ .

There are just a lot of natural and unhealthy things out there.

+1 for natural

Kind Regards,
Preston