[FC7 theme proposal] Flying High with Fedora 7 - Round 1

[Máirín Duffy]

Diana Fong wrote:
> John Baer wrote:
>> The Flying High with Fedora was just an idea which I thought could
>> represent the level of achievement Fedora has obtained. It is hard to
>> argue the hot air balloon theme may have been used before but I thought
>> it offered an opportunity try new new colors, new shapes. Maybe more 3d?

> Hot air balloons have been used somewhere, sometime, by somebody.  The 
> same could be said for many ideas...even the desktop.  

You are missing the point entirely.

I as well as other people have seen that very same balloon image (the 
blue one) before - I had seen it as a GDM theme on art.gnome.org. 
Obviously it's OK to take a base concept and run with it (studio 3D 
animated movies seem to do this rather ridiculously - right now it's all 
about penguins, we have Happy Feet and that penguin surfing one coming 
out. A while ago there was 'A Bug's Life' and 'Ants'.) But what is the 
point if you can't do something new and interesting with it (slapping a 
Fedora logo on a balloon != new and interesting IMHO)? We don't want to 
appear like we're a follower in the way these 3-D animation studios seem 
to follow each other. We want to be a leader. That's all my point was.

John's intention wrt using the images was not clear until he explained 
before in his last message that the artwork he used was meant to be 
placeholder art. I made it quite explicit in the theme submission 
guidelines that you may use artwork that someone else did *as long as 
you got their permission*. As he did not follow that guideline and 
instead chose to use placeholder art without making it clear he meant it 
to be placeholder art, his intentions were not clear until now.

It's okay to take existing ides, but you really want to build and 
improve on them rather than rehash the same old, which is why I pointed 
out innovation. What can we do with the 'flying balloon' concept that 
really pushes it and makes people think about / see it in a different 
way? What kinds of things do we want to show - 'Fedora is rising above 
the rest', 'Fedora is floating up to the heavens', 'Fedora is a fun 
ride' (kind of what the example with the penguin shows) - these are all 
concepts with very different connotations and it's still not clear to me 
what we're trying to represent here. If you want to play on the colors 
in the colorful balloon, then it takes on a whole other spin - something 
that's more about many colors than flying.

>> As to the pictures in flying high, they were saved from the web to
>> simply present the concept. My thought is original sketches would be
>> better candidates for the final.  
> 
> I, myself, was curious about the photos because the vibrant colors and 
> shapes inspired a couple visual directions I would like to explore.  It 
> would, therefore, have be convenient if there was free collection I 
> could experiment with.  

There are plenty of cheap stock art photo collections out there if you 
would like to experiment with this and submit some revisions. They would 
be welcome. But as the submission guidelines say for round 1 even pencil 
sketches, which would not necessitate photos, are fine.

> There could be several different approaches to 
> the theme...some might fail and some might succeed far beyond what was 
> originally suggested...and _that's_ what I am excited to see in Round 
> two.  Original sketches could very well be the better choice.

Why wait until round 2.... why not *do* something? The concept and 
figuring out what we want to do with it ('the approach') is supposed to 
be the point of round 1. Round 2 should be more focused on the rendering.

>> I also agree Fedora should equal innovation and innovation is a great
>> concept for a theme but I am unsure how to present it. 
> 
> I think you've done a great job with your emails to the fedora-art-list, 
> in addition the postings on your proposal page.  It shows us the idea 
> you have in mind, some variations of possible exploration within the 
> theme, and good starting points to inspire others in contributing to 
> this theme...not to mention the many ways it could potentially evolve.

Thanks John for submitting a proposal and getting us talking through 
these ideas. Hopefully others will step up and contribute to it further.

~m