Artwork conversations

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi,

Apologies for the long post but this touches a broader topic. So be 
patient and you will reach the see the light or at the end of my email. 
Are we ready? Good.

I had a opportunity to talk to Diana Fong during FUDCon Boston 2007 
after she came up to talk to me about my perspectives and what I was 
trying to accomplish with the mail I send a few weeks back[1]. On 
hindsight that was probably not clear to everyone involved and might 
have been high sounding. So a longer clarification and some views points 
here.

The conversation we had went on for over an hour about Fedora Artwork 
project in general and specifically about getting a larger number of 
contributors involved from the community, the process and the quality 
that we need to maintain. Diana Fong was worried about the quality of 
the artwork being produced but didnt work to throw off people from doing 
the work. I was highlighting that the conversations usually is happening 
on IRC or blogs which the people here in mailing lists are either not 
aware of or not participation due to differences in time zones and the 
process as being important as much as the quality of the work being 
produced. I suggested that if we cant really collaborate on every step, 
she can at the moment be transparent about her working methodology and 
thoughts would be a good first step. I think her recent series of blogs 
"The Voodoo That I Do" [2] is effective in that and should be 
appreciated. Not everyone knows equally well to work in the community. 
Unlike say packaging where the line of quality vs community 
participation is tilter in favor of the latter, I believe in artwork it 
should be the former that is given a higher priority. We should not 
sacrifice the good results and throw off skilled contributions just 
because they or we havent yet been able to communicate well with the 
community. Having said that, here is more details to consider.

When the original effort to have a focus on better look and feel was 
done by Diana Fong for Fedora Core 5, it was entirely a single person's 
effort. Folks started noticing especially since the artwork happened to 
be rather in the face compared to the traditional and conservative 
artwork which we had in the past. I thought that went pretty good 
overall even though obviously not everyone liked the artwork.  It was 
controversial enough to be talked about inside and external to the 
Fedora community. Reviews invariably pointed it out in a positive 
manner. It was also a nod to the idea that Fedora is approachable to 
everyone and not just the enthusiasts.

Fedora Core 6 artwork turned out to be even better with the concepts 
drawn by Maureen Duffy, the 3D blender work done Mola and the final 
polishing from Diana Fong. We managed to work as a team, incorporate 
feedback from various circles such as the artwork being too dark 
initially etc. Other than the long term discussions about the trademark 
protection required in the logo vs the need for creativity, I think 
there is agreement that the quality of the artwork in general has been 
good to exceptional. What was not defined and to some extend still 
causing confusion [3] is the process. We had to rush through kind of in 
the last minute with Fedora Core 6 and here we are now worrying whether 
we can do artwork effectively as a community today. I would say that is 
pretty difficult and we would have to learn by trial and error a few 
things and I have some ideas that could help here.

1) Expect to jump through hurdles  :   This shouldnt need much 
explanation but pretty much everytime we have initiated new projects, 
there has been periods of confusion and general mess before we started 
being effective. It is pretty much a established trend that I would be 
surprised we had it all figured out right from the start anywhere. It 
happened with with Fedora in general. Fedora Extras, Fedora 
Documentation and now with Fedora Ambassadors and Artwork projects but 
artwork is rather unique on its own for a number of reasons.

It is very subjective, people tend to take criticisms rather personally. 
We are reluctant to tell people that their artwork is crappy because we 
dont want to give off the impression that we arent appreciating their 
interest or contributions in general and more important we dont have a 
established history of caring about good look and feel and creating 
artwork via the community in general. Every time we had good artwork 
anywhere in the Free software world, it has been done through single 
individuals or by a small focused team. Tiger in GNOME. Crystal SVG 
icons in KDE or closer to home Fedora Artwork in previous releases. The 
other end happens to be troublesome [4]. Some would argue that this is 
indeed true of Free software development in general but I wont go into 
that now. In general, we will figure out the process and if we can make 
it work over time. We might realise sometime later that this just isnt 
working and shut it down but I consider that pretty premature to 
conclude at this point.

* Tackle work in discrete chunks  :   For example, creating one 
particular icon for the Echo theme is much more easier than working on a 
creating a entire desktop theme. We know the theme is incomplete. We put 
in as the default sometime back to receive feedback and more importantly 
contributions. So instead of endless talking about what holes we see, 
try and fix them.

* Work as a team  : Expect to receive criticism, others to take your 
work and come up with variations or polish it better etc. Mola's blender 
work in Fedora Core 6 and John Baer's concept work in Fedora 7 are good 
examples of this. If you look at the feedback from the concept work by 
John Baer vs the recent work from Diana Fong, I think it would evident 
that the community here is strong is the conceptual stage and others 
like Mo, Diana Fong good at final execution and polishing. Our 
expectations can be caliberated at that level. We might grow a stronger 
community or people can learn the skills from the more experienced 
folks. This is where [2] is useful too. Nobody knows all the pieces of 
the puzzle. We are bound to have intermediate failures. Give it time.

Rahul

[1]https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-January/msg00127.html
[2]http://www.isity.net/blog/
[3]https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-February/msg00087.html
[4]http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/14/2241255