F8 artwork

[Máirí­n Duffy]

Nicu Buculei wrote:
> OK, I quickly kicked a page in the wiki with content mostly 
> copied/adapted from the F7 page and all dates put as TBD:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F8Themes

Nicu, this is great! Thanks!!!

I looked at the F8 release schedule and the calendar and came up with
the following (somewhat aggressive, but if all goes well we'll have
everything for the feature freeze deadline) schedule:

- Round 1 deadline: Monday July 2nd
   - Any ideas that don't have a formal proposal on the mailing list + a
proposal page linked off of the F8Themes wiki page will be out of the
running at this point.

- Round 2 deadline: Monday July 20th
   - Any ideas that don't have fully fleshed-out and polished artwork,
at least 1 wallpaper and let's say 3 supporting graphics, will be out of
the running at this point.

- Round 3 deadline: Monday August 20th (F8 feature freeze)
   - Any ideas that don't have fully-polished and implemented versions
of the following will be out of the running:
     - wallpaper
     - gdm theme
     - bootup artwork (whether it's the new system or RHGB graphics and
grub screen)
     - installer artwork (splash, banner, and 15-color anaconda graphic)
     - firstboot artwork (splash, banner)

If we really, really get stuck and end up with more than one really
awesome theme by the round 3 deadline, we can always hold a vote of
Fedora contributors similar to the F7 naming vote process. I'm hoping
that it won't be necessary, though. If we don't have any completely
finished to the specifications above by the deadline, we can dig in and
work on the one that's closest to being complete at that point.

Do these dates make sense? If so, would anybody object to me going ahead
and announcing the F8 theme process? - I'm thinking a Fedora News
announcement, here on this list + marketing + websites list,
fedoraforum.org, and I can make a post on Fedora Planet as well.

--

On a related note, I would also like to add some more
milestones/deadlines to the process even though they aren't part of the
theme selection process. Please tell me if you think I'm completely
insane with these items & deadlines. You see, I think we've gotten
nipped by some of these, some very last minute, in previous releases :)
So, we should just make a standard release-preparation process to
prepare these materials ahead of time so the release goes more smoothly.
Each of these could be on a site like our design queues, and folks could
claim ownership of each to help get them done. Anyway, here's the
milestones and dates I'm thinking of:

- Milestone 4: Mon 10 Sept - concept discussion for F8 marketing
materials on the marketing list. Come up with a standard tagline for the
release the way we did "Reach higher" for the new static FPO website,
and maybe some promo banner ideas as well.

- Milestone 5: Mon 24 Sept - finalize artwork/design for F8 DVD/CD
labels and sleeves. At least a professional-printer (eg screenprinting)
ready version of each needs to be made of the labels - 3 or 4 colors at
most. An additional set with more colors / more complex design could
also be prepared for home users with inkjet printers.

- Milestone 6: Mon 5 October - prepare a 'promo kit' for the release.
This would be aimed towards Fedora ambassadors and other folks wanting
to promote Fedora 8 at conferences/shows/gatherings during launch time.
Include some standard screenshots folks can use, some printer-quality
artwork (sources for the theme work would be great), and a link to the
logo at fedoraproject.org site, all gathered in one page on the wiki for
easy access. I've noticed we've gotten a lot of inquiries about these
materials for F8 and were not prepared. Another idea for the kit: PDF
informational sheet about the release with preliminary release notes (or
information about the most compelling features being introduced in the
release) and a couple screenshots.

- Milestone 7: Mon 15 October - finalize fedoraproject.org promotional
materials. Probably will consist of: (1) F8 tour with screenshots, (2)
big promo banner for the front page of the site at launch time. Work
with the websites and infrastructure teams to get a staging site set up
and ready to go for the final release date.

> Maybe we will think again and include at least the graphics for the 
> previous release by default to leave a bit of choice for the users

+1

> How about two version of the artwork, a basic one and a derivative of it 
> for the final desktop, the derivative being on equal foot with other 
> derivative distros can do?

Well, I think the most visible 'hard to swap out' pieces are grub and
rhgb, which we might not even be dealing with. I personally don't think
it would be an issue to have more thematic artwork for anaconda and
firstboot if there were more basic versions available to respinners to
use. But maybe whatever bootup graphics we have should be more basic so
that folks wanting to personalize their system don't have something that
totally clashes with their personal style.

Also to make my meaning clear, by 'basic' I'm thinking just an abstract
(likely blue) graphic style with a plain Fedora logo and that's it. No
balloons, dna, bubbles, or anything like that. :) So it could have a
style, and that style could even complement what the theme is, but it
wouldn't have the balloons or whatever the theme element is in it. (Does
that make sense?)

>> With those things in mind, a good approach I think could be to focus 
>> on the wallpaper and GDM and tone down the rest. We can still make a 
>> big impression and 'keep up the tradition' or whatever, and use the 
>> wallpaper and gdm theme to showcase what FOSS graphics tools can do, 
>> but still keep happy those folks who like personalizing their desktop 
>> and don't agree with our style by leaving the rest plainer in comparison.
> 
> I am even stronger: for now we should focus on a metaphor (along the 
> lines of DNA and FlyingHigh), the rest is implementation detail.

+1

> I am for focusing on the concept (metaphor), illustrated with just a 
> single image (wallpaper), I think we can mentally extrapolate from it 
> and have a good idea about how it work for the other elements.

I think this is a great approach. It's hard to lay down concrete rules
for stuff beyond the basic wallpaper artwork without having the
wallpaper artwork to look at :) and to come up with ideas to extrapolate
from it. So we can start with the idea that the wallpaper and login
screen will be the "showcase" and that the rest will be more muted, and
as things play out keep working on it and see where it goes with that
end goal in mind.

> I would wait to see the ideas to come and judge later which style of 
> work fit it better. And we may expect the unexpected (like how Mola 
> surprised everybody with his 3D take for DNA).

True, it's important to start with the idea first. I'm hoping that
looking at some of the best stuff that's out there now will help spark
ideas too. :)

> Question: F7 changed the icon theme to Myst partly to match the blue of 
> the rest of the desktop. We will do something similar in F8 or the 
> opposite (do the desktop artwork to fit the icon theme). The same about 
> Metacity.

+1 They need to match somehow. Problem is we don't know if we can depend
on Echo at this point.

~m