[F10 themes: round 2] Gears: lot of gears

[Robin Norwood]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:17:36 -0400
Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> > * The multitude of gears is AWESOME.  It might be nice to make them
> > a bit more faded and subtle, but I wonder if that might lose detail
> > to a point of losing the theme.
> 
> Yeh. I am thinking maybe some clever fade-in fade-out might make it
> more suitable for a desktop background. Another idea I had was make
> some kind of keyhole shape in a much more solid/less distracting
> gradient, and punch the hole (or wholes) through so you can see
> glimpses of this gear work behind it. It might be a really cool
> effect, but I also think it would take it even further towards the
> cyberpunk end of the spectrum than steampunk. :)

FWIW, I really like the keyhole idea, if you want to move it in a more
concrete direction.  By that, I mean more of a feeling of looking
inside an actual mechanism than an abstract collection of gears.  Both
directions have merit, but I find the more-concrete idea interesting.
I'd also personally love to see the gears meshing, and more types of
mechanical components, such as ratchets, worm drives, flywheels,
springs, et al. It could be made to look more like the inner workings
of a clock or watch or similar device, such as:

http://watchluxus.com/admin/ajax/image.php?src=101&maxwidth=550

With more of the inner workings covered up with the keyhole idea.
Perhaps the keyhole(s) could be in the shape of or suggesting the
Fedora logo?

Also, this could be made to dovetail with the cambridge concept a
little bit, for instance:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Clock_Tower,_Great_Court,_Trinity_College,_Cambridge.jpg

In a different direction, could the rotating background effect be used
to show a suggestion of an actual clock face with the current time?  I
realize that interpolating images of a clock with the hands at each
hour will make a blur rather than discrete hand positions, but perhaps
that could be made to work.

-RN

-- 
Robin Norwood
Red Hat, Inc.

"The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone."
-Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching