Flying High with Fedora 7 Preview

[Máirín Duffy]

Hi John,

John Baer wrote:
> I am ready for additional comments on this theme and would like to 
> post a request for feedback on the forum.
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPreview
> 
> Does anyone have an objection?

I think it's a good idea to get feedback early and often, so good
thinking. :)

> In addition, I posted all of the svg's and install scripts to the
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHigh
> 
> pages. Did not know where else to place them.

Hmm. Right now it takes a *lot* of clicks to get all the SVGs. It would
also be easier to get at the SVGs if they were in SVG format rather
than tar.gz and if they were placed on the
Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPreview page rather than in their own separate
pages.

Maybe as a quick fix you could tar them all together and put them as one
file on the Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPreview page?

> I've been playing around with the theme in both gnome and KDE and I 
> believe it's close.
> 
> I do not know when artwork makes it into the mix but the release 
> schedule shows a test release on 01/30.

So I have some feedback on this page for what it's worth:

- The logo used in many of these screens is not the official Fedora
logo; it should follow the Fedora logo guidelines. For example, there
are places where the 'Fedora' logotype is too bold to be the correct
font usage, and there are places where the logomark has been modified
against the guidelines (eg removal of the bubble encasing the 'f' and
infinity sign in the GDM splash screen)

- I'm kind of disappointed to not see any inclusion of or expansion on
the work that was done by other folks here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/FC7Themes/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighRound2
It seemed like the graphics were evolving nicely on that page...

- A lot of the screens show Tango icons (eg the GDM login prompt and the
KDE splash
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPreview?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=KdeSplashScreenMockup-010571.png)
but Tango is not going to be the default icon theme for FC7 so it won't
be possible for the screens to look like that.

- Speaking of Tango, the 'Welcome to Fedora' icon in the anaconda screen
is an unattributed Tango icon, as well as the screensaver lock icon in
the lower left of the lock screen. If we were to use this we would need
to credit the Tango project. However, the anaconda header icons really
should be from the default icon theme for FC7 for consistency. (as an
aside: When bringing in artwork from other sources, we really need to 
make it clear where each piece comes from and its license to ensure 
we're in compliance with the license.)

- The palette seems quite dark; in some cases this is a good thing as
Fedora users in the past have complained when they felt artwork was too
bright, but I'm not sure how well some of the screens with black
backgrounds will go over. I think some neat visual tricks are possible
using black on those partial screens (eg the first anaconda splash) that
necessarily have black portions, e.g. creating a shaped window effect,
but the screens here don't seem to play that up so I'm not sure what the
advantage of the black background is. To me, it comes across as 'old
school.' The anaconda prompt screen with its thin lines and bright
colors almost comes across as being 'neon'. Does that make sense? It
doesn't really fit with the desaturated, flat palette of a lot of the
other artwork.

- The balloons in their grounded, diagonal state (eg
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fc7ThemeProposalFlyingHighPreview?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=rhgb-mockup.png)
have an upright Fedora logo which makes it seems like the Fedora logo
isn't actually on the balloon when the balloon is flying straight up -
does that make sense?

- RHGB throbber - I think the idea of the throbber fading in and out is
really cool. We should mock it up quickly as an animated gif in the GIMP
and see how it looks in practice.

- The wallpaper and firstboot side splash - I think the layout of the
elements in these is good and makes sense (although I'd prefer to see 
more than just one lone balloon as a nod to the community aspect of 
Fedora.) The rendering of the elements, however, feels like it should be 
pushed a little more. The flat, simplistic look isn't really fully 
carried through so there's a bit of a tension, for example in the 
wallpaper, the background and most of the balloon is all simple, 
flat-colored shapes, but then there's a ~1px wide white line and a 
gradient in the Fedora logo pieces. The gradient and line are 
inconsistent with the way everything else in the wallpaper is rendered 
(they're finer and more detailed) so they stick out as being  inconsistent.

- GDM splash screen mockup - a wallpaper is shown behind the GDM 
splashscreen but I'm not sure that this is technically possible. I think 
only a flat background color can be defined there.

Overall, this is a good effort - pretty much every screen needed is
accounted for and it is obvious you have put a lot of time and effort
into this which is awesome! I feel though, that it's not really ready 
yet in terms of polish and we should keep pushing it further. The shapes 
and color palette right now seem flat and almost child-like. While 
simplicity can be a very good thing, I think to mesh with the 'idea' of 
Fedora it'd be more a Zen kind of simplicity than a child-like one. 
Remember Fedora is a cutting edge distro - it's not something aimed at 
children, it's something you can get some serious work done with. The 
subject matter, hot-air balloons, understandably has that child-like 
quality itself which doesn't help given the visual approach.

I hope this is a fair, helpful assessment. Moving forward, would you be 
cool with incorporating some of the other round 2 efforts into this?

~m