Re: [gNewSense-art] Artwork proposal updated

[Luis Felipe Lopez Acevedo]

> As I already said, it's looks great. Don't let the following remarks make you think otherwise. :)
>
> * nuevo_sentido-logo:
> - What are the three specs in the middle supposed to be?

Those represent the people working to create free software.

> - As you already mentioned, it doesn't scale very well to small sizes. That could be impractical if this is to be the new logo. (Much more so than changing the theme, the decision to change the logo should not be taken lightly, but that's another discussion).

I'm not happy with it as a logo. It's too complicated to handle it. I'll leave it in my proposal but as a miscellaneous piece.

> * nuevo_sentido-meaning:
> - When I first read this I was inclined to pour a nice glass of wine, go sit under a tree and enjoy the view. Then I realized that the weather was awful. With the magic gone I read it again and it sounded a lot fluffier this time. Tranquility, trees and waiting patiently are not the first things that come into my mind when I think about free software. But a text about Stallman and the GPL is probably not going to win the hearts of the common folk. The strength of this text is that it associates gNewSense and free software with positive thoughts and carefree living.
> - "place _over_ the roots" sounds a bit strange. Then again, English is not my first language. How about "between the roots"?
> - "want to make part of it" should probably be "want to be part of it"
> - "just like a gnu": my first thought was that gnus don't 'want' anything, but then I got that instead of "just like a gnu wants to be part of it" you mean "just like gnu is part of it". :)

Well, the image and the meaning I wrote there are a personal view, it's the result of an spontaneous thought; so they are subjective and can contain lots of things other people will not agree with :P

Oh, and English is not my first language either. I appreciate any grammatical advice :)

> * Background: I like my desktop background to be out of the way, so I vote for the background-tree one, because the logo is too distracting.

Yes, and that's the reason why I did that one.

> * Start here icon:
> - Black and white squares: doesn't seem like it fits with the rest of the theme
> - Current (plain) logo: if you're going to change the logo, go all the way and throw the previous one out
> - Current modified logo: looks better than our current 'rendering' of the logo and I wouldn't be against cherrypicking that to use in our current artwork. But again, if you're changing, go all the way.

Yes, I'd love to come up with a good logo design. I'll try to do something about it. 

> * Splash screen: I like it a lot in itself. It has this whole path-to-freedom thing going on. Even made me think about the Wizard of Oz a bit (although that's probably not relevant). But this one also feels a bit off (though not as much as the start here icon). The rest of the artwork is all very slick and kind of savannah/Africa-themed, while this one is grainy with flowerbeds.

And it seems there's a color limit for splash screens that I didn't know about.

> Some other thoughts: maybe the artwork team would do good to discuss a general and specific direction. I mean, a tree seems to be the gNewSense thing, so you could pick one kind of tree (real of fictional, e.g. sirgazil's nuevo sentido tree) and some general keywords (e.g. freedom, new sense, ...) and have that as the base for all the artwork. Then you differentiate that further (e.g. Africa, savannah, ...) for every new major release (and maybe even further but to a lesser degree for minor releases (e.g. lions, elephants, slick, grainy). I know that artists like their artistic freedom, but setting some boundaries to work in brings focus into the project which probably leads to higher quality and more consistent results.

Yes, planning and organization is always a good thing, I think.

> I know an italian girl that is a good artist but she only speak italian.
> I hope to convince her to join the italian gNewSense mailing list so she
> could work (with my translation help) with this group.

Sounds good to me, Graziano!

Thank you for taking the time to answer,

2008/11/27 Graziano Sorbaioli <address@hidden>

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Sam Geeraerts wrote:

> As I already said, it's looks great. Don't let the following remarks
> make you think otherwise. :)

Yes it's really worth to become the our 2.2 main theme ;)


> * nuevo_sentido-logo:

Agree.
Let's work to make it scalable.



> * nuevo_sentido-meaning:

> The strength of this text is that it
> associates gNewSense and free software with positive thoughts and
> carefree living.

Agree.
We need to find new path everyday to convince all the "folks" to defend
their freedom and it's a lot easier when they see a relaxing beautiful
graphic because most of them are non-technical people and don't care
about specifications.

This is why the work of this list is VERY IMPORTANT to achieve freedom. :)

> * Background: I like my desktop background to be out of the way, so I
> vote for the background-tree one, because the logo is too distracting.

Agree. I prefer that one too but we need more and more wallpapers.
Every os comes with a lot of wallpapers and people like the choice so
let's create more of them!

> * Start here icon:
> - Black and white squares: doesn't seem like it fits with the rest of
> the theme
> - Current (plain) logo: if you're going to change the logo, go all the
> way and throw the previous one out
> - Current modified logo: looks better than our current 'rendering' of
> the logo and I wouldn't be against cherrypicking that to use in our
> current artwork. But again, if you're changing, go all the way.

Agree.
I like the third more colorful one the most.
It's wonderful and fits greatly in the theme.
Maybe we should have green 3d icons too instead of the 3d orange ones
that don't fit very well in a green-based theme.

> * Splash screen: I like it a lot in itself. It has this whole
> path-to-freedom thing going on. Even made me think about the Wizard of
> Oz a bit (although that's probably not relevant). But this one also
> feels a bit off (though not as much as the start here icon). The rest of
> the artwork is all very slick and kind of savannah/Africa-themed, while
> this one is grainy with flowerbeds.

Agree.
I watched it again and I like it.
To me it doesn't need any modifications.

> In conclusion: you're definitely on to something here and a bit of
> tweaking would make it even better.

Agree.

>
> Some other thoughts: maybe the artwork team would do good to discuss a
> general and specific direction. I mean, a tree seems to be the gNewSense
> thing, so you could pick one kind of tree (real of fictional, e.g.
> sirgazil's nuevo sentido tree) and some general keywords (e.g. freedom,
> new sense, ...) and have that as the base for all the artwork. Then you
> differentiate that further (e.g. Africa, savannah, ...) for every new
> major release (and maybe even further but to a lesser degree for minor
> releases (e.g. lions, elephants, slick, grainy). I know that artists
> like their artistic freedom, but setting some boundaries to work in
> brings focus into the project which probably leads to higher quality and
> more consistent results.

Interesting thought.
I agree.
Just as Ubuntu has its own naming convention and animal-related images,
we should follow that idea but with trees or something like that.
Maintain a continuity if you understand what I mean.


Let's work together to make it even better.

I know an italian girl that is a good artist but she only speak italian.
I hope to convince her to join the italian gNewSense mailing list so she
could work (with my translation help) with this group.

Let's make gNewSense the best artistic distribution of all!

- --
Graziano Sorbaioli -- www.sorbaioli.org
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-- 
Luis Felipe López Acevedo
Medellín, Colombia