FWN/Beats/Design

Artwork

In this section, we cover the Fedora Artwork Project.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork

Contributing Writer: Nicu Buculei

Post-inclusion Feedback for the Beta Artwork

After the new wallpaper design was included in Rawhide and presented to the users, the feedback process started.Jef Spaleta forwarded a concern raised on the OLPC list by Mikus Grinbergs, about the religious implications of using a temple "Seems to me whoever chose the background that was introduced last week did not consider that items with overtones of dissentious subjects such as politics or religion might elicit emotional reactions. I'm concerned that when my system prominently shows a picture with a temple, that might be interpreted as 'Mikus worships paganism'."

The reaction is supporting cultural influences, as outlined by Martin Sourada "I don't see a valid reasoning there. There is vast difference between you worshiping ancient Greece gods (not that it would be something bad if you actually do) and having a huge Zeus' temple wallpaper hanging on your wall, let alone the wallpaper in your PC", Paul Frields "the conveyance as far as I know is simply to acknowledge the heritage of the 'Leonidas' name. Any other inference is probably a stretch" and Brian Hurren "I think that the modern meaning of a Zeus temple is a lot broader now than it was before. Kind of like an old abbey in England would have a different meaning now." The conversation was spiced by a very sarcastic reaction from Máirí­n Duffy "I'm just too distraught to carry on. I feel like my entire world is full of these things symbolizing other things, and I'm finding myself strangely offended by everything."

Matthias Clasen raised another king of critics, regarding the composition "IMO it is really overloaded with all too well-known motifs, to the extent that it appears almost like a satire of a constructed background image. I mean, it has clouds and mountains and doves and a black forest and a green lawn _and_ a greek temple. Any 2 out of these 6 might combine to a nice background, but all six are just too much for my taste", a kind of positive feedback appreciated by Máirí­n as the purpose of releasing the graphic concepts early "Thank you for the feedback. Receiving this kind of feedback is exactly why we aimed to get a wallpaper into the beta."

A Possible New Direction for the Wallpaper

Considering the received feedback Máirí­n Duffy, raised the idea of a possible change of direction and going with a different theme, islands "I saw the movie Mama Mia this weekend for the first time, and it's a movie based on a pretty Greek island" or Mount Olympus "we could take the temple out of the current wallpaper and focus a bit more wholly on the mountains as the symbol of Greece rather than the temple", with Martin Sourada supporting a simplification of the 'temple' image "Hm... I'd say get rid of the trees or make them just complimentary part of the wallpaper, drop the focus away from mountains and instead have it on the temple" and Nicu Buculei whising more time to gather post-beta feedback "possibly this will make Paul nervous and it may put some deadlines in danger, but before committing to a radical change, I think it would be useful to see the post-beta feedback from a larger mass the users: the first wave of reviews, blogs and forum talks (the perception setters). We all here, supporters or critics, are pretty much subjectively involved and I think a breath of fresh air from the outside is valuable."

In preparation for the upcoming Beta release, Paolo Leoni started the work on a website banner by proposing two graphic concepts, a generic one and another based on the graphics for the Beta wallpaper image "The first is a non-themed version, while the second uses a part of Mo's wallpaper mockup." The general opinion was favourable to the themed version and after a few iterations, Máirí­n Duffy concluded with a final version, a graphic which all the Fedora enthusiast are invited to use on their blogs. Jef is curious about the team's attitude towards cultural implications "To my reckoning this is the first Fedora artwork that has had culture specific elements in it, so this sort of issue might never have been raised in prior discussions. I don't know, I mostly lurk. But I'm bringing it to your attention to make sure you see that reaction."

On a related note, Paul Frields reviewed the Art's Team release tasks and produced a short list "the listed splashes, headers and other art scheduled for March 27 includes" to check the status "Is the listed date of March 27 enough time to produce these various derivations?"