Slashdot Log In
What Really Happened To Ubuntu's Edgy Artwork?
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 14, 2006 09:47 PM
from the more-dapper-than-edgy dept.
from the more-dapper-than-edgy dept.
angrykeyboarder writes, "Many Ubuntu users expressed surprise, dismay, and disappointment when Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl) nixed the popular community-developed artwork during the beta phase of Ubuntu 6.10 ('The Edgy Eft'). Some Ubuntu community members were downright shocked, and many were ultimately dissatisfied with the final product. What exactly happened? Short answer: the Art Team was less disturbed than some other community members were. Linux.com has the scoop." Slashdot and Linux.com are both part of OSTG.
Related Stories
[+]
Make Linux "Gorgeous," Says Ubuntu Leader 688 comments
OSS_ilation writes "They say beauty is only skin deep, but when it comes to Linux and the free software movement, people like Mark Shuttleworth think looks have an important part to play. On his blog and an article on SearchOpenSource.com, Shuttleworth and a slew of open source end users say that the look and feel of open source is also a matter of wider acceptance among enterprise players who are used to Windows, yet crave Mac OS X and the functionality of Linux. 'If we want the world to embrace free software, we have to make it beautiful,' Shuttleworth said. "We have to make it gorgeous. We have to make it easy on the eye. We have to make it take your friend's breath away.' With the early success of Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Shuttleworth and company may be onto something."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
What Really Happened To Ubuntu's Edgy Artwork?
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 297 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Approval (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Saturday July 23 2005, @11:16PM)
They should issue an official statement of chastisement against themselves!
Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:1, Insightful)
What a society - where killing untold thousands of people in far off lands is fine, but showing pictures of the human body is taboo.
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Funny)
It wasn't even intended. It was just a GUI malfunction.
KFG
Re:Ending life good, creating life bad. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Not saying that's a wonderful place to live, but shouldn't we focus on state-organized executions in Texas first?
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Violence is obviously wrong, and you can usually rely on that as enough of a disincentive to discourage it. Even if you can't, the availability of bazookas also limits it. Sex, on the other hand isn't obviously wrong like violence, but it can lead to unwanted and unconsidered consequences - pregnancy, disease, etc, as well as increasing the complexity and intensity of a relationship. It has to be discouraged because it's so available - whereas violence of the action-movie sort remains remote; the viewer is rarely going to be in a situation where they could emulate it.
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Insightful)
More talk of sex, I say! Fewer young people learning about it through rumor, innuendo, porno mags passed around, and spam email that lead them to believe every woman is a "slut in heat" and that "every man has a horse cock." Treat and address sex in a healthy manner, shown in a contextually appropriate setting where potential consequences are considered and you may not have children having babies because they are driven by their hormones with no information.
Put it this way, if the only people you ever see having sex are in a plastic, promiscuous, consequence free world with crappy disco music, what examples do you have of healthy sex life between monogamous, loving adults that RESPECT each other. If all our other behavior patterns are learned by observation and emulation of parents and other role-models, why is sex the single exception? People have no idea of what role sex should play in their lives in the real world and are left with only basic hormonal urges and porno movies for guidance. That makes no sense to me. I mean, that kind of plan worked so well with prohibition and all....
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Insightful)
ok, I'm pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
I found some... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://fennecfoxen.org/)
Re:I found some... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://kernelpanicked.net/)
Re:I found some... (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to Slashdot. I've been a loyal Apple user since the days of the IIe, but if I say anything negative about Apple, odds are good I'll get modded into oblivion. Likewise, I despise Microsoft, but if I suggest that perhaps they are not always pure evil, I better watch my ass. Go against groupthink and fanboys at your peril.
Re:ok, I'm pissed (Score:5, Informative)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtwork
Now, assuming this is the art in question, which I wouldn't know for sure, not only is this a completely shitty non-article, it's also a terrible headline. The whole 'edgy' pun attempts to make it sound like they had naked women or something, when in fact it's plain old boring splash screens with round letters and glossy effects. Snore. I guess they had to do SOMETHING to attempt to make this look like it might be newsworthy, so why not throw a potentially sensational headline out there.
Re:ok, I'm pissed (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.designpoolstudio.com/)
Aiming high huh? Let's get some Junior College kids to skin an OS in a semester.
IHMO this is one of the major hurdle's facing Linux adoption outside of the IT arena. Very few people in the software development industry fully understand visual communication, interactive design, and or the design process. Interactive design is viewed as some sort of BS skinning process that can be pumped out by some peons in a few months.
Interactive design for an OS should be conducted by a team of professional interactive designers. They should understand visual communication, cognitive psychology, quantitative / qualitative usability research, and at least a CS101 understanding of what a conditional statement, class, etc is. These people should be given 6 months to a year (if not longer) to do their work. They should be paid a salary which doesn't force them to live in their parent's basements. Furthermore, they should work with software engineering to build an interactive design specification that is adhered to religiously and implemented as closely as humanly possible.
Themes are retarded. They almost always result in something spec'd by software engineers and turd-polished by a lame underpaid or inexperienced graphic designer.
Screenshot? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Screenshot? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://sirnuke.sytes.net/)
Screenshots (Score:2, Informative)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtwork
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtwork
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Informative)
(http://kernelpanicked.net/)
"Edgy Eft"? (Score:1, Troll)
http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html [openbsd.org]
Edgy is the name of the release! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 18 2006, @08:52AM)
"Edgy art" does not refer to "provocative art", but "art for the 'Edge Eft' release".
All Ubuntu releases are named with an adjective and an animal, and they have to alliterate. I have no idea why.
Sheesh.
Re:Edgy is the name of the release! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Edgy is the name of the release! (Score:4, Funny)
is this irrelevant or what (Score:5, Insightful)
sorry, this is a part of OSS culture I entirely fail to understand. Like, when there is a new version of distro X and some OS News sites have nothing better to report than a 15 pages of hires screenshots of the default desktop etc.
You mean you install a new distro and then judge its worth by the look of the default theme? You don't change the theme first thing? You don't know how to install a custom theme if you don't like the preconfigured choices?
But then again, my boxen run headless 98% of the time, so why should I care...
Re:is this irrelevant or what (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.imaginaryrobots.net/)
Re:is this irrelevant or what (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:is this irrelevant or what (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday December 17 2004, @07:14PM)
I use my computer 80+ hours a week too. But mostly, I'm looking at what's in the windows, not what's around the edges of them.
Ooohhh, Shiny... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what direction was required for the art, but the samples have that "ooohhh shiny" web 2.0 feel to them so they just must be better :p
Meeehhh, it will all change again anyway when everyone jumps on the Web 3.0 graphic design bandwagon or whatever the next hot trend will be.
What? I'm shocked too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should this happen? Why should "some community members" be shocked if Ubuntu is being developed as "an Open Source OS?" And I guess they were following Ubuntu's development pretty closely.
I need this question answered: Is Mark Shuttleworth a benevolent dictator in Ubuntu's Development?
Re:What? I'm shocked too! (Score:5, Insightful)
KFG
Reminds me of a certain CSS redesign contest... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://danlipsy.tk/)
Hmm...sort of reminds me of the Slashdot CSS Redesign Contest [slashdot.org]. Need the Slashdot "Shade of Green" and Coliseo font. Basically it has to be very similar to the old one, but better. Sometimes it fades into the background once the hubbub dies down...as people realize that visual continuity and product branding do count for something...
Ever wonder why the icons look nice? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://iconfactory.com/)
http://iconfactory.com/design/detail/ubuntu [iconfactory.com]
By one guy. Working directly with Mark.
My suggestion for the art team would be to establish someone as an art director. Someone that Mark trusts to implement his vision. And then have that art director give specific tasks to the designers that report to him.
It sounds like they're heading in that direction by giving Frank Stroep the title of "Artist in Chief". His task now is to tell people what he wants. And if you think it's easy being a hard ass when it comes to design & the people who do it, let me assure you IT IS NOT.
If this doesn't happen, they'll end up taking the "design by committee" approach. The result of this kind of process is something that no one loves -- a lowest common denominator. Sort of like when software is designed by a committee
For what it's worth, I'm a principal in the company that did the Ubuntu work -- so I speak from experience about this stuff
-ch
Incremental improvement, no revolution (Score:2)
Efty's new boot up logo looks much better than the old one, and I am happy that they got rid of all the boot up messages on start-up, which was just distracting crud.
Nice one -- on the computers I installed it on, it just worked and the upgrades went smootly. Your milage may vary of course.
who flippin' cares - just install vista! (Score:2, Funny)
Still needs work. (Score:2)
(http://designelement.us/)
The Ubuntu name also fights with the graphic. It looks like each element was designed by two different people and forced together. In fact, the Ubuntu font face is unique enough on it's own that it doesn't even need the graphic. All it might need is a more compelling graphical treatment sort of like what Apple has done with the OS X mark; I'm not saying that the glass look should be copied, mind you.
Regarding this theme, I don't see what makes this newsworthy. The theme itself is bad, but it certainly isn't anything out of this world. In fact, in my opinion, it still lacks the polish of OS X , XP or Vista. It's got some interesting features but nothing compelling or particularly unique.
The problem with these systems is that they don't have a series of rules defining how look and feel. In the end it always comes down to some guy doing something because it looks pretty and not really considering the overall experience. It's kind of like contemporary Japanese cars where designers have gotten overly fixated on these elaborate tail light designs that don't quite fit the rest of the car.
I'm all for an innovative interface, but it should be functional. This Edgy theme to me looks like someone took Vista's graphical elements and applied them to a OS X type interface.
I'm assuming this is the artwork.. (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.last.fm/)
As for the complaining, I'm a bit perplexed: That sounds like a legitimate enough problem. Unfinished artwork and effects can make a distro look amateurish.
Besides, I thought the point of OSS is the flexibility that comes with it? Are these Ubuntu users going to be forced to use it.
It looks (looked) dirty (Score:1)
(http://www.5sigma.com/joseph)
Also, there's the problem that orange, yellow, red, and brown are fast food colors. Don't we computer nerds eat enough already?
Ok, here goes nothing (Score:1)
(http://erroraccessdenied.com/)
http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/s
Backgrounds and splash screens (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://wyoguide.sf.net/)
O. Wyss
No people here's the rejected artwork (Score:1)
I noticed that those textures on the front page are annoyingly vivid stuff that I would never want on a desktop.
But searching through the maze of submissions I found a few that I thought were cooler that what's was in there.
But really, there was a lot of annoying artwork, all better packaged as optional than as default.
As far as I can tell Ubuntu installation disks are currently limited to CD size, not DVD size, so there probably isn't a lot of extra space for alternate art. Given that fact, I think artwork really belongs in a separate package.
I'd rather see features than artwork given the choice. If it were up to me, it would come with a firewall control gui, Wine, Eclipse and Sun Java etc. Though it's not as bad as Linspire in requiring an internet connection to get any features.
I wonder why there isn't a DVD install version for people who won't have access to the internet after install. That would be awfully useful in packaging for countries where fast internet access isn't a given.
I suppose that the licensing is the reason there's no Sun Java, but since Java was just GPL released this week, I hope future versions will have it.
They are in the repositories! (Score:2, Informative)
It's gone, long gone. (Score:1)
(http://www.slashdot.org/)
Fairly amateurish artwork (Score:2)
(http://lindkvis.blogspot.com/)
What IS disappointing about Edgy Eft is that the release was at first intended to be edgy and risky, because they had the Long Term Support release, Dapper Drake, to suggest to anyone wanting something conservative and stable.
In the end the only thing edgy in the release was the new event based startup system which isn't yet that visible for the end-user. People can say what they want about 'Edgy Eft' just being a name, but it was fairly clear from Shuttleworth's early emails that the name wasn't just chosen at random.
Edgy is thus the most (and possibly the only) disappointing Ubuntu release so far. It is not bad, it is just nothing like what was intended.
From Ubuntu Art to Murder and Sex (Score:1)
(http://ossandcad.blogspot.com/)
Community user summarizes all rants (Score:1)
(http://lems.kiskeyix.org/)
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2006
What's with the lame intro music? (Score:1)
(http://ofmi.net/)
Be responsible when asking for volunteer labor (Score:2)
This is similar to seti@home asking for millions of contributors to donate their resources, yet allow from them absolutely no input into the experiment itself. Quite a few people bailed on the project because of a perceived ivory tower attitude. Look, don't touch!
People asking for volunteers should heed Henry V: "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make"
I am a stupid puppet (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://lp.org/)
The sad thing is that most people who read this will now side with the tone set in the summary (that Shuttlesworth is wrong and/or a bad person).
Sometimes I think the folks who edit slashdot get a story and roll the dice to see if they are going to give it a positive or negitave slant, and then monitor their success rate of getting the larger part of the community to agree with them.
I guess Ubuntu's success upset ./ so it is time we turn on them too in keeping with our underdog mentality, but last I checked OSTG no garage based effort either. Maybe it is time for ./ to turn on itself?
Billionaire screws with people - big deal (Score:2)
(