Artwork/F8Themes

Fedora 8 Theme Concept Submissions

We are following a 3 round process for the base theme artwork:

• Round 1: Brainstorm and gather a list of potential concepts for a theme. Deadline: Wednesday 11 July 2007 Any ideas that don't have a formal proposal on the mailing list + a proposal page linked on this page will be out of the running on this day.
  • One theme didn't make the deadline: Fedora Fire Work proposed by JiriJakubMasek
• Round 2: Visually refine the concepts gathered in round 1. You vote for your favorite(s) with your time and effort. Deadline: Monday 6 August Any ideas that don't have fully fleshed-out and polished artwork, at least 1 wallpaper and let's say 3 supporting graphics, will be out of the running at this point. Themes eliminated after this round for not meeting the requirements are: Fedora Moon proposed by MolaPahnadayan, Fedora Thunder proposed by MolaPahnadayan, Fedora Feng Shui proposed by JohnBaer, Fedora Floating Cubes proposed by MartinSourada ([1] )
• Round 3: Out of the themes that are left (if a single one doesn't emerge as the most evolved at this point), disuss and determine which would be best. If still undecided, continue evolving the themes that are left visually while developing a full suite of artwork ([2] has a pretty comprehensive list. If a single one still doesn't emerge, continue to discuss and try to single one out. Deadline: F8 Test 2 or Test 3 (20 August 2007) Any ideas that don't have fully-polished and implemented versions of the following will be out of the running: wallpaper, gdm theme, bootup artwork (whether it's the new system or RHGB graphics and grub screen), installer artwork (splash, banner, and 15-color anaconda graphic), firstboot artwork (splash, banner)

All initial theme idea submissions are due by 11 July 2007 to fedora-art-list .

List of Submissions

These are the themes we're working towards for round 3!

• Fedora Infinity proposed by MairinDuffy ( [3] )
• Abstract Theme proposed by BenArnold

Additional Milestones

Once we have decided on the theme to go with, we'll also need artwork based on that theme for a number of other things:

• Milestone 4: 26 August 2007 - come up with a nice default firefox page with the documentation team.
• Milestone 5: Mon 10 Sept - concept discussion for F8 marketing materials on the marketing list. Come up with a standard tagline for the release the way we did "Reach higher" for the new static FPO website,

and maybe some promo banner ideas as well.

• Milestone 6: Mon 24 Sept - finalize artwork/design for F8 DVD/CD labels and sleeves. At least a professional-printer (eg screenprinting) ready version of each needs to be made of the labels - 3 or 4 colors at most. An additional set with more colors / more complex design could also be prepared for home users with inkjet printers.
• Milestone 7: Mon 5 October - prepare a 'promo kit' for the release. This would be aimed towards Fedora ambassadors and other folks wanting to promote Fedora 8 at conferences/shows/gatherings during launch time. Include some standard screenshots folks can use, some printer-quality artwork (sources for the theme work would be great), and a link to the logo fedoraproject org site, all gathered in one page on the wiki for easy access. I've noticed we've gotten a lot of inquiries about these materials for F8 and were not prepared. Another idea for the kit: PDF informational sheet about the release with preliminary release notes (or information about the most compelling features being introduced in the release) and a couple screenshots.
• Milestone 8: Mon 15 October - finalize fedoraproject.org promotional materials. Probably will consist of: (1) F8 tour with screenshots, (2) big promo banner for the front page of the site at launch time. (3) small promo banner for related webpages. Work with the websites and infrastructure teams to get a staging site set up and ready to go for the final release date.

How to Play

Here are the steps to submit an F8 theme submission:

Come up with an awesome concept for the Fedora 8 artwork.

For inspiration, consider the goals and themes of Fedora as an operating system - infinity, freedom, and voice are the main concepts expressed in the Fedora logo, for example. You can find some more inspiration in this article on the differences between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora . A key phrase from that article: "Fedora fosters rapid open source development and innovation."

Here's an important guideline for the theme concepts: No release numbers! So keep this in mind as well as you brainstorm ideas.

Create a wiki page for your theme

You'll need:

• a name for your theme
• some intial sketches
• a write-up/explanation of the concept
• wiki access (sign the Fedora CLA! )

The name doesn't have to be perfect, and you can always change it later. But we need to refer to your theme by something. You don't need spend too much time on your sketches; we'll focus on the concept first and then worry about the rendering! Also, for you non-artists out there - you may also submit artwork folks other than yourself have made for consideration, if you get their permission and the artwork is openly-licensed (if you are not sure please check!) and they are willing to sign the Fedora CLA .

Write this all up in a page right here on the wiki, and add it to the "List of Submissions" section below. Please do not ask a friend to upload it for you - you must sign the Fedora CLA before we can accept your artwork for potential inclusion in Fedora.

The wiki page's name should be in the format: F8ThemeProposalNameOfTheme. For example, "F8FlyingHighReloaded"

Formally propose your theme submission on fedora-art-list

When your theme's wiki page is ready, send a proposal to fedora-art-list using the following email subject format:

[F8 theme proposal] (name of theme) Round 1

For example: "[F8 theme proposal] Fedora FlyingHighReloaded Round 1"

What Should A Theme Concept Be About?

For inspiration, consider the goals and themes of Fedora as an operating system - infinity, freedom, and voice are the main concepts expressed in the Fedora logo, for example. You can find some more inspiration in this article on the differences between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora . A key phrase from that article: "Fedora fosters rapid open source development and innovation."

Here's an important guideline for the theme concepts: No release numbers! So keep this in mind as well as you brainstorm ideas.

Participate in F8 Theme Development

Let's view this as more of a photoshop tennis exercise - a theme shouldn't be any one person's baby, it's a team effort. So remix away! Choose one or more of the theme concepts you like below and start experimenting with them - try to refine how the theme visually expresses its concept, play around with different ways of rendering the artwork, try different colors or styles - basically evolve whichever themes you feel are a good fit for F8.

There is no formal voting process for themes right now. You vote with your time and effort! So if you really like a theme idea, chip in and help refine it! For our next round (round 3), we'll take stock of how the themes have evolved and try to figure out which ones we need to choose between if there is no clear standout candidate.

Here's the guidelines for critiquing themes and providing feedback:

• Be very specific with your feedback. "I like it" is not acceptable. "I really like how it makes the use of the Fedora blue color, it's bright and conveys a positive feeling" is much better.
• For the 2nd round of critiques, do feel free to focus on the rendering. Statements like "it's not polished" are too vague and won't help us polish it. Be specific: "It doesn't seem polished to me because the shape in the upper right is clipped off, and the color palette isn't consistent."
• Each critique must include at least one sketch/mockup modification, or a link/reference to another piece of work to help you explain your critique. Visual feedback is important!

Fedora 8 Icon Review

[[[Artwork/F8Themes/IconReview Fedora 8 Icon Review]] - seeing what we can do to polish the F8 icons further.