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List: kde-artists
Subject: Black shaft
From: Rik Hemsley <rik () rikkus ! demon ! co ! uk>
Date: 1999-09-07 22:34:54
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Hi folks.
Well, Torsten's gone away and passed me the big black shaft for the next
three months.
Could you all do me a favour and send me a brief mail summarising what work
you're currently doing (if any) or have on your todo list ? That would
help me out a lot as I'm not sure what everyone's up to. It will also help
me form a better plan of what should be done in the near future.
(If you're not doing anything but want to help out, please mail me anyway)
Here's a list of things which I think need doing before K2.
1) Icons.
Everyone's probably pretty sick of drawing at 44x44, but we're
going to have to get them into shape for K2. There's been plenty of
discussion about lack of conformity to the 'style' - this is my main concern.
We're going to have to be ruthless - kick out icons that don't fit the
common style and redraw them. Ouch.
2) Backgrounds.
There's been this lovely thread on kde-devel. If you missed
it you've probably been in a nuclear bunker with ear defenders on. I'm not
concerned with getting into that particular discussion. What I would like
is some discussion, some suggestions and some examples of what should be
in K2.
IMO, the backgrounds currently shipping are foul. Sorry, that's just my
opinion and you may disagree. Let's see what the consensus is.
I think they're garish, loud, head-fscks - in general. Some, like that
one I daren't mention, are actually pretty good in that they're kind on
the eyes.
I propose that for K2 we create an entirely new set of _original_
backgrounds. No, I'm not suggesting we all go out with digital cameras
and employ maths professors to work out how to tile our montage of
the seven wonders of the world. Take a look at the background that's used
in the (now black market) DrawingBoard theme if you want an idea of what
I think would be suitable.
I suggest the following:
* Half a dozen 'corporate-friendly' backgrounds. This means clean, with
low contrast, and practically monotone (that means pastel shades are
ok, not that they should be grey). See the MacOS backgrounds that
come with the E/KDE MacOS themes, plus DrawingBoard's stuff for what I
think fits these criteria.
* A couple of 'kiddie' backgrounds.
Suggestions:
- A (scaled to screen size) dolls' house. This would go down a storm
with certain youngsters.
- Some characters from a popular children's story/TV programme.
Using teletubbies wouldn't be a good plan. I think their lawyers would
be tearing at our throats within seconds. Something from a fairy tale
would be great. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ? (is that legal ?)
* Half a dozen original, exciting backgrounds. As an example, the
tile of vegetables that's currently in K1 is superb.
* One or two 'kewl' backgrounds. The sort you get with E. This has to
be done to please the kids in black t-shirts ;)
Wheels, skulls, motorbike parts, explosions, whatever. You know the sort.
3) Themes.
I think the same sort of allocation as with the backgrounds should apply.
Corporate-friendly themes
=========================
* BeOS-ish
- pale, curvy, extremely legible (no pixmaps)
* MacOS-ish
- curvy, using a font like chicago or virtue
* KDE-original
- Motif-like
Kiddie themes
=============
* Toytown
- primary colours (ouch), curvy, large fonts
* ???
Fun themes
==========
* Drawer-at-the-bottom-of-the-fridge-where-the-veg-goes-to-die
- cabbage green, pixmap backgrounds with the texture of celery,
something mad like that :)
* Rainy-day (a la Hendrix)
- blue-ish, straight edges, shading, raindrops, etc.
'kewl' themes
=============
* Exploding-black-star-on-the-edge-of-doom
- black holes and stuff ;) You know the sort.
4) Screensavers.
KDE doesn't have any original screensavers (or does it ?)
We need some ! Actually, I think we need only one - one that actually
has something to do with KDE.
If anyone has the technical skills to make a raytraced KDE cog bounce
around the screen, please, do it !
We need to install a screensaver as the default with KDE2 that shows that
the user is running KDE. It needs to be subtle and cool enough that it
gets left on their screen. Why ? When you see a computer on TV, what do you
see ? The screensaver. Little fscking flying windows jerking across the
screen, usually with an error dialog in front, or of course just a BSOD :)
I want to watch the news in 2000 and see a KDE screensaver across the room
on someone's machine. Anyone else agree ?
Oh, no animations of Konqui the dragon flaming little terrified Gnomes please.
Well, that's enough. I've probably triggered a mass exodus from the team
because I've talked about work. S'pose I should go do some.
Cheers,
Rik
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