Hi Anton, Of course, I'm glad to share the way I work. It will be lengthy, I must warn you. :-) First of all a disclaimer: excuse me, because re-reading my previous mail I think that my translation of the phrase you are mentioning, wich I'm glad to answer, didn't sound in English as I intended in Spanish. It looks like I can do people "like" my work at will, something any designer knows is impossible. What I wanted to say is that I usually analize what happens to my designs afterwards and try to identify why they have worked or not. Something that I was taught to do in college by my professors. Having some kind of feedback about your work is as important as knowing your audience beforehand. My teachers insisted in this kind of behavior. They always told us that we had some kind of responsibility for the messages we were helping spread, so it was important for us to know if it reached the audience as intended or not. So, as I said, I'm glad to explain why I believe my work was supported by so many people, something that gladly surprised me, but that has a reasonable explanation.
- The first step in creating the Animal series was observing. As you may see in my profile at the Ubuntu forums, I registered some time ago, but I have not posted a lot of messages. I spend a lot of time observing, lurking if you want, before taking part in something, or collaborating in a community. One of the mistakes some designers make at the beggining of a project is being too impulsive about it. I tend to be passionate about my work, so sometimes I restrain from sending something before I have some decent knowledge of the community (or the job at hand) and its dynamics. And specially, before knowing what is expected. Most of the times, this knowledge really helps. I believe the best place to know what the Ubuntu user wants is to have a look at the forums. The "regular" user don't read specific mailing list, or enters specific channels at IRC. They express what they want in forums or blogs. So I read a lot about what people wanted in the forums before sending something. - The second step was getting an idea, something to start with. This was prety easy with Ubuntu. It's african roots are very inspiring. The sense of freedom from the FLOSS movement had to be reflected also. I'm the kind of person that finds inspiration everywhere. So, It was clear at the beginning that it should be african inspired. I also try to isolate myself from trendy design sites around the time I start working on something. Some people like to look those kind of sites for inspiration. I don't need that and feel those sites contaminate my work. But this is just a personal choice. So, my first idea was to look for images that could inspire me. I got to this picture: http://flickr.com/photos/evmurdock/84671834/in/set-1808168/ As a wallpapers it was rather obvious and not very suitable, but it gave me enough inspiration to start with. - The third step was to see previous artwork and try to understund its rules. And also document myself a lot about the subject. It was clear that all the previous artwork had a similar palette. So, sending something in greens or blues was out of the question. I also read the wiki, so, I had enough elements to start playing around. It had to be brown, with a touch of yellows, oranges, etc. "Earthy" was what came to my mind. So, by mere association I came to the idea of the animals. It started with "african", and then "freedom", "plains", "animals", and then, specifically to "lions" and "elephants". I added more animals, to see wich ones gave the best results. I started my search of animal pictures. I found lots. So I tried several approaches. - The fourth step was to apply what I know to the ideas I had. I know that, by Fitts' law, the edges (and specially corners) of the desktop are the most useful places, so because of that people tend to leave icons near the edges (gestaltic associations takes a role, also). It's not a fixed rule, but it helps to start taking decisions. And also peripheral vision helps you distinguish what's not in the center of the eye, so, the edges needs to be darker than the center to offer more contrast and help peripheral vision. I also know that the human eye can distinguish more the contrast than the color (the principle used in JPEG compression algorithm), so a wallpaper with lots of contrast, or with a very clear and contrasted object (like a macro of an object, for example, or even the landscape I used as reference) is not the best approach because it's too distracting. A good picture is something nice to see, but not to have as a background as you try to do your job. It was clear to me that a texture was going to work best. So, so far I had: - African animals (Lions, elephants, giraffes, etc.) - Texture with few distracting elements - Earthy tones - Dark edges So, I started to make the wallpapers. (You can see the proposals at the wiki). -The fifth step was self-criticism When I got something I liked, I used it in my own desktop to see if it really worked. I thought it was pleasing, and no distracting at all, so, it looked good so far. But still I had more concerns. I knew that it was very different to everything I have seen so far in an OS. And it was specially very different from most design trends in other OSs. Ubuntu is a very special distro. It's the brown distro. This is very unusual, so it looked natural to have an unusual wallpaper. But, was it good enough for the most popular Linux distro? Since it satisfied the formal needs, I decided to give it a go. And I thought it looked pretty decent. So I put them in the wiki. -Sixth step was listening to the feedback From then on I just adjusted the wallpapers as the feedback from other designers and users started to reach me. I removed the branding, adjusted the lightness and made some minor corrections until I got to the final designs. I really thought that the Lion wallpaper was going to be the one with more possibilities, since the lion fur is more close to brown, but I was surprised to see that the elephant was the one people liked most (elephants being mostly grey, not brown.) The "secret" of the elephant was given to me by my 3 years old son: even though I erased the most prominents aspects of the photograph (the eye, the ear fold, etc.) he immediatly recognized it as an elephant. The "Lion" was more abstract, less emotional (inspiring I'd say). So, by what people told afterwards at the forums, it was a popular wallpaper not only because I put all my knowledge into it and tried to make it work, but because people thought there was a connection between the wallpaper and Ubuntu (the Ubuntu site stress a lot that it's an african distro), it was a "fair" and not whimsical use of brown, and although it was a texture, the motif was easily recognizable, without being intrussive. And also, I believe a lot of people thought it was original, very different from Windows' or Apple's wallpapers, and that really helped. So, there you have it. I took the time to read what people said at the forums after Gutsy was launched, and that gave me more ideas. But it was too late to use them. If I feel in the mood, I'll probably make a couple more of that series, for people to use with Hardy, but those would not be submitted to the wiki, since the requirements are different now. I also have a couple of ideas that respect the guidelines, but I feel less inspired by the idea of a dark UI. I just don't like dark interfaces and believe that are harder to read than light ones. I try to have my own style, and I'd try to avoid a dark interface for a popular product if it was by me. And I strongly believe that a dark interface for a LTS Ubuntu is a bad idea. But that's only my personal opinion based on my taste. I think everybody will have his/her own opinion on the subject. That's all. If you have further questions I'll be glad to answer. I hope this mails can be of some use to somebody. I always liked to share what I know, that's why I gave Web Design lessons many years ago and write a blog about design (though, not very frequently.) I think that, if you share your knowledge with your colleagues and learn how to take and give a good advice, you're contributing a lot to your profession. Of course, always having respect for others and being courteous. Regards, Demian Anton Kerezov escribió: > Hi all, > > I would like to ask Damian (if it is not too impudently) to tell me > more about the way he creates wallpapers and how are they accepted by > so many people? Any specifics on the elephant wallpaper? > > Thanks -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
