From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-24 20:56:08
|
I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most recently, I've been talking with Stephen Horlander who did the Firefox default theme. He made this mockup: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/status_icon_ideas.jpg He's been a bit flakey to work with, so I'm considering going back to Andreas Nilsson, who does most of the Tango icons. He made this mock-up: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/gaim-status-test.png I'm not committed to working with either of these people, so I'd like a vote to see whom we should go with. I'm preferring Andreas. While I wasn't a huge fan of his mock-ups, at first, they're growing on me, and I think it would be easier to work with him, rapidly iterating on different designs than with Stephen, to make sure we get the look we like the best. Also, Andreas will probably be much cheaper. Before I go and tell Stephen I don't want him anymore, and dig Andreas out of the dust, what do you guys think? |
From: Warren T. <wt...@re...> - 2006-08-24 21:00:36
|
Sean Egan wrote: > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most > recently, I've been talking with Stephen Horlander who did the Firefox > default theme. He made this mockup: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/status_icon_ideas.jpg > > He's been a bit flakey to work with, so I'm considering going back to > Andreas Nilsson, who does most of the Tango icons. He made this > mock-up: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/gaim-status-test.png > > I'm not committed to working with either of these people, so I'd like > a vote to see whom we should go with. I'm preferring Andreas. While I > wasn't a huge fan of his mock-ups, at first, they're growing on me, > and I think it would be easier to work with him, rapidly iterating on > different designs than with Stephen, to make sure we get the look we > like the best. Also, Andreas will probably be much cheaper. > > Before I go and tell Stephen I don't want him anymore, and dig Andreas > out of the dust, what do you guys think? > Neither mock-ups seem impressive to me, but flaky is especially bad. So my feeling is to go with Andreas. Warren |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-24 21:14:29
|
On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 05:00:27PM -0400, Warren Togami wrote: > Sean Egan wrote: > > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most > > recently, I've been talking with Stephen Horlander who did the Firefox > > default theme. He made this mockup: > > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/status_icon_ideas.jpg I still really dislike colored dots to display status. and flaky is very bad. luke |
From: Robert F. <rf...@so...> - 2006-08-24 21:27:20
|
Again, I'll say flakey is bad. I feel that the ones Stephen did might be purple overload. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Egan" <sea...@gm...> To: <gai...@li...> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 4:56 PM Subject: [Gaim-cabal] Artists > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most > recently, I've been talking with Stephen Horlander who did the Firefox > default theme. He made this mockup: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/status_icon_ideas.jpg > > He's been a bit flakey to work with, so I'm considering going back to > Andreas Nilsson, who does most of the Tango icons. He made this > mock-up: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/gaim-status-test.png > > I'm not committed to working with either of these people, so I'd like > a vote to see whom we should go with. I'm preferring Andreas. While I > wasn't a huge fan of his mock-ups, at first, they're growing on me, > and I think it would be easier to work with him, rapidly iterating on > different designs than with Stephen, to make sure we get the look we > like the best. Also, Andreas will probably be much cheaper. > > Before I go and tell Stephen I don't want him anymore, and dig Andreas > out of the dust, what do you guys think? > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job > easier > Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Gaim-cabal mailing list > Gai...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gaim-cabal > |
From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2006-08-24 22:02:37
|
On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 13:56:05 -0700, Sean Egan wrote > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. > Most recently, I've been talking with Stephen Horlander who did the Firefox > default theme. He made this mockup: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/status_icon_ideas.jpg > > He's been a bit flakey to work with, so I'm considering going back to > Andreas Nilsson, who does most of the Tango icons. He made this > mock-up: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/gaim-status-test.png Doesn't matter to me. I like the purpleness of the first one, and the wavy arm man. The second one looks WAY to corporate to me. I know we've been moving toward making Gaim feel more professional, but I think IM clients are pretty personal, and Gaim will stand out more if it's a bit more bold (like the purple wavy arm man) and a bit less boring ...no offense to either artist. I'm sure the Tango guy could whip up something that is bold, pretty and friendly, but also has some character. -Mark |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-24 23:23:05
|
On 8/24/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: > I know we've been > moving toward making Gaim feel more professional Professional? Who said that? I hate "professionalism" -s. |
From: Nathan W. <fac...@fa...> - 2006-08-25 03:40:54
|
Sean Egan wrote: > On 8/24/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: > >> I know we've been >> moving toward making Gaim feel more professional >> > > Professional? Who said that? I hate "professionalism" > Well, I like professional, considering I mostly use Gaim in a professional setting. Maybe it is time we actually implemented the icon themes we planned from the beginning? -Nathan |
From: Etan R. <de...@ed...> - 2006-08-25 05:15:35
|
On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Nathan Walp wrote: > Sean Egan wrote: >> On 8/24/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: >> >>> I know we've been >>> moving toward making Gaim feel more professional >>> >> >> Professional? Who said that? I hate "professionalism" >> > > Well, I like professional, considering I mostly use Gaim in a > professional setting. > > Maybe it is time we actually implemented the icon themes we planned from > the beginning? > > -Nathan We should currently be able to theme many of the gaim icons, seeing as how we use stock items for them. If we worked on stockifying the rest of the icons (assuming that is possible and/or useful) we could get the rest of them themable the same way. Note: I have no idea how simple/easy it is to do this, in my short attempts this evening I was unable to come up with anything, gtk always yelled about not being able to find my icons in the pixmap search path, which I couldn't discover the identity of or find ways to add to, but I'm sure that can be worked around if someone knows how. -Etan |
From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2006-08-24 23:33:20
|
On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:22:57 -0700, Sean Egan wrote > On 8/24/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: > > I know we've been > > moving toward making Gaim feel more professional > > Professional? Who said that? I hate "professionalism" > > -s. I don't know, but we DID take out the word "pimpin'" from some of the docs :-) -Mark |
From: Megan S. <ca...@gm...> - 2006-08-25 00:41:20
|
Of those two, I like Andreas more. Um..I also know several professional artists (ie Brian Stelfreeze of http://www.gaijinstudios.com/, among others). Brian's done logo design before and has a ton of experience; he's busy but good to deal with, and he's fast. On tentative (read: stated unofficial) questioning, he is interested. Cae/Megan On 8/24/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: > On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:22:57 -0700, Sean Egan wrote > > On 8/24/06, Mark Doliner <ma...@ki...> wrote: > > > I know we've been > > > moving toward making Gaim feel more professional > > > > Professional? Who said that? I hate "professionalism" > > > > -s. > > I don't know, but we DID take out the word "pimpin'" from some of the docs :-) > > -Mark > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier > Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Gaim-cabal mailing list > Gai...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gaim-cabal > |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-25 01:22:26
|
More reference. This is actually the reason I passed on Andreas to begin with: ;) Andreas: http://gaim.sf.net/sean/gaimlogo1.png http://gaim.sf.net/sean/gaimlogo2.png Stephen http://gaim.sf.net/sean/purple_about.jpg Megan: A comic book artist could be interesting. And certainly not "corporate" as Mark was worried. I'm a bit uncertain he has the right _kind_ of experience. Toolbar icons and http://www.gaijinstudios.com/resources/gal/fs/2005418011802435.jpg are quite different things. But I'd be interested to see what he came up with. Feel free to ask him to come up with mocks like these two (a buddy list and a purple pigeon logo), and CC me on it. Let him know about the whole purple thing. -s. |
From: Megan S. <ca...@gm...> - 2006-08-25 01:35:34
|
LOL..trust me, he's done a lot more than that. *chuckle* Laci is amusing though. Cae/Megan On 8/24/06, Sean Egan <sea...@gm...> wrote: > More reference. This is actually the reason I passed on Andreas to > begin with: ;) > Andreas: > http://gaim.sf.net/sean/gaimlogo1.png > http://gaim.sf.net/sean/gaimlogo2.png > > Stephen > http://gaim.sf.net/sean/purple_about.jpg > > Megan: A comic book artist could be interesting. And certainly not > "corporate" as Mark was worried. I'm a bit uncertain he has the right > _kind_ of experience. Toolbar icons and > http://www.gaijinstudios.com/resources/gal/fs/2005418011802435.jpg are > quite different things. But I'd be interested to see what he came up > with. Feel free to ask him to come up with mocks like these two (a > buddy list and a purple pigeon logo), and CC me on it. Let him know > about the whole purple thing. > > -s. > |
From: Etan R. <de...@ed...> - 2006-08-25 04:00:10
|
Flakey is definitely bad, and while I think the wavy purple man is really good, I still don't like colored icons for status. The other mock up doesn't do anything for me at all (as it is), though I do like the general idea so it might have promise. -Etan P.S. Whether we end up using it or not could we get a good svg image of the wavy purple dude to keep around? I just think it's a neat image. |
From: Tim R. <om...@ho...> - 2006-08-25 12:37:02
|
Etan Reisner wrote: > We should currently be able to theme many of the gaim icons, seeing as > how we use stock items for them. If we worked on stockifying the rest of > the icons (assuming that is possible and/or useful) we could get the > rest of them themable the same way. Note: I have no idea how simple/easy > it is to do this, in my short attempts this evening I was unable to come > up with anything, gtk always yelled about not being able to find my > icons in the pixmap search path, which I couldn't discover the identity > of or find ways to add to, but I'm sure that can be worked around if > someone knows how. While I'm not as familiar with the stock system as I could be, I have the general feeling that implementing our own system would be better/more-appropriate for this. --Tim |
From: Etan R. <de...@ed...> - 2006-08-25 16:59:49
|
On Fri, 25 Aug 2006, Tim Ringenbach wrote: > Etan Reisner wrote: >> We should currently be able to theme many of the gaim icons, seeing as how >> we use stock items for them. If we worked on stockifying the rest of the >> icons (assuming that is possible and/or useful) we could get the rest of >> them themable the same way. Note: I have no idea how simple/easy it is to >> do this, in my short attempts this evening I was unable to come up with >> anything, gtk always yelled about not being able to find my icons in the >> pixmap search path, which I couldn't discover the identity of or find ways >> to add to, but I'm sure that can be worked around if someone knows how. > > While I'm not as familiar with the stock system as I could be, I have the > general feeling that implementing our own system would be > better/more-appropriate for this. > > --Tim What makes you say that? A not insignificant amount of work has been done recently towards letting gaim not need custom options for settings when we can let gtk+ do it for us (namely in all the keybinding stuff for menus/toolbars/imhtml formatting), so I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to do that here. I realize that gtk theming is complicated, but if we were able to determine how this should work, we could easily ship a couple (well documented) examples which should be more than enough for most people to follow. But again, I don't know very much about the stock system so this could easily be an abuse of it. -Etan |
From: Tim R. <om...@ho...> - 2006-08-25 12:54:22
|
Sean Egan wrote: > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most Remind me again why we're getting new artwork. How much of this is legal and how much is just we want new art work? Maybe I'm alone in this, but I always liked the way the prpl icons actually looked like the prpls they represented. It's interesting the way purple comes in all shapes and colors ;) What do the different shapes and colors represent in Stephen's thing? Also, what did you tell each of these people? I noticed there's no prpl in Stephen's, is that because he ignored you or because you didn't mention that? Stephen's also has the idle times in place of buddy icons like the small list. I like the big list better. I fear that seeing the list type I prefer might bias me in some way, where I might like the other one better if it was in my preferred list type. As for as flakey goes, it's too vague a description for me to have strong feelings about.. What exactly are we going for here? Will there still be different prpl icons, or just Pidgin Dude icons? (In either case, Should the Pidgin Dude be a bird [actual, or Bugs Bunny style]?) Both artist seem to depart from how we currently do things, but in different ways. Are emblems gone, or staying, or representing new things? Stephen's seems like it replaced emblems with different icons. It seems more like you're letting the artist decide things that seems more like design decisions on our part (and require code changes). Anyway, the main point of this email is to spur discussion about what we actually want, and to figure out how that effects the artist choice. --Tim |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-25 18:05:45
|
On 8/25/06, Tim Ringenbach <om...@ho...> wrote: > Remind me again why we're getting new artwork. How much of this is legal > and how much is just we want new art work? 80 want / 20 legal? > Maybe I'm alone in this, but I always liked the way the prpl icons > actually looked like the prpls they represented. It's interesting the > way purple comes in all shapes and colors ;) This isn't something we're likely to change. They should still all look like the appropriate logo, but they'll be a more consistent look to all of them. > What do the different shapes and colors represent in Stephen's thing? > Also, what did you tell each of these people? I noticed there's no prpl > in Stephen's, is that because he ignored you or because you didn't > mention that? I didn't tell them anything other than "mockup a screenshot." While I'm open to any UI suggestions they make (hence the oh-so-loved rules hint in the blist), they're just being hired to draw pretty pictures. > What exactly are we going for here? Will there still be different prpl > icons, or just Pidgin Dude icons? (In either case, Should the Pidgin > Dude be a bird [actual, or Bugs Bunny style]?) > Both artist seem to depart from how we currently do things, but in > different ways. Are emblems gone, or staying, or representing new > things? Stephen's seems like it replaced emblems with different icons. I kinda dig the emblems-to-the-right thing, actually, but that's another discussion. This is just about pretty pictures. > It seems more like you're letting the artist decide things that seems > more like design decisions on our part (and require code changes). I'm not. I just asked them to make mockups to get a feel for their style. The only decisions they're making is what the icons should look like, and that has to meet our approval anyway. -s. |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-25 13:16:36
|
On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 07:53:22AM -0500, Tim Ringenbach wrote: > Sean Egan wrote: > > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most > > Remind me again why we're getting new artwork. How much of this is legal > and how much is just we want new art work? A number of our graphics have questionable copyright status. That is, some of them we can say (were we to look through the commit history, and track people down and such) this person drew this picture, so even though it looks like a real one, it is ours. For others, we can be pretty sure though that the submitter just grabbed them from a webpage out there. This is particularly true of our smileys. We'd like to avoid any future trouble over artwork. We also need at least some new artwork. With a new name comes the need for a new logo for example. > > Maybe I'm alone in this, but I always liked the way the prpl icons > actually looked like the prpls they represented. It's interesting the > way purple comes in all shapes and colors ;) I agree. There should be some visual relationship between the prpl icon and the prpl. > > What do the different shapes and colors represent in Stephen's thing? > Also, what did you tell each of these people? I noticed there's no prpl > in Stephen's, is that because he ignored you or because you didn't > mention that? > > Stephen's also has the idle times in place of buddy icons like the small > list. I like the big list better. I fear that seeing the list type I > prefer might bias me in some way, where I might like the other one > better if it was in my preferred list type. > I do not think we want to replace the prpl icon + overlays with a status icon. My instinct in looking at Stephen's is that this is what he has done. luke |
From: Megan S. <ca...@gm...> - 2006-08-25 15:29:45
|
Do we have a list of everything we hate/love/need/want, anyway? ie, we need logo, status icons/prpl+overlay, etc, etc. Love seeing status & relationship between prpl icon and prpl, hate little round buttons to show status on the icon, and so on? Need purple and whatnot.. In other words, do we know what the heck *we* want? Megan On 8/25/06, Luke Schierer <lsc...@us...> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 07:53:22AM -0500, Tim Ringenbach wrote: > > Sean Egan wrote: > > > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most > > > > Remind me again why we're getting new artwork. How much of this is legal > > and how much is just we want new art work? > > A number of our graphics have questionable copyright status. That > is, some of them we can say (were we to look through the commit > history, and track people down and such) this person drew this > picture, so even though it looks like a real one, it is ours. For > others, we can be pretty sure though that the submitter just grabbed > them from a webpage out there. This is particularly true of our > smileys. We'd like to avoid any future trouble over artwork. > > We also need at least some new artwork. With a new name comes the > need for a new logo for example. > > > > > Maybe I'm alone in this, but I always liked the way the prpl icons > > actually looked like the prpls they represented. It's interesting the > > way purple comes in all shapes and colors ;) > > I agree. There should be some visual relationship between the prpl > icon and the prpl. > > > > > What do the different shapes and colors represent in Stephen's thing? > > Also, what did you tell each of these people? I noticed there's no prpl > > in Stephen's, is that because he ignored you or because you didn't > > mention that? > > > > Stephen's also has the idle times in place of buddy icons like the small > > list. I like the big list better. I fear that seeing the list type I > > prefer might bias me in some way, where I might like the other one > > better if it was in my preferred list type. > > > > I do not think we want to replace the prpl icon + overlays with a > status icon. My instinct in looking at Stephen's is that this is > what he has done. > > luke > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier > Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Gaim-cabal mailing list > Gai...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gaim-cabal > |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2006-08-25 18:13:40
|
On 8/25/06, Megan Schneider <ca...@gm...> wrote: > Do we have a list of everything we hate/love/need/want, anyway? ie, we > need logo, status icons/prpl+overlay, etc, etc. Love seeing status & > relationship between prpl icon and prpl, hate little round buttons to > show status on the icon, and so on? Need purple and whatnot.. > In other words, do we know what the heck *we* want? I pretty much want to redo everything in pixmaps/ to have a single consistent style, rather than being fairly obvious it was pieced together by a dozen different people over 8 years. The actual icons for most of these wouldn't change much---smileys for instance still need to represent what the official clients represent them as, but I'm open to more significant changes. |
From: Richard L. <rl...@wi...> - 2006-08-26 04:38:22
|
I've expressed at least some of this before, but... I see this effort as having a couple benefits, aside from being free of copyright/trademark problems. First, I'd love to see a smiley theme where a :) looks the same across all protocols, a ;) is the same, an icon of "money" is the same, etc. We should have one icon for each idea. I'm a big believer in the value of abstracting protocol differences. Second, we can come up with something that is uniquely "Pidgin", as opposed to near-direct (or direct) rip-offs of the official clients. This should help our general image... Pidgin will look nice & polished. Richard |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2006-08-26 11:33:54
|
On Fri, Aug 25, 2006 at 11:38:08PM -0500, Richard Laager wrote: > I've expressed at least some of this before, but... I see this effort as > having a couple benefits, aside from being free of copyright/trademark > problems. > > First, I'd love to see a smiley theme where a :) looks the same across > all protocols, a ;) is the same, an icon of "money" is the same, etc. We > should have one icon for each idea. I'm a big believer in the value of > abstracting protocol differences. > > Second, we can come up with something that is uniquely "Pidgin", as > opposed to near-direct (or direct) rip-offs of the official clients. > This should help our general image... Pidgin will look nice & polished. > > Richard > I find this argument persuasive, even for the smileys, where I would normally suggest we stay closer to each protocol. This could help people understand that pidgin is not AIM, or MSN, and that their defaults and behaviors do not create a requirement that we do the same. It could also help pidgin _feel_ more like a multi-protocol multi-connection client, much the same way that our state changes have helped in that respect. luke |
From: Ethan B. <ebl...@cs...> - 2006-08-27 00:10:11
|
Sorry this is coming so late, I was at Gaim Developers' Conference 2006 and didn't have access to email. Sean didn't tell me we were supposed to discuss this at the conference. Sean Egan spake unto us the following wisdom: > I've been talking with primarily two artists for the new artwork. Most > recently, I've been talking with Stephen Horlander who did the Firefox > default theme. He made this mockup: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/status_icon_ideas.jpg >=20 > He's been a bit flakey to work with, so I'm considering going back to > Andreas Nilsson, who does most of the Tango icons. He made this > mock-up: > http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/gaim-status-test.png Honestly, I don't like either of these _at all_. The purple wavy dude is OK, but everything else about both of these does nothing for me. None of the little colored dots tell me anything in the first logo (What is a red dot? Is red offline? Blocked? Away? I assume green is available?), and the phone icon isn't perceptible superior to the one we have now. In the second set of icons, what are triangle, square, and circle? Are circles good? Abstraction in interfaces can be a beautiful thing, but we're looking pretty far afield for these particular abstractions. I suggest we ask some artists to come up with some designs with an emphasis on conveying meaning, as well as on being pretty to look at. Ethan --=20 The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy for evils]. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 |
From: Mark D. <ma...@ki...> - 2006-08-27 03:08:36
|
I get the feeling most of us like how our UI behaves, we just want some new artwork/logo/icons. That's pretty much how I feel, anyway. I mean, I am of course open to suggestions on how to improve stuff, but our UI is the way it is because of a few years of evolution, and it may not be easy to improve on that (aside from more unified icons). -Mark |