Some thoughts on making Gnome-shell more attractive

[Brian Fleeger <brianfleeger yahoo com>]

Hi,

I recently went back and looked at the first drafts of the Gnome-shell [1], and it struck me how sophisticated it looked compared to the current all black design.  The black looks interesting at first, but does not allow for the same visual depth for widgets as with the gray because it is impossible to represent shadows, gradations, or depth of any kind.  So I started playing with the SVG images from William Jon Mccann's last blog, and made some graphical changes.  Anyway, I think this looks a little more "classy," for what its worth.

Mockup: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2553/4183933978_a0191e1965_o.png

Explanation: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2777/4183171961_ec78dbf65c_b.jpg

Although these pictures also contain some UI modifications that I just wanted to play with, I really want people to keep thinking creatively about the gestalt impression that different colors and shades can create.  Although the gnome-shell design team may be intentionally leaving the overlay black as a blank canvas for individual distributions to fill in (or not, I am not sure), I think it may be a good idea to over-design rather than under-design, to show downstream distributions what is possible and provide a reference. 

Regards,
Brian

[1] http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/WindowManagementAndMore