Re: GNOME colors

[Joakim Ziegler <joakim helixcode com>]

On Sun, Dec 17, 2000 at 02:56:31AM +0500, Ryan Muldoon wrote:
> While I don't have the time to do a color comp at the moment (finals),
> I'd like to put in my thoughts on the web site's color scheme:

> 1. Pastels should go away - They appear nowhere in gnome artwork.  In my
> mind, they are almost the opposite of the general gnome aesthetic
> concept.

I agree about the pastels. However, I think it's dangerous to invoke a "GNOME
aestetic concept", since there's no such concept, in reality, it's mostly a
coincidence, and caused by Tuomas doing a large part of the original icons
and so on. Interestingly, the icons Tuomas has been doing lately (for
instance for Evolution) have less of the brownish, earthy colors.


> 2. Reds, Browns, Yellows, dark green, and greyscale seem to be the most
> used colors in gnome artwork.  I think the website should reflect this.

> 3. I am partial to continuing in the Tigert tradition for artwork - it
> is the distinctive GNOME feel.

> 4. The background-oriented colors should be subdued and earthy (yellow,
> white, grey, light brown), and then use the stronger colors for text
> (black), links (red/rust/maroonish, dark green) and content.

> As I've said before, the helixcode.com website did a good job of
> reflecting the GNOME feel - we should try to do similarly (but not use
> the same look, obviously).  I think it is important to reflect the feel
> of the GUI while we are promoting it.

I agree in principle, although I'm not sure it's necessarily a very healthy
restriction to impose. For instance, the current www.gnome.org site doesn't
follow the GNOME icon color scheme at all, while the old www.gnome.org site
did. I think there's little disagreement that the current site is a vast
improvement over the old one.

Additionally, some of the colors in the GNOME color scheme (especially as
used on the old site) are plain bad, visually. Low-saturation greyish browns
are extremely dreary colors (while reducing the contrast of the entire site,
and thus the readability). There are also different goals for the visual
design of a desktop people are supposed to use for 10 hours a day, every day,
and a website that serves as an information and promotion channel for that
same desktop. Specifically, you have a much shorter time to make and
impression, so being less subdued (in color use, design, etc.) is necessary
to capture the user and build brand recognition.


> While in general primary colors are nice and strong and such, they have
> little to do with the GNOME look and feel.  It's important to consider
> this when we are making the website.  People should be immediately be
> able to tell that it is the GNOME website, and not something else.

Well, I agree that brand recognition is nice. However, as it stands, GNOME
has practically no brand at all, beyond the desktop itself (and modelling a
web site strictly over a desktop is a very bad idea). Rather than assuming
that we should let the look of the desktop dictate the look of the website, I
think it would be reasonable to have a back and forth effect. We're in a
position to break new ground and make the best GNOME site ever. If the choice
stands between a good site that has a strong visual bond to the desktop, and
a great site that breaks some of those conventions, I'll go for the great one
any day.

In short, I'm fine with using the GNOME icon inspired colors, if we can build
a great website on it. But I'm not willing to make it the deciding factor in
what the final site is going to look like. There are other, more important
priorities.

-- 
Joakim Ziegler - Helix Code web monkey - joakim helixcode com - Radagast IRC
      FIX sysop - free software coder - FIDEL & Conglomerate developer
            http://www.avmaria.com/ - http://www.helixcode.com/