Re: On colour

[Joakim Ziegler <joakim helixcode com>]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 12:51:44AM +0100, Ulf Pettersson wrote:

> Your proposals include too many too diverse colours.

> This last picture:
> http://www.mindspring.com/~digitect/gnome/colors-stevehall-01.png
> includes about 9 different hues. Some of them are more or less complimentary
> while others are quite close. All in all, they cannot (and do not) match. All
> expression is based on relationsships between differences and similarities and
> if you include colours in a almost random way it is hard to get meaning across
> (unless visual uncertainty/randomness itself is the point).  

> Basically, choose colours in a way that give them a clear relationship; either
> they may be close in hue(i generally don't like that) or they may be
> complimentary (opposite in hue) (i tend to choose color more in that way, most
> other designers seem to as well). The point is that you have to have a some sort
> of 'drama' in your colour selection or it will not be effective. For example, a
> drama is cleary created between reds and greens, but if you also add blues and
> yellows the effect is lost.

> I'd advise you restrict yourselves to two (possibly three) main colors for major
> graphic elements, excluding black and white. If you want more colours, create
> subtle variantions from one or two of the ones you have chosen. If we look at
> the picture above: If you remove the last three columns from the picture
> (yellow, blue, green), I would say you have a good set of colours to work with
> (other combinations are possible). 

There's definitely the possibility of restricting ourselves to fewer colors,
specifically the number of colors used on a single page. I think it would be
good to have a number of colors in an "official palette" to choose from,
though, especially since the site design might call for such things as
color-coding sections.

I can't speak for Steve Hall's proposal, but mine included 5 different hues,
with brightness/saturation variations for each. This is definitely not too
many, given the circumstances above.


> I like the colour-scheme of Gnome. At least compared to the design of most free
> software. Too me the Gnome colour scheme seems a very strong element of the
> Gnome brand and it would be a shame to loose it (without a clearly superior
> alternative). To me it is also obvious that the site should reflect the colours
> of the desktop. Every major non-free, consumer OS uses their desktops visual
> appearance in their branding (MacOS, BeOS and Windows increasingly), and they
> are right about it.

I think this is misguided for several reasons (as I believe I've pointed out
earlier in this thread). First of all, GNOME is a lot more than just a
desktop, and the desktop is what gets the most attention as it is, so it
might be good to try to balance this a bit more. Secondly, a desktop and a
web site are so different media that it would be a bad idea to try to unify
them too much (Apple were only able to unify their web site and desktop after
they turned the desktop into a visual circus of useless chrome, which has
received more or less unanimous bad reviews from usability experts, and I
don't see how Microsoft's site picks up too much of Windows' look at all).


> I dont think the Gnome icons or the Gnome colour-scheme are that great. They are
> a little too murky, too similar in colour and the icons are sometimes somewhat
> poorly rendered. But for free software they are really not bad. I really detest
> the look of KDE. It looks unprofessional, childish and hackerish in a bad
> (non-elegant) sense. Between KDE and Gnome, Gnome _looks_ like a much more
> though-over and professional environment. Largely because of its icons, other
> graphic details and the subtle and consistent colour-scale. 

I agree, the GNOME icon colors work very well for icons (although I think
Tuomas, who is largely responsible for that color scheme in icons, is moving
somewhat brighter colors in his newer work, for instance the icons in
Evolution).


> I'd hate to flame anyone but the current design of the Gnome site (front page)
> does not really suit my taste (or professional opinion). Mostly because it is
> hard to read, too diffucult to understand where to click and has too much
> graphics but also because the colours (bright pink, blue and green) make me
> think of My Little Pony or icecream and are not consistent with the Gnome
> colours. I think the previous site was better (as I remember it) and was
> surprised by the change, which was a step in the opposite direction of most
> website design (where flexibility, utility, useability, download speed and
> design elements well adjusted for the web are gaining ground).

Well, some of this is personal opinion, I won't take issue with that, since
there's little point. Download speed increased with the new design (it's
about 2/3 of the old page size). I'm not sure how exactly you feel usability
and "design elements well adjusted for the web" were hurt by the new design,
although I'll admit that some flexibility from the development perspective
was lost by using graphics for text, etc.

-- 
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/