Re: [libreoffice-design] They need graphic material, WE NEED A MOTIF!

Hi Nik,

thanks for your - so to say - encouraging mail. But at the same time I'm
sorry that I wasn't able to through the whole thread - so please bear
with me. It was an incredibly exhausting week ... so my point-of-view
might be a bit unusual (in comparison to what I've currently comment
on). Funding website stuff, private mails, funding request letters,
publisher banners, review by the local teams - all these things consume
a lot of time.

So, basically I agree with most of your points. I also noticed that our
branding changed a bit ... or maybe it's better to say, that we see some
development. From the initial visual style (simple gradients, single
triangles, triangle patters, ... the plain TDF logo), we gradually
incorporated Paulo's style. Personally I think, we gained a lot with the
added details.

So, let's state that there is something - and most of the stuff is still
documented at: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Branding

So what is the problem at the moment? The material that gets created
varies ... everyone in the community (you mentioned the CDs, banners,
leaflets) adds his own personal style / interpretation. It's hard to
take care of that, even for the "reference material" (a.k.a. what we can
create for the others) it's hard to keep track.

Why? Because - looking at the requests during the last weeks - many of
the requests are still unanswered. Many of us are busy - you, Ivan,
Bernhard to just name a few people who have a higher workload at the
moment (independent from LibreOffice). So even if we decide on a common
motif, it's likely that we are not able to incorporate it. Thus, the
community takes care ... and is less strict with regard to the visual
quality (in terms of design language).

Same goes for the development - the open point "Collecting Easy Hacks"
is already some months old, but I'm totally unable to work on that - and
earlier requests didn't attract others *g*. This is also something that
needs to be done to start some cooperation with the devs ... Not to
mention the website that needs some love as well.

So my question is: If we can take care of such decisions within the next
days, I'm totally happy. But on the other hand, we really have to move
on and show that we are productive ... now. I'm surely not exaggerating
if I say "urgent" concerning the funding elements means we've "missed
some deadlines" already.

Otherwise, the remaining community will take care (which is good), but
will apply a different style (which is less good). Example: If we look
at the funding website (challenge.libo.org), then there is still a
preliminary banner showing 44% progress. Would this be even better, if
we would have applied a style that is based on what we already have in
place? I assume we are not even close to create (just as an example) an
improved banner for the page.

So I still wonder whether an improved "motif" helps, or a more focused
work on the open items - even if it results in slight variation of the
outcome. (I know, it is an "chicken-and-egg problem" - if we know how to
do things, they can be achieved much faster, but we have to achieve some
things now...).

My personal take would be to invest 50% of the available time to work
on / improve the open issues. The remaining time, my very personal
opinion, are spend wisely by working on the motif improvements. But, we
need somebody who can guide / manages this effort ... is this something
you might want to do (I totally trust you). Of course, all the others
should join here. But if we lack somebody who can invest the time here
(collecting opinions, maybe documenting them, ...), then I think the
time is not ripe yet.

By the way, maybe I missed that, how does this relate (to you) to the
community branding we've talked about earlier?


Am Sonntag, den 20.02.2011, 01:40 +1100 schrieb Nik:
> I would really appreciate if some of the Design leadership (Bernhard, 
> Christoph, Ivan) commented on whether they thought this plan is 
> feasible. Or updated it with times that are more appropriate. 

Hehe, nice to read the term "leadership" - but I don't know whether this
is really appropriate. Maybe some experience when working in the
community and with devs. So without thinking about the given times, I've
shared my current perception of the situation.

Good night ... waaah ... again less than 5 hours sleep to go; even
during the weekend :-)

Cheers,
Christoph


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