Secret Garden Theme

Very much a work in progress. Theme investigating the metaphor of a computer 'coming to life' as it boots - linking i to Plant Forms and simple design. Influenced by the 'Elegant themes' and by wrought iron gates, among other things! Sketches to come, but please feel free to upload your own sketches to /SecretGardenSketches

I don't want to pin too many things down too soon, so among the many things I haven't made any decsions about is the GTK theme - see below.

WORK IN PROGRESS

I am looking at the problem of the contrst between the 'fleshy' ubuntu logo and the wiry plant forms... and want to retain some 'old gate' feeling ...

Usplash

Here is a mock up: Can people comment on feasibility?

Click here to view it

usplash_mockup_secretgarden.swf

GDM

As always, I've made a contact sheet of a few very similar designs. Tell me which is your favourite, why, suggestions for improvements, etc, please!

Who_Secret_Garden_GDM_Contact.jpg

Session Splash

For me, a fullscreen session splash that 'grows' (like the usplash, but further on) from the GDM would be ideal, but I don't know about the technical limitations of such an idea. In the meantime I have made this bodge

This is UGLY! Better things to follow!

Desktop

Ideas? Thoughts? Pictures? Add them!

GTK

Perhaps something based on Elegant Brit http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Elegant+Brit?content=74553 - but with some better scrollbars, a border on the menu and some other tweaks?

A quick list of the things that need work here

• Scrollbars
• buttons not invert on click/mouseover
• Menus have a border
• dark menus = good?

This is a mockup by Rico Sta. Cruz https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incubator/SecretGarden/SecretGardenSketches

Comments

• -- troy-sobotka 2008-08-17 04:33:07 Apparently I am the only one who realizes these are completely loose mocks. *sigh* Let's see...

  • Interesting to see a progression from your SWF to the GDM. The evolution / transition into a seamless experience would obviously be busted thanks to the usplash-flicker-flash-pop-hiss-crackle-gdm real-life transition. I find the idea behind it quite intriguing however, and it would certainly work toward a solid design principle of increasing immersion. Real-world transition from usplash to GDM would, as I would guess, completely break the immersion factor as badly as a nasty edit.
  • Wrought iron needs demo images! I had a plethora of things flash into my head when I read it. Does the direction imply a three-dimensional appearance as most wrought iron does from the shape of the square iron rod, or is it more a flat orthogonal view? Is it a hyper-style that descends from it something along the lines of the interesting wavy curves / Gothic styling in Jamie Caliri's Lemony Snicket tail credits?

CategoryArtwork