http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/498/
- Beautiful icons like those in OSX
- Cutting edge, highly readable fonts

I would especially like to see tremendous attention to detail paid to all kinds of small things, such as default icons, etc. Much of this may come in the form of enhancements to the default Gnome/KDE themes.

There is just something incredibly pleasing about the look of OSX, and Ubuntu deserves to look at least as good.

With the right input from top designers, this is possible.

example from duplicate idea 5581 :
http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs22/f/2007/321/2/f/Ubuntu_Theme_Mockup___Light_by_bradwjensen.jpg

[1478 votes] Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #498


[-28 votes] Solution #2: Use Linux Mint's Artwork


]]> en-us Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:19:00 +0000 Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:57:16 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/498/ Fri, 29 Feb 2008 06:59:30 +0000
This just isn't essential when so much work needs to be done fixing core functions.]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:38:31 +0000 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:04:36 +0000
It didn't stop the KDE4 guys' Oxygen project!]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:52:06 +0000 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:33:43 +0000 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:25:06 +0000
Time to time]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:08:05 +0000
A. Ubuntu is falling behind all the other big distros in the quality of its artwork and appearance.

B. People really care about visuals so you cant afford to fall behind.

Just because hardcore Linux geeks don't care about appearance or are geeky enough to know they can change things in a few minutes is no excuse for ignoring visuals. ]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:13:54 +0000 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:10:19 +0000 It was supposed to become some black and orange theme, but I've never seen any screenshots or anything.

Btw. I think some work should be done in Gnome to extensively support SVG, and then ACTUALLY USE IT. I can't stand the lame bitmap graphics, they look horrible if you try to use something like Avant Window Navigator...]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:36:49 +0000
There could be an option with profiles to get the most comfortable GUI (a Windows XP-like, a Mac OS-like or the traditional GUI of Ubuntu, etc.).

I like Royale Noir theme very much (unfortunately is available only for Windows XP). UbuntuStudio theme is nice, but not all the programs looks well with it. :-S]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:06:04 +0000
I know the nerds, I study computer science. They are power users who always find edge cases for software. They don't understand design.

Apparently, design isn't understood by the Ubuntu contributors as well. No pun intended.
Normal users will feel if the design is right. Ubuntu's design isn't that pleasing. To deliver some constructive feedback:

1) Fonts needs to be redone. The width and x-height of the current font are totally out of balance. Fonts must be both crisp and smooth. Look at ClearType in windows xp. Ubuntu doesn't have that level of detail. In vista it is even beter. Font rendering on the Mac is also of high quality. It is extremely important to get this right!

2) Icon design is a craft only some people understand. There are many free icon packs. Although it takes a lot of time to create these, they are in fact useless. I feel sorry about that, but someone needs to say what is wrong. Common pitfalls:
i) icons don't have a coherent style. Choose an angle, stick to a palette and specify design guide lines.
Colors should be vibrant and vivid.
ii) icons are not distinctive
iii) message and form don't coerce.
iiii) Todays icons in Ubuntu are too big.

hat makes professional icons.
3) Use a right color scheme. You can't pick nice colors. Orange as the main color bites you in the face. The high intrinsic brightness puts it selves on the front of the screen. An OS colour should be a supporting colour that can be used on the back. Orange is too active, it is fatiguing. Did you ever wonder why BLUE is so much used by Windows and Apple?

4) Order your visual elements to promote usability. Design forms with good grid systems.

A final advice: ask the real professional designers to supervise the design. Partition the redesign proces and allocate these professionals to the disciplines in which they are experts. To give an example: John Hicks for icon design, Jos Buivenga for icon design etc ;)
Also hire some gays. :P]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:24:22 +0000 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:00:08 +0000 KDE is for the eye candy, if you really need more.]]> Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:17:05 +0000
I've used a CRT and an LCD and I have no idea what people are banging on about when they complain that "fonts aren't crisp".]]> Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:47:10 +0000 I don't mean that one should copy OS X. I don't mean one should make it candy. I do mean however that one needs to do a right design. It isn't right now, every educated designer can tell you.
I feel you think design is making 'flat' things looking fancy.

@christopher_lees
No, I exclude that option because I see the same problem on all screenshots of Ubuntu. It has nothing to do with an incorrect display setup.
The default font is wrong, and the font rendering can't compete with the PC and the Mac.

Seriously, Ubuntu is a great distro. But the technically minded people hinders the widespread adoption because they interferes themselves with design. Please stop doing so.]]> Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:10:16 +0000
Then I start up Gutsy. Oh my oh my what a contrast. My own theory about why 7.10 is called Gutsy Gibbon is because it looks like a gibbon has taken the contents of its guts, and smeared it all over my monitor.

In fairness to Ubuntu, the fonts and icons are really shaping up nicely. The background and colour scheme needs a rethink. Even small things like the windows borders shape don't look right. There's a lot of fine detail that needs working out if it is to be on a par with OS X. It's not so much a question of "fancy", more of "refined aesthetic sensibilities".

I'm not into customising my desktop in a big way, but the default setup is really quite bad. The default decorations are bad, so I switched to Crux. It's nicer, but the default colour is purple. Purple, mind! I downloaded a nice blue pic for my background, and chose a blue for Crux that matched the background. It's much more harmonious.

A thing I'd like to see are "theme packs". I've downloaded things from Gnome Art, and I've always been a bit puzzled by the various "bits" which comprise it. I would like a simple one-click installer, where I get a complete theme with all the trimmings.

Why not commission the guy from DreamLinux to sort out your next theme?]]> Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:04:38 +0000 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:34:47 +0000 Ubuntu evolved to be the most popular distro using brown since the beginning, so I wouldn't say it hasn't succeeded.
It's so easy to change the appearance of the Gnome desktop. Just go to gnome-look and download a theme, then drag it on the appearance panel.
Ubuntu looks DIFFERENT. That's it. Orange isn't better or worse than other colors with the same value and saturation. The palette is warm, transmits peace and tranquillity.
Stop asking for clones. People is talking about Dreamlinux, which has a desktop inspired in Mac.
If you don't like the theme, change it in your installation. You can install a Fisher Price (ehm, Windows XP) theme if you want it. ]]> Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:55:27 +0000 > This is so subjective...
If good versus bad design is really subjective, than it doesn't make sense that you react on this request.

> I'm ok with the default brown look. It has a strong identity weight.
It's recognizable, but that's only a beginning.

> Ubuntu evolved to be the most popular distro using brown since the beginning, so I wouldn't say it hasn't succeeded.

Are you kidding? It's still only in use by technical enthousiasts / nerds. You certainly can't conclude from the fact that the distro is a favorite for the linux folks, that its design is right.

> It's so easy to change the appearance of the Gnome desktop. Just go to gnome-look and download a theme, then drag it on the appearance panel.

You don't understand it. Read above comments. Creating and polishing an OS GUI takes a lot of work from real professionals.

> Ubuntu looks DIFFERENT. That's it. Orange isn't better or worse than other colors with the same value and saturation.

value? You don't understand color theory.

> The palette is warm, transmits peace and tranquillity.
Stop asking for clones. People is talking about Dreamlinux, which has a desktop inspired in Mac.

Warm indeed.
Dreamlinux isn't good either. Look at the screenshots and see the inconsistent gutters. Again no grid. It's only more fresh. To repeat:

WE DONT ASK FOR A CLONE. WE ASK FOR FOR A COMPETING GUI THAT HAS PROFESSIONAL QUALITY.

> If you don't like the theme, change it in your installation. You can install a Fisher Price (ehm, Windows XP) theme if you want it.

Stop kidding. You don't even know what you're talking about.
If you like your crippled GUI, keep it. We want a good design. The devel is in the details, and no theme comes even close to contemporary OS'es.
We know it can be done better.]]> Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:40:42 +0000
We have good themes; we have nodoka, mint, studio. Why aren't they in Ubuntu? Not Made Here? Choice. Just pull them in.

Also, you'd be amazed what you can do with a contest, a t-shirt, and a list of credits. It's worth doing. Looks are important, defaults are important. To be quite frank, Human looks ugly; but I hate orange, red, yellow, and brown, so it /might/ just be me.]]> Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:17:56 +0000
ditch brown, go with brighter colours. orange and or dark grey looks pretty good as long as the orange isn't brownish.]]> Sun, 02 Mar 2008 11:28:13 +0000
If you don't believe that font rendering in Ubuntu is nice, I invite you over to my place to look at it on my correctly-configured 4:3 LCD.]]> Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:14:03 +0000 Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:39:08 +0000
I agree, however, that the design could be improved to look better. Compiz Fusion has generated a lot of enthusiasm for linux because it is eye candy - just look at the number of youtube videos and digg articles about it.

Simply adding a 3D-looking background to the panel by default would add a lot.]]> Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:16:33 +0000
I think he could bring a breath of fresh air into the whole OS.]]> Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:18:14 +0000 ubuntu IS ubuntu ! not mac-win-fedo-drake. Gnome is highly themable so stop crying and go your way.]]> Fri, 21 Mar 2008 06:21:44 +0000
Imitations can't be better.

I do like the idea of improving it though. The current default leaves something to be desired.]]> Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:47:38 +0000 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:12:13 +0000 http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Gentle+Gnome+mockup?content=31128]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 12:43:06 +0000
Apple has proven that. Thats why they hold major conferences on product launches, so that the first thing people get hammered into their heads is "Steve jobs says this is sweet, so it is". Seen it happen a dozen times.

Its why when you install windows, it pops up feature billboards.

And its why when OSX starts up a first time, it has an amazing bootup video which i could show any customer on a 23" screen, and they would be pretty much sold on the spot. That must have cost apple a bucketload of money to design and make (as well as license the music).

And yes, users can install new themes. But, that being said, why not force them to install Xorg or other apps too manually since they can install them too.

Its all because, a user will have already made up 60% of his mind already, on first impressions. If they hounded with stuff they don't like in the first hour, they wont try to get used to it.


I applaud Ubuntu for coming up with a unique theme. Its not easy to do. However, even looking at the brown as the background of ubuntu, how does it actually feel? Somehow, it actually feels depressing or dull. What we really need is something like apple's or vista's scheme that one would associate more "crisp" and "refreshing".]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 13:18:47 +0000 Sat, 31 May 2008 12:51:54 +0000 For example the minimize, maximize, and close windows symbols are replaced with colors. How is a new user able to know which color means which action? Oh well...It sure is pretty.

Ubuntu is more intuitive than a Mac.

Feel free to make ubuntu as pretty as possible...Just don't get in the way of intuitivity. Say that three times fast! :)
]]> Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:07:15 +0000 http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11805/

For me that is still a winner, together with the gentle gnome mockup mentioned earlier.

I think we actually have enough designers, but not enough people who know how to make a mockup into an real working theme.

anybody with a great guide?]]> Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:37:15 +0000
Ubuntu looks nice enough already. There are many many themes to choose from, making it much more configurable than Windows or OS X.

If we want to increase adoption of Ubuntu, our first priorities should be:

1. Hardware compatibility
2. Usability
3. Stability

The real reason people would rather use Windows than Ubuntu is because Ubuntu doesn't run on their hardware, and when it does, it's buggy, obfuscated, and confusing.

Work on the user experience first.
]]> Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:46:28 +0000 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:13:00 +0000
A newbie would not want to try and figure this or that out until they already feel accustomed to the pc.

When it comes to mac and pc apps; they both have applications which the application "gui is more advanced", that is part of where we lose much users. It is another big thing that gives the os a "old" look.

The goal is to keep it incredibly simple but very pleasing to the eye also; many younger consumers are going to go and get used to what looks/feels like candy. They will also most likely keep using what they are used to!

Linux has apps that are widely available.

Linux has: The office suite; Gimp; an audio player and video player; a web browser... All which have no real "identity."

Nothing really 'stands out' it looks like a old package deal.

It feels like a square model car. It almost feels old and classic to certain users and plain old and dull to others.

Many MANY users will use a pc at home for entertainment: chat, music/videos, e-mail, pictures,...

Chat is VERY VERY VERY much used these days; you get someone a super pleasing (visually and usability) chat program and you've already won a bit more users.

The look, the feel; the "awe" !!!!! ]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:57:16 +0000