[libreoffice-design] Re: 4.0 Branding and Out of Scope Designs

> Well, the simple shapes and colors were what we called for -- it's a 
> characteristic of Swiss design. We chose to go with Swiss style, as it 
> represents simplicity and celebrates typography. 
> The choice of colors is greatly restricted by the guidelines [1], so we 
> can't blame Mateus for that either. (BTW, his previous proposal [2] 
> proposed different colors.) 
>
> Alex's designs don't actually follow these guidelines, and the designs will 
> have to be changed if we want to consider them (as we've posted on the ml, 
> g+, and fb). 

Mirek, we already talked about this on IRC, but I'd still like to add my opinion about this:

Obviously Alexander Willms proposals are popular. And that is due to the fact that they look like 
contemporary design while the simplistic proposals look, well simplistic and to myself out-dated 
(like from the early 90s).

I so wish LibreOffice would give itself a fresher look. Not saying we have to go extreme 3D. That 
would obviously be counterproductive. But Alex' proposals are clean, warm, modern.

I read the wikipedia article about the swiss and to be honest, I'm still not sure if those criteria 
should matter. At the end of the day doesn't it matter the most, if the look of a proposal does 
give users the feeling, that they are using an up-to-date software when opening it for the first 
time and for long-time users to have a nice splash screen to look at when they open LO for the 
600th time?

Not a single user (noob or long-term) will open LO and think to himself "oh boy this proposal 
really doesn't match swiss-design. If only they had chosen a proper swiss-design proposal. To be 
honest, I have not heard of the swiss design in my life until looking at the LO 4.0 branding. But 
then again, I'm not a pro designer who studied the history of typography and such.

I feel this will be an exciting discussion next saturday in the IRC.

> From what I read the people looking at the proposals have a tendency to
a) the swiss design simplistic (similar to 3.0 branding) reduced design or
b) Alex non swiss-compatible mockup with a modern touch

Design and how you feel about it is of course always personal choice and taste so arguing with 
swiss-design is imo a bit difficult. That would kill off so many good options that I'm not sure it 
was a wise decision in the first place. Now that the situation is what it is, let's try to make the 
best of it and have a reasonable discussion what is best for LO. Which proposal doesn't entirely 
break with the 3.0 branding.  (which is another reason why I like Alex' mockup: it is a 
continuation of the current branding. It sticks to the overall green of the splash screen, but 
ports it into the "now" time by introducing gradients). The fact that the start screen is not ideal 
(and I totally agree with that) doesn't mean too much. We could ask alex, to re-work the 
start-center if that is the big obstacle now.

Just my 2 cent. :)
steve



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