[kde-guidelines] Hi! Introduction and short notes about the Plasma Sprint

[Jens Reuterberg]

Hi my name is Jens Reuterberg, I was present at the Plasma Sprint in Barcelona 
as a "design dude" (which is what I work with AFK) and I read about this 
mailing list on Sebas blog and thought I should be present in it.

Anyway during the Plasma Sprint we talked some about the visuals of "Plasma 2" 
(which from what I can understand from the plasma-devel list is simply a 
working title, it seems a fish motif for every version is being set as we 
speak).
As AFK work is weighing me down a bit right now I'll do the short version and 
then later next week post some images and something more precise.
(edit: I took a bathroom break and suddenly the mail got really long, sry for 
wall-of-text)

1) A large section of the discussion was the visuals of the various pop-ups 
and sections of Plasma and the idea was to unify the visual experience of 
these to create a feeling of "one system" instead of several independent 
applications. 
(there is a "design spec" draft being written by me right now that is ment to 
be used by anyone producing a applet/plasmoid/application to introduce them to 
not only the blueprints and the visual concepts but also THE REASONING behind 
them and visual design. A sort of reference point to create a more welcoming 
feeling for anyone interested in the design process - its just a draft 
obviously and it will be posted here and in the devel list for criticism and 
edits and right now its 7 pages long and thats without code snippets, visual 
examples and boxed wiredframes)  

2) there was some shorter questions (by me) about the marketing concerning 
Plasma 2, not only the actual release but the visual branding of Plasma 2. 
Everything from logo to point colours needs to be adressed by a dedicated team 
of designers to modernize the current plasma desktops branding and find a 
suitable set of branding goals from which we can more confidently build a 
visual guideline.
(here it would be awesome to create a design-event, like either a google-
hangout session NOW and then perhaps (if I have the time for it) a meetup at 
the Akademy this spring)

3) Another issue that became appearent during the Sprint was the lack of 
designers and designer control within Plasma. 
On a personal level I really think this is awesome. One of the things I as a 
designer is sceptical of is the marketing -> designer -> developer production 
chain common in many companies. It will create a stunning visual interface BUT 
it tends to create an environment that makes the developers work allot more 
complex and difficult. Sebas said something really great here during a 
discussion when he said that Plasma has a "Form follows function" idea - which 
is exactly what it has and I personally think that this should be a large 
chunk of the marketing, branding and visual guidelines. And we shouldn't 
forget that that IS a design choice and one that very few other DE's have 
making it "an easily cornered market". Perhaps look at other design areas 
where Form Follows Function was used and see how they did it? 
But at the same time - we really need to talk about how to welcome designers 
more. There is a ton of design work to be done, from large changes, to 
documentation and "1000 cuts" work. Creating a good documentation for devs is 
just step one.

4) beyond those things there was also talk about the Oxygen Icon theme and 
ways to modernize it, marketing of various effects, we talked about the 
"Metatheme" (where you set one theme and it edits 
desktoptheme/windowdecorations/panel placement/etc) and a Desktop theme editor 
to simplify editing of theme (which is at the moment a pain in the... tuchus). 
Also some short talk about a design competition for users....

Again sry for wall-of-text, now I gotta get back to work.

(oh and if you want to grab a hold of me quickly my name is (obviously) Jens 
Reuterberg, I have a g+ account - just add me and mail me)