Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Kollaboration

There are many of us artists at kde-look.org who desire to contribute to the KDE Project. We would like to work cooperatively with developers and existing artists who are building a beautiful, powerful and unified desktop environment. For our part I propose using a combination of kde-look contests coupled with a full featured collaborative web site.

Contests:
The contests we are having at kde-look.org just flat out work. We are attracting many talented artists a lot of whom have joined kde-look just to take part in the contests. Our last contest received 86 SVG wallpapers in a 3 week period. The artwork was amazing and the selection extremely diversified. A lot of the artists are looking for a starting point. The contests give them opportunities to make a valuable first impression. I have heard many people on the kde-artist mailing list say that we need more artists. I believe they have them in the artists at kde-look.org.

Full featured collaborative web site:
KDE-Look is a great place for the artists to contribute their contest entries and personal
artwork. As time goes on though we are going to need a place where these artists can go to for reference and more direction. Artists are very visual people. That is one of the reasons that KDE-Look works so well. The wiki, the kde-artist mailing list and the buglist are great for developers however artists need a more visual space where they can feel comfortable and work collectively.

A site like this would be a great space for developers to connect with our
artists (new and established) as well as great space to keep track of the current
state of various artwork projects. A collaborative web site could be a place for artists to submit ideas, talk to and learn from the masters, learn new "tips and tricks", find guidelines, find re-usable color palettes, find re-usable icon elements (add, delete, edit, locked, folder, page, etc) for the different icon themes, easily see which icons are missing, easily get involved with the "official development", talk about how things should look, vote for preferences, establish standards, help coordinate the look and feel of each release, develop art to go with different themes and styles, and a space developers could request specific artwork that they need such as icons for new programs or new versions of programs. The site should be a space used for “Kollaboration”:)

Specifically this web site would have the following modules news, reference, instructional, and a kollaborative modules for our kde artist and developers. We would use the forums to kollaborate on each individual project.

I would also like to start a mailing list called kde-contest. The reason for this is it is taking a lot more people to coordinate these contests as they are getting bigger. This could be an excellent starting place for many new and innovative contests to be held in the future.
We need a place...
1. for the developers to submit there contest requests.
2. to discuss the guidelines for the contests; as they can vary from contest to contest.
3. to coordinate the sponsors and prizes.
4. for the judges to discuss issues that arise during the judging process.
5. to discuss future contests.
I think this mailing list could also be a great place for others groups within KDE that are having contests to learn from our experience. We also be able to help them with finding judges and sponsors.

To summarize:
We propose to use kde-look contests to bring in fresh ideas and new artists. We are asking the KDE community for a visual space for developers and artists to Kollaborate. Specifically we would like to resurrect artist.kde.org for this propose. I am volunteering to set-up this web site and maintain it. We are also asking for permission to set up a mailing list called kde-contests.

Through this proposal we believe that we can help move KDE artwork and development forward while maintaining a unified community.

Janet Theobroma


Special thanks go out to Robert Wadley and the artists at kde-look for their thoughts and inspiration that helped shape this proposal.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

KDE-Look.org T-shirt Contest Prizes

The first place winner of the KDE-Look.org T-Shirt Contest will receive a 7-in-1 External/Internal USB Memory Card Reader AND the new KDE-Look t-shirt featuring their artwork!

7-in-1 PRODUCT SPECS:



7-In-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader/Writer
USB 2.0 interface
Up to 480 Mbps data transfer rate
USB powered
Hot-swappable
Plug and Play
Power LED indicator
Access LED indicator
Microsoft, Macintosh and Linux compatible
Media support: Secure Digital, SmartMedia Card, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick,CompactFlash Type I/II Cards, IBM Microdrive, xD card
Retail Package Includes: USB 2.0 8-in-1 card reader/writer, USB cable,Driver CD, User's Guide,