This is great, as it’s the kind of thing that was tried a few times in mega-corps that I worked for, but didn’t succeed there because of corporate politicking, cost allocations, etc. The FOSS project world seems like a perfect fit for the idea, though!
I have no “official” design bonafides, and am very much not an artist in any sense, but have been in Marketing (tradeshows and sales team enablement) and Product Management (B2B web apps) roles in the past where I was partially responsible for the designs of marketing materials, website layouts, and application interfaces. If I could at least help provide feedback / brainstorm ideas and contribute whatever perspective I could, I would be more than happy to!
Thank you @eylul for posting this, I think this is a great idea. With a common place where designers can help with Ubuntu (Flavors), I’m hoping we can grow more designers while creating an exciting opportunity for personal development and learning.
What do you think would be a good next step to get the ball rolling?
Just some ideas floating around…one way we could look at this is trying to cover two main angles:
What’s the workflow - to address the point about development platforms like GitHub/Launchpad/etc. not necessarily being well-suited for designers or for this type of more ad-hoc work
How do we bring folks in - so there are folks who are in the platform/workflow and are actually willing and able to help
The workflow could be as simple or complex as anyone wants, of course…the simple end could literally be a shared list/spreadsheet of needs (who needs it/what is needed/put your name down to help), the complex end could be a “platform” like Asana, etc.?
As far as bringing folks in - if we think that most of the Flavo(u)r design needs will be similar to the needs of a general end-user software project (a Linux distribution, a popular software package, etc.) then perhaps one starting point could be identifying FOSS projects that have done a good job with branding/UI/UX/website/etc. and asking if the folks who helped them with design would be willing to help here too?
I think in short term having a designated space in discourse and/or matrix would be a good place to begin. These would serve both as a place where everyone would be able to share their work in progress without feeling pressured to have a polished work, and a place to begin putting in some very basic onboarding. in terms of introduction templates, and some basic resources on matrix, git/launchpad.
Once that is set we can join and start communicating there both in terms of bringing people in (from existing teams and people who have showed interest here in the community) and starting the dialogue.
This can also allow flavors beginning listing any projects they need help with, at which points I can try to reach out to other existing communities that has overlap of open source and creatives with specific examples of needed contributions, and we can continue from there. (at least this is what I envisioned next few steps to be)
None of us are fulltime. We are all volunteers, and the idea behind this is to create a pool of designers and related skills so that even if even the designated designer of a flavor has to step back, there is somebody who can step in for example.
I see it as a 3 step process (all of these will take some time)
networking and communication (making design needs of teams visible, helping designers get in touch with teams. helping teams to reach out to spaces where they can find people with right skills). We can start fixing these with existing tools (discourse, a matrix channel) - often the issue isn’t the tools, it is figuring out where communities are and activity happens, than lack of a project managing software for example. (additional trickiness of a volunteer run project adds on top of this)
The second item is helping those who want to be repeat contributors onboard with existing tools. (e.g. launchpad, or even matrix). - honestly these are not hard to use or that unsuitable. It is just that most of the documentation is written for people who are already familiar with software development so there can be unexpected traps and assumptions of knowledge when setting them up.
Third step is eventually figure out as we contribute, if there is something that turns into a bottleneck or that we keep using temporary services for.
For branding/graphics/wallpapers etc, launchpad works well for archiving final versions of works and source files for the images. (as well as discourse/matrix with links to file upload for more ad-hoc or one time contributions).
UX, I’d like to really discuss with designers familiar with those workflows.
This can definitely be one venue of bringing more volunteers in, along with existing design people within flavors and larger ubuntu. However it is equally important reaching out to pool of folks who do have the design experience and want to help but having difficulty figuring out where to begin, as volunteers have only so much time.
Related to this short term goal is less overhauling a system but more patching a system as quickly as possible and enough to make connections happening and allow contributions to happen and bridge people from different backgrounds first. That I think will organically bring gradual iteration on workflows as all sides understand what information they need or what the process of the task looks like.
I would like to keep you in loop, if you are interested in volunteering your time, as marketing is also an expertise projects can need, that tends to be a difficult to source, and aspects of it can overlap with design. (especially in side of digital marketing and websites as you pointed out)
Definitely, I’ll tell folks if it’s something that I know is way out of my wheelhouse, but I’m happy to help wherever I can. I’ve gained a lot of utility, and recaptured a lot of joy, as a user of the Linux ecosystem. This community helps broaden the audience who benefits from that usefulness and delight, so if something I’m halfway-decent at can contribute back to it, I’m all for it.
Thanks for sharing this fantastic proposal for an Ubuntu Flavours design squad! It’s awesome to see such enthusiasm for enhancing design within the open-source community.
We’re members of the Canonical Open Design Working Group and wanted to chime in with some exciting news from our end.
We’ve kickstarted a working group within the Design team with a mission to empower external designers to contribute to open-source projects, just like this one. We’re diving deep into understanding how we can best support both designers and project maintainers.
Our focus is on building resources that bridge the gap between designers and open-source project maintainers, making it easier for designers to dive into projects and for maintainers to receive valuable design contributions and feedback.
Currently, we’re in the discovery phase, immersing ourselves in the world of Open Design. We’re checking out ongoing initiatives and understanding the needs, motivations, and interests of designers and project maintainers. We’re learning tons along the way and prioritising ideas on how to move forward!
As we kick things off, your input would be invaluable in shaping our efforts. Would you (and everyone keen on open design) mind taking a moment to fill out this survey? It’ll help us gain further insights and ensure we’re moving in the right direction.
It’d be incredible to collaborate with folks like you on building out the tools and communities needed for design to thrive in the open-source realm.
Exciting times ahead, and we can’t wait to embark on this journey together!
Well @eylul this is a very timely, and I very much love the idea of bring it together as a cross flavour initiative.
You mentioned contests, and indeed Kubuntu has just successfully run two contests. One for a refresh of our branding, logo and graphic design. Another, for wallpapers.
It’s been challenging to coordinate, but the results are frankly amazing, and I am so happy.
We have two new volunteers, one @meetdilip already replied to this thread, and has done some fabulous wallpaper designs and graphic animations.
Please do keep us posted, and let me know when and where I can get involved
Do you need the form refilled? or just for anyone else interested?
Also it might be a good idea to post the link as a separate post in discourse? this discussion is still active and it might get lost in middle of comments.
I actually did want to contact you. both to have a conversation at some point to hear how it went (challenges and things that worked well) but also to see if anyone else from the winners would be interested in joining and if we could somehow signal boost about this to them.
I am currently trying to not bother anyone too much as the new ubuntu release is right around the corner, but I’ll try to see how we can get a discourse area up and and possibly a matrix channel and will invite everyone who has shown interest in and get the ball rolling.
I’m back from holidays now, and @meetdilip ‘Jack Sharp’ and I have been working on the new kubuntu.org website. We’ve got some cool designs, and we’d love to perhaps use these and the new kubuntu.org site as a centre point for discussion /contribution.
awesome! I just realized we got our category. So I’ll get some structures up for everyone to join in and posting ideas. I just need a few days to wrap up the semester.
