New clothes for the emperor

[Arjen Balfoort]

I've started something that I wanted to do for a long time now. Although the current design has served us well, I feel our themes could use a fresher look.

It started with grizzler when he mentioned that our Update Manager did not function in Plasma 5. When I solved the technical issue I saw that the UM icons looked out of place. So, I decided to flatten the icons and eventually chose to create new icons all together.

Our SolydXK icon is okay as long as you don't make it too small. The use of gradients makes it difficult to shrink the image and still keep it crisp and recognizable. Also, our overall design seem a bit tired and could use some freshing up. No, not a re-design, but more like spring cleaning.

So, I've abstracted the form and colors. No gradients and just a few colors. I've attached an svg file (best seen and changed in Inkscape) with our current logo's and below them the ones I've been playing with. I also added a print screen of the new flat style to see if it still fits together.

I've also attached print screens of the themes and wall papers using the latest flat icon but still with the old background to refer back to what we started with (and because people usually don't like changes...but I do ).

solydxk-flat.tar.gz

(48.03 KiB) Downloaded 126 times

[Edit]

• Outlined characters to make them stand out better.
• Removed gray background.
• Added logos with larger characters.
• Added logos without transparencies.
• Brighter colors, more narrow border.
• Added theming print screens
• Font changed to Roboto Slab
• Removed gradient from background

[ilu]

Well, the old ones look good and the new ones are just .... ugly? :duck and cover
Maybe others have better taste than me?
I don't know why kde forces you to use new logos - I've no idea how kde looks like - so maybe the new logos fit into there perfectly. And they are just logos so they are not that important.

[Nuke]

I would suggest that the letters "X" and "K" be brought entirely within the roundel. That will reduce visual confusion with the strong black roundel border lines, and prevent the letters, being mostly white, from getting a bit lost against a possibly pale background - as in the graphic. Perhaps the black borders of the roundel could be reduced in thickness a bit too, they are a bit overpowering.

OTOH, I like the thin black borders around the white font - helps the letter stand out and looks more professional. I did not like the old black font, especially in san-serif, as it looks like a Letraset afterthought.

The combined "XK" would be a bit difficult to get within the roundel unless you reduced the font size quite a bit, so maybe it would just have to hang out.

[Arjen Balfoort]

Updated OP's attachment.
Something like this?

[Nuke]

That looks better with the letters centred I see also that you have made the borders dark grey, instead of pure black, which is an improvement.

[Arjen Balfoort]

I didn't change any colors. I think that the size of the characters made the grey look darker then it really was.

[ilu]

I think the 2 leftmost in the third row (centered X / centered K) look good now. Nuke put it better into words than I did. I can't really, my vocabulary is not good enough.

I still don't like the ones with "XK" or "KX" - the mixed color looks kind of "dirty" - I think the color mix, although theoretically a good idea, doesn't work out praktically. The old striped version was a better solution but did not look that good because X and K both have a strong diagonal which somehow clashes. Did you ever try a vertical separation? Additionally the outlined white characters don't stand out clear enough, the whole signet is a mess of confusing lines.

Edit: I tried vertical colors ... hm, I don't know... colors are better but still confusing lines esp. around the X. Maybe the X on the right side?

[Nuke]

I still don't like the ones with "XK" or "KX" - the mixed color looks kind of "dirty"

I agree about the mixed colour. The centre of the lower right roundel has ended up brown (mix of blue and orange?); it needs to be pure strong orange, with maybe a paler orange on the overhung parts. For the combined "XK" logo I prefer the orange on top of blue to the blue on orange - more cheerful.

Looks like you could get the "XK" letters entirely within the roundel by reducing the font size by only ~20%.

[kurotsugi]

somehow I think a logo revolving around this design is neat. flat an simple. well perhaps I like it because I love simplicity. we can divide the sphere diagonally and put the white XK logo in the middle without any outline border. also, it should looks nice in the notification area.

[Arjen Balfoort]

Updated OP: added logos without transparencies.

[ilu]

I think on the single icons the transparencies looked good. Just the mixed orange/blue on the combined XK icons did not. That's a dilemma and I would advice to either circumvent it or break the rules.
Circumventing: something like the old / splitt (or vertical or horizontal). Or something else.
Break the rules: take away the transparency only on the combined logos and only on the inner circle.

And another idea for the combined logo: What about putting the letter X a bit up and K a bit down, so they are not on the same line any more? (with whatever background)

[Arjen Balfoort]

Placing the characters on different y-position removes the symmetry completely and together with the vertical split it seems too restless.

I've updated the logo's in the OP's attachment with two diagonal split logos.

[Fargo]

somehow I think a logo revolving around this design is neat. flat an simple.

I tend to like the original the best as well. They have a cleaner look to them. But with the current popularity of the flat look I think a new flatter logo is a good idea.

Idea #1:
I like the logo kurotsugi posted above. Its very simple and clean. But I'm not sure how it will work with the 2nd color. Maybe you could make the circle on top one color and the 'wings' (or axe shape) on bottom the other color. Much like you did with the the logos in the OP, but put the smaller circle on top instead of on bottom. I guess it depends on if you want to emphasize the circle or the axe shape.

Idea #2 & #3
Regarding the logos in the original post: I think I like the original the best. But I think its mostly because it is less busy. So here is my suggestions: I like the logos with the battle axe being blue over the top of the orange circle. I think the blue over the orange is easier on the eyes. I also think this is less busy than the diagonal line. But I think the biggest change I would make is the outline of the axe and circle. I think the outlines are too thick and make the whole thing too busy.

1) So my first idea would be to simply use a thinner line. That might help.

2) My last suggestion, is to cover the circle lines completely under the axe. That will leave it looking much like the original logo where you just see the underlying circle peaking out from the cut-out sides (of the axe). What I am saying is use the logo with no transparencies like those in lines 5 and 6, but also make sure the colors are laid over the top of the outlines so you do not see the circle outline coming through the color on top. So in short no transparency at all, not even the outline.

Does that make sense, sorry its hard to put into words.

EDIT: I keep looking at the logo kurotsuki posted. I like this idea more and more. As much as I like the logos with the battle axe shape on top of the circle, putting the circle on top has advantages. This will also give you a cleaner circle to put the X and K letters in since they don't have to overlap the 'axe'.

[Zill]

As I guess Stevie Wonder has far more visual artistic ability than I have, I do not really want to get involved in this discussion.

However, IMO any SolydXK logo produced should really have distinctive colouring and not get too close to "Ubuntu brown"!

Brown_logo.jpeg (4.57 KiB) Viewed 6473 times

[ilu]

I made the icon kurotsugi posted from the old DVD sticker graphics because I wanted an avatar instead of those signature bottom lines. It had that color.
I totally agree on the ubuntu brown and would like to see it go.
XFCE has a turquoise blue color, see xfce.org.
KDE has ultramarine, plasma5 dark grey, see kde.org.
But if schoelje tells us he really wants to keep the orange-brown I won't object. Do you, schoelje?
Otherwise I could try something with XFCE / KDE 's corporate colors.

[Arjen Balfoort]

It's been a while but today I had some time.

• Brighter colors, more narrow border for the logos.
• Added theming print screens to the OP

[Fargo]

Thats looking better. (Or they are growing on me) I think the gray border lines could still be about half as thick as they are in the screenshots in the OP. I think the border lines start to make things look to busy. So I think thinner is better.

[Arjen Balfoort]

I didn't feel right about what I've created but because I'm not a designer, I really have no idea what works and what not. So, I asked my friend who also designed the original logo and desktop which are still used in the current ISOs.

He recommended to use a modern font and advised to use Roboto Slab which you can get from Google Fonts. He thought the font black outline was looking rather cheap and told me to loose the gradient on the desktop background because that was hopelessly out dated.

So I did and now he is mildly satisfied with the result. More importantly, I really like the result. It's crisp and clean and still very recognizable as SolydXK.

I've updated the OP and uploaded new nightlies for you to check out the new design.

[balloon]

Changing the font and color has a large influence. It would have to be reflected in the appearance such as Web later.
Once settled the new appearance of SolydXK, I'm going to reflect on SolydXKjp.

[Arjen Balfoort]

That is correct.
I'm just trying to figure out what is the right moment to implement those changes. I'll talk to grizzler about that and will notify you when a date is set.

Here's the link to the font: https://www.google.com/fonts#UsePlace:u ... oboto+Slab