The Process
Fedora 11's artwork process is going to work a little differently than our artwork process has worked in the past. Rather than having multiple theme concepts competing with one another and dividing artists' time and energies, we're going to try having one theme concept (inspired by the release codename) that everyone works together on. We're hoping to produce higher-quality artwork in a more timely manner this way.
The Concept
We first need to works towards a solid visual concept for the F11 theme. We'll need to have this defined by Februrary 1, which gives only about 3 weeks so we need to move fast.
The Fedora 11 codename as announced 10 January 2008 is Leonidas. What is Leonidas?:
- A ship in the British Royal Navy <= this is the meaning upon which the selection of the codename was based
- The king of Sparta, an ancient Greek militaristic society, as portrayed in the popular recent movie 300 which has a very distinctive visual style.
- many others!
Since the Royal Navy ship definition of Leonidas is the one upon which the codename was based and is themeable, we maybe should go with this one so we have a solid focus and move more quickly. But basing the idea off of Leonidas of sparta may prove to inspire a nicely-polished and distinctive visual theme as well. We should maybe consider both and decide on one.
The Timeline
- 20 Jan - Fedora Alpha release
- 01 Feb - Visual concept for F11 decided
- 01 Mar - First draft wallpaper ready to package for Beta
- 10 Mar - Beta Freeze
- 02 Apr - splashes / rest of artwork done for packaging for preview release
- 14 Apr - final freeze
- 28 Apr - preview release
- 26 May - final release GA