Ubuntu Gets a New Visual Identity

buntcake writes "Canonical has launched a new visual identity for the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Ubuntu is shedding its previous brown look and adopting a more professional color scheme with purple and orange. The colors will be used in a new GNOME theme and boot splash for Ubuntu 10.04. According to updated design documents that were published in the Ubuntu wiki, 'light' is the underlying concept behind the new visual identity. It displaces the 'human' concept that has been part of Ubuntu's theming and brand vernacular for the past five years. Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon has posted a screenshot and additional information."

Comments

Dear Ubuntu

[pinkj]

Don't change all the time like Windows seems to do. Be yourself and we'll accept you. Rebranding almost never helps. Consistency does.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[SilverHatHacker]

As sentimental as that is, for the last five years I've heard nothing but complaints about the color scheme. No one accepts others for who they are unless they already like who they are.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[GF678]

You might have heard nothing but complaints about the color scheme because the theme is UNPOPULAR.

Sometimes it's just that simple - the majority of people find the shit-stained brownness of Ubuntu uninviting. So Canonical are trying something different, for better or worse.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[bondsbw]

I don't care so much about the color scheme as the general UI. Windows has come a long way since 2002. Gnome hasn't.

Not complaining... the Windows guys get more money. But still... competition is competition, and money or not, Gnome isn't competing with Windows 7 like it could with Windows XP.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[Sark666]

Yeah I can see the plan.

'Hmm... What colour could potentially be uglier than brown...'

'Purple!!! Of course!!!'

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

With his billions, Shuttleworth needs to hire a crack team of icon developers for a year. OSS icons stink, and icons are what you look at. Personally, I never use 'em. Just plain, clean menus (fvwm2).

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[linhares]

PERHAPS because you actually know how to change it? Fine with me; but all these folks saying that it's a great visual really want to keep as away from the masses as possible. AND the effing irony is that there an immense amount of actually good artwork done by the community, and Canonical just ignores it. Mod me flamebait if you will, but the most popular linux distro seriously looks like its "Made for losers".

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[digitig]

As sentimental as that is, for the last five years I've heard nothing but complaints about the color scheme.

Not from me -- I like the brown colour scheme. Still, when choosing an OS, colour scheme is quite low on my list of priorities. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes...

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[linhares]

The ironic thing is that Mint and some other distros would go the way of the Dodo if only canonical actually stood down from their pedestal and listened to, hmm, basically everybody in the linux world?

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[bondsbw]

Windows 7 has many improvements over Vista.

I love the new window dragging features. Dragging a window to the top maximizes. Dragging to the side takes up half the screen. Dragging the top or bottom bar makes it go full-vertical. Windows Key + Arrow Keys also do those actions (as well as Restore/Minimize). Ctrl + Windows Key + Arrow Keys move windows across monitors.

Pinned taskbar icons remind me of the OS X dock, both of which keep everything ordered and uncluttered. Windows Key + Number 1 key will open a new window for the first taskbar icon, number 2 key for the second taskbar icon, and so on. Jump lists give you quick access to common tasks.

Just the fact that the taskbar buttons can be icon-only (square) means I can dock it on the left of the screen without it being difficult to use. (Again, like the OS X dock... that's how I've run both OS's for quite a while.)

Other than the steps backwards they took with Vista that are still around (like some of the layers of control panel/networking/etc. you have to go through to get anywhere), I generally have nothing but positive to say about the direction Microsoft went with the Windows 7 UI.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[bondsbw]

KDE doesn't look/behave like Windows either.

Agreed that you can choose the UI, but when there's not much to choose from... I guess I would have to write my own. But I'd rather pay Microsoft a couple hundred instead of doing that.

I like Linux. I'm on the LFS list. Been through most of the distros over the years. But I give credit where it is due... Microsoft has an edge in the UI world. Apple had an edge over Microsoft for years (not as much any more). Personally... I think the Ubuntu Netbook Remix UI is the direction of the future that could take it past both Microsoft and Apple.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[GF678]

If you're marked flamebait, it's because Slashdotters do not understand the concept of a "good first impression".

Image is everything these days, and it's human nature so people need to understand that if they wonder why Ubuntu is continually criticized so much for its default theme. Doesn't matter that it can be changed; default matter. The default theme becomes an iconic part of the OS (whenever people think XP they always think of the blue Luna theme for example). Having said that, we might find the blue Luna theme ugly but evidently most people didn't mind the default, so Microsoft didn't do that badly in the theme stakes.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[wizardforce]

There's no one forcing you to use Gnome, the default theme or any flavor of Ubuntu; so if you don't like the default Ubuntu which is in your words for "drooling idiots," you are more than free to use one of the 400 Linux distros, one of the ~10 top DEs or the thousands of themes out there.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[CAIMLAS]

Dear CarrotTop,

Please don't change your image. We like you just the way you are: attractive, sexy, loveable.

Sincerely,

Teenage Girls

... but seriously. Ubuntu has typically looked like shit: 9.10 has the "burnt amber" look, which is horrible.

Orange (gold) and purple only really work for a very small subset of the populace. Brown and orange works for nobody: these are color schemes picked by football teams to differentiate themselves from each other, with no significant purpose other than that.

Blue, on the other hand, is much more acceptable to everyone.

Consider: both OS X and Windows have done "variations of blue" for the better part of a decade. Failing that, go with grey and accents (OS X 10.5 and pre-XP, at least).

There is a good reason for using blue: blue is calming and generally appealing. Darker shades are rich and warm. Even KDE uses "blue" to one degree or another (and has since 2.0 I think - for the most part - unless you're using SuSE).

Orange/gold and purple are regal colors. Whatever. I personally hate maroon, purple, and the like, and will theme anything I've got to look at all day a softer blue, grey, or the like. I suspect many people are the same in that regard.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[pjbgravely]

Of course don't forget everyone is different. One of the things that I liked about Ubuntu when it first came out was the pleasant brown theme. Lately the default theme is too bright for me so I use dark room now.

When ever I use a desktop environment with a blue theme I cringe. It must remind me of the first GUI OS I used, Microsoft windows 98.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[Alex Belits]

Those are actually functions that X window managers had for decades. They ended up being removed from the default Gnome configuration because Windows users complained about them.

Now, that Microsoft itself had approved 20 years of X window managers' development, can we put them back into default configuration, or will you just start complaining about some other superior interface feature?

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite the opposite imho. For example: Where again do you do desktop zoom in windows to see that video fullscreen where the website prefers to surround it by ads? Or how do I control a window transparency with a key plus the mouse wheel, so that I can see the window behind it too? Is it possible at all to choose which windows remain 'always on top' or 'always on bottom'? Oh, and what shady buggy shareware do I need to get multiple desktops, and why can't I assign my own keyboard shortcuts to switch around them? Why can't I run a program on one computer and let it display on another?

When I start a big program that takes a couple of seconds to start, and I go to the 'start' menu to start another program before the first one opens, then why does windows think it's a good idea to suddenly remove the menu where I'm trying to lookup that other program, just because the first program got far enough to open its first window?

Why, after logging in, when it looks on the screen that the computer is ready for me, does the mouse pointer still blink/flash and not let me actually do usefull things while the only thing happening is the harddrive light being on and the junk bar on the bottom getting larger and larger.

Why does every program inform me in a different way that it has an update, or wants to check online for updates, and why do I need to reboot that often for that?

What is 'fast web search', why does it hyjack my browser and make everything slower and how did it get in there, and how do I get rid of it? (repeat for dozens more spyware/adware).

What is an adware scanner anyway? And why do I still need a virus scanner band-aid in the 21st century? Shouldn't that OS problem be actually solved by now?

Why did my webcam suddenly stop working after a windows update, and why do the Microsoft help pages do nothing more than ask me if their advice helped, instead of actually helping?

Why can't I print a photo on my HP printer with the software that came with windows without it complaining about wrong paper size, unless I download and install a program like irfanview for that?

Staring at 'Configuring updates Step 1 of 3' instead of letting me do what I need to do...

And why does the 'home' version of windows not have simple effects such as a nice 3d flip/cover switcher?

None of the above problems or limitations with Gnome nor KDE...

Maybe the windows ui was grey in 2002 and has candy colors today, it still blows, that's all.

Re:Dear Ubuntu

[westyvw]

Shocked at that statement. I have three environments, KDE, Gnome, and Windows. KDE is by far the most productive environment. Windows lacks so many features it simply hurts to use it, and for each feature thats similar Windows takes up too much real estate and takes waaay too many clicks.
Gnome is the decent compromise, dont think, no particular workflow, just jump in and go. There is a place for that too.

Orange and purple are more professional?

[JustinFreid]

Is professionalism a virtue? I like the notion of Ubuntu as being warm and fuzzy, especially with the adjective+animal names for the releases.

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[grcumb]

Is professionalism a virtue? I like the notion of Ubuntu as being warm and fuzzy, especially with the adjective+animal names for the releases.

Don't you worry. In the 15 years I've been doing web and interface design, I've never heard the words 'purple', 'orange' and 'professional' used in the same sentence.

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[BlueBoxSW.com]

I choked on the same phrase: "a more professional color scheme with purple and orange"

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[FallinWithStyle]

I agree. The biggest problem I have with the default theme in the pictures, though, is the movement of the window-control buttons from right to left.

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[nomadic]

Don't you worry. In the 15 years I've been doing web and interface design, I've never heard the words 'purple', 'orange' and 'professional' used in the same sentence.

Then you'd hate the suit I wear to work...

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[FlyingBishop]

Next site I do, I'm making purple, orange, and professional my only design goals.

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[Etrias]

How is the mascot gig going anyway?

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[caffeinemessiah]

Never mind the use of 'professional orange and purple'. From TFA:

"We're drawn to Light because it denotes both warmth and clarity, and intrigued by the idea that 'light' is a good value in software. Good software is 'light' in the sense that it uses your resources efficiently, runs quickly, and can easily be reshaped as needed," the design documentation says. "Visually, light is beautiful, light is ethereal, light brings clarity and comfort."

Why do "design documents" always have to be so banal? I mean, "visually, light is beautiful"?!!? Seriously?

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[bertoelcon]

I knew there at to be at least one pimp on slashdot. Do you have the feather hat to match the suit?

Re:Orange and purple are more professional?

[migla]

Visually, light is a prerequisite.

Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone actually ever use the default Ubuntu theme? I know whenever I install Gnome the first thing I do is set it to clearlooks.

this is going to suck

[meow27]

now im going to have to spend extra time getting the window tools to the right side of the window?
ugh this blows

cmon everyone knows the left side is the wrong one![/pun]

  in other news they really should be using the technix theme. it could use some tweaking with the font colors, but other than that, its excellent imho

Re:this is going to suck

[ciroknight]

The window controls are precisely where they should be.

First, which side of the window, and for that matter the screen, are all of the menus on? That's right, the left-hand side. So why would you want to have to move your mouse a thousand pixels to close a window?

Second, what is the most destructive operation you can perform on a window? Closing it. Why on earth are you beating your users over the head by putting the most destructive operation that close to the corner? When it's on the corner, it's much easier to hit by accident, for example when reaching to resize the window. This has happened time and again with me on Windows to the point of absolute fury

What's the least destructive operation that still gets the window out of your line of sight? Minimize. If you hit it on accident, it takes you maybe a few hundred pixels to reach down, or up if you're like me, to restore the window. Unlike if it's closed by accident, which can take minutes to restore if it was a large networked word processing file.

Every Mac user can immediately appreciate the position of the window controls, if they use them at all. They are clearly colored for improved accuracy, they're out of the way, and what's even better, you usually don't have to use them, since OS X's Expose is so much more convenient, even more so than Compiz, anyways. The only reason not to switch is because of existing Windows users, and we stated a long time ago that Ubuntu isn't Windows.

Re:this is going to suck

[kjart]

So, your first point is that the right corner is way out of the way compared to where you are most often clicking (menus) and the second point is you are always clicking in that corner? In any case, I'd think the far more common missclick would be someone hitting the window controls if they were right above the menus.

Also, in case you didn't know, you can resize the window from any corner - though I must say that I don't think I've ever seen anyone resize with that corner. Seems like the kind of nonsense someone who likes window controls in the top left would do.

Re:this is going to suck

[curveclimber]

Nah, I use OS X at work and Ubuntu at home: right side is the right side. You spend most of your time in a GUI opening, scrolling and closing windows. Putting controls on the left side means you have to cross the screen every time you want to work with a window. How do you accidently close a maximised window? I suppose your argument would make sense if a lot of what people did with windows was drag them all over their screen. Maybe people do. I certainly don't.

From brown to beige

[Animats]

They changed the color scheme from brown to beige. How exciting.

The small icons are still too cluttered. They're simply smaller versions of the large icons, which never works very well.

About Time

[honkycat]

This is long overdue. The brown theme was a major turnoff for me. It seems silly, I know, but the first impression is an important one. This was at least part of the reason I preferred Kubuntu. The quick screenshot looks a lot better to me.

And yes, of course you can change the colors, but there's a lot of value of a nice out-of-the-box experience. Developing your own color scheme is trickier than you'd think to get "right."

Re:About Time

[Announcer]

First impressions... Why did XP default to the "Playskool" look?

Re:About Time

[h4rr4r]

Around here it is known as the "fisher-price" interface.

Re:About Time

[shutdown -p now]

Guess what, it's still brown. Just a different shade of it. Oh, but the default wallpaper is now whitish-purple. How exciting!

And just so it helps your aunt Tilly switch from XP, it also tucks those window close/restore/minimize buttons to the left. "Oh, great, like OS X!", I hear you thinking? Well, no, not really - to prevent further confusion, the buttons are still in the same relative order as on Windows (that is, Close is rightmost, not leftmost). I imagine it is done for the sake of fairness, so that users moving from either platform are in for a pleasant surprise.

It's truly going to be a top-notch out-of-the-box experience, I'm sure.

Re:About Time

[quadelirus]

I'd say go to interfacelift.com and pick one. People can change it later, but at least it will look nice out of the box.

I for one will miss the babysh*t brown color

[AlexBirch]

I'm sad that the babysh*t brown color will go away!!!

Window control buttons on the left? Bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't like that the Window control buttons (maximize, close, etc.) are moved to the top left of the window, instead of the top right where they used to be.

1. I'm used to them being on the right in both current Ubuntu and Windows. I know Mac has them on the left, but I never liked that.
2. If the window is partially dragged off-screen, I can click either the X on the right side, or File -> Close on the left side. With both being on one side, I need to or drag the window back (if it works, which often doesn't if its dragged so much to the extreme that it's hard to grab the title bar with your mouse).

I know the problem usually has trivial workarounds (such as a keyboard shortcut to close), but meh. Why not leave it the way it worked before.

Wait, what?

[geminidomino]

"Purple and orange" is a professional color scheme?

I don't even know what color tie goes with a blue shirt, but even I know that's awful.

Re:Wait, what?

[sharkey]

Yep, nothing says "Pimp" or "Bottom Bitch" like purple and orange.

Re:Wait, what?

[DigiShaman]

"Purple and orange" is a professional color scheme?

It is for the Phoenix Suns basketball team.

It might look nicer but

[dtbw]

I would be happier if things like mounting digital cameras worked consistently from one release to the next without scouring the web looking for the latest hoop to jump through. Yes I can find the answer and make it work but a lot of potential converts will give up and pop the Windows 7 install disk in.

Re:It might look nicer but

[tux0r]

xorg.conf will still be used if you make one.

Yes, I made an xorg.conf, but wrangling with drivers, text files and unanswered forum posts of others trying to do the same thing quickly became tiresome. It's the same old issue: desktop Linux configuration is too much for Everyman. I'm technically capable and not averse to troubleshooting, but still couldn't readily identify what to do to get it to work (or even whether it could be done at all). To search the net for desktop Linux configuraton advice is to trawl a wasteland of old information, misinformation and absent information.

Why are you using s-video in 2010?

S-video because it's an old rear projection TV, and I've got no money for upgrades. The point is that I've done it on the cheap, but not by using Ubuntu.

WinXP Just Worked, and Boxee runs fine.

Re:Still brown...

[aliquis]

True that.

"We changed the wallpaper!" OMG! NEWS!

Also everything about Ubuntu and the word brown, such as:
"Ubuntu is shedding its previous brown look"
always reminds me of Apples Zune ad, can't find it on YouTube but it's like they talk about all the colors options and then mentions "[pause] brown ..."

Hurray for brown!

New theme

[ianare]

Ubuntu gets a new theme and ./ STILL uses the Debian icon?

Re:Excuse me?

[MarkusQ]

Explain UPS then?

An Uninterpretable Power Supply is basically a honking big battery (or, in advanced models, a desktop fusion setup) that takes over when the normal electrical supply fails.

And sarcasm is a way of making a rhetorical point by stating something that is obviously untrue and yet is a plausible deduction to reach from a position you are trying to rebut.

Of course, you probably already knew that.

--MarkusQ

Bad window frame button choice

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

They've moved the window frame buttons to a place that's counter-intuitive for most people but they've also cocked that up in a way that doesn't even make sense for people used to OSX (the buttons are still laid out in the same order as if right-aligned). So now you've got buttons in places nobody is used to, the X button no longer benefits from the 'infinite-dimension' effect of being in a corner, and plus you've got the window frame buttons directly above the menubar - instantly making 10% of attempts to open the Edit menu into accidental window closes. I guess they never stopped to think why most WMs have them on the right and OSX has them on the left.

Brilliant.

Re:Bad window frame button choice

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

what is 'infinite-dimension' effect?

I was referring to the fact that a GUI element on the edge (or corner) of a screen has, in effect, infinite size in the given dimension by virtue of the fact that the cursor cannot leave the screen, and thus, any overshot of the cursor in that direction will still leave the cursor over the GUI element.

I believe it's most commonly referenced as an implication of Fitts' Law

Obviously, this is only true when the window is maximised (something I forgot to mention in my original post).

Re:Bad window frame button choice

[shutdown -p now]

Another good example is the window close button in Windows. If you maximize a window in either Vista or 7, you'll see that, visually, the close button ends slightly before the edge of the screen. However, if you put the mouse cursor in top right corner - where, visually, it shouldn't hit Close. In practice, though, you'll see that Close is in fact highlighted, to conform to Fitt's law. If I remember correctly, this is actually a very old thing, and has been there since Win95 or somewhere around that.

Same thing goes for Start button - again, it's visually 2-3px off the corner, but nonetheless a click in the corner will be detected as a hit. IIRC, they actually broke that in Vista, and 7 fixed that.

Okaaaaay...

[Anonymous Coward]

You might wanna get that checked out.

Must be a slow news day...

[Angst Badger]

I don't know about you, but I don't give a wet crap what the default theme looks like. Regardless of operating system, the defaults last just long enough for me to figure out how to change them to what I like. The only time I'm turned off by the defaults is when I can't change them. About the only graphics change in Ubuntu I'd care about is better support for a broader range of graphics cards.

Mind you, if the change makes Ubuntu appeal more to the kind of people who think desktop color schemes make a difference in how professional they are, great. I'm just not one of those people, and I rather suspect most self-selected Linux users aren't, either.

Re:Still brown...

[AvitarX]

What I find stupid, is the moving of the window "action" buttons.

The default GNOME theme

[pseudonomous]

I think if anybody ever bothered to use the default GNOME theme, the one the upstream developers ship, they would appreciate much of an improvement every Ubuntu theme has been over the default.

Still looks like garbage.

[crhylove]

I've been loudly clammoring for Canonical to ditch the brown for the better part of a decade. On the forums, on IRC, on /., on Reddit, on my blog, literally everywhere, I've been pleading and begging for Shuttleworth et al to pull their heads out of their asses and make something that just generally appeals to a whole lot of people.

Brown doesn't. It was hideous, and somewhat embarrassing, especially when I tried to convince some people who ONLY WANTED FIREFOX that Ubuntu was a superior OS:

"But why is it so UGLY?!?"

"Hold on.... click click click..... Is that better?"

and of course those clicks are always changing the hideous default theme.

That said, this new theme is nearly as bad. Great, getting rid of the brown for.... PURPLE?!?!

Purple and Orange look god damned atrocious. Why don't you just make a better OS, and copy the superior look of just about every other OS on the market.

Points for originality only count if you don't look like shit. This new design, STILL LOOKS LIKE SHIT.

Why not just take a cue from Linux Mint? They actually have a very decent and PLEASING default look that is even original and different compared to Win and OSX.

While you are fixing that, why not go ahead and install superior default apps by default?

VLC is much, much better than any other video player for Linux.

Thunderbird is much better than whatever that crap is you default to.

Deluge is better than Transmission.

Audacious is much better than Rhythmbox.

In fact, other than Open Office, most of the Ubuntu default apps are right crap.

It wouldn't be hard to make 2010 the year of Linux on the desktop. All the tools are here now.

Sadly, all the distros I've seen are still too bulky, too ugly, and have all the worst default apps. Ubuntu is definitely a good example of that.