Admirable that you are finally setting your sights on the right target -- Apple.
Now, somewhere at the front of my grey matter (albeit rather shrunken and useless grey matter) I can't help but think "Why does such a brilliant visionary still fail to understand the underlying logic of art and design?"
It makes no sense.
First, you let absolute blights take place regarding the Ubuntu brand. Nothing like dollar-shop packaging to really elevate a sense of luxury and elegance. I know... it wasn't Canonical's idea -- that was Valusoft (like you didn't get alarm bells from the company name?) Surely your dozen glossy Wal-Mart-esque photo shoot gone bad Shipit CDs are the pinnacle of elegance, no?
Ok... we forgive you. You are a brilliant guy and damned be me if I don't firmly believe that you are capable of actually caring about art and design presence as it pertains to Ubuntu.
Let's start with where we have come from. Ubuntu has had from October 2004 to get its art and design elements in place. Since then, what have we had? I would speculate that we have seen:
- A blind insistence on poor design patterns. This means glossy rubbish. This means a reliance upon abstract backgrounds in the name of pleasing no one. This means tepid delivery and poor craftsmanship on all fronts. This means completely inadequate communication between the web presence, the marketing presence, the desktop presence, and every other element in Ubuntu. This means chasing after hideous creatures such as Microsoft corporate design missteps. Sorry, by "poor design patterns" I probably should have said "no design patterns". The result? I'll let everyone be the judge.
- A shallow and vacuous discussion about art and design whenever it rears its head. "Pretty", "Beautiful", and other such empty words mean nothing to anyone who knows even a brief 101 level understanding of art. And yes Mark, this is about art. Given free reign of development, we produce ghastly hodgepodge designs (see Ubuntu mobile) with no care and attention to audience. Do you think that you can define a word such as "Beautiful" without defining the obvious subtext that screams "Beautiful for whom?"
- A horrible ignorance to the fact that the craft of art, design, photography, music, and every other element is an extremely broad spectrum of learning. In plain terms, don't expect much when you hire people with no education. Sorry... that's reality. Let it go. Do you think for a minute that Apple and Microsoft would even venture a job offer for an entry level graphic position without a degree? Yes... some people out there who care about art, design, music, photography, etc. actually study these things for years. Sometimes they even go so far as to get a Master's or Doctorate level degree (Diana Fong comes to mind. Is it any coincidence that the glory years of Fedora 5, 6 and 7 were forged under her term? Compare with the ghastly and bland delivery of 8 and 9, for example, or the less than mediocre bank-cubicle OpenSUSE?) One of the fathers of Constructivism El Lissitzky? Yep... educated in art and design. The amazing typographic brilliance of Jan Tschichold? Yep... educated in art and design. I'd go on and on, but I doubt I could convince you. Maybe one guy... this J. Ive guy I have read about... oh yeah... looks like he went to design school too. Weird.
- Simple lack of caring. Does Ubuntu really care? You occasionally, about once every couple of years, offer a chittering about typography or design, but do you really and fundamentally have a respect and care for the field?
- Care. This part I know you can do. You are one helluva brilliant mind, and dare I say that all of FLOSS's future has a deep investment in your ability to lead us out of this. Sit down with interested parties and have a discussion in earnest. Involve everyone from marketing to key developers. Create understanding and caring. Shirk the ignorant. Create a culture that real artists, designers, musicians, and other creative types want to be a part of. Think Xerox PARC but artistic. Think the design team at BMW. Heck... go listen to Chris Bangle talk about design. Surely he might have an impact on you?
- Read. That's right... sad but snoringly boring books on art and design. Not great bedtime reading for someone with a code-centric approach, but maybe you will see something that clicks. At the very least, you will perhaps develop a little more understanding as to why our culture in FLOSS is so dearly lacking the supremely focused and caring individuals that can lead the way. I know they are there. Hell... I have watched them drop by, become completely saddened, and leave. Let's turn that tide around.
- Support people with credibility. Somewhere, someone needs to have credibility to lead us out of this. We need someone with passion, education, and the ability to actually discuss the issues at hand. We don't need more people talking foolishly about "Ugly" "Usability" "Beautiful" etc. Understand that to attract the real deals, we are going to need real deals at the helm. It is entirely unlikely and implausible that a gifted and trained artist, designer, photographer, musician, etc. will rally behind people that can't discuss the issues with the language and understanding that trained folks deliver.
- Listen. It is quite possible that we have been beating around the right path for gosh knows how long only to never really see it executed. Ashton Lafferty's work surely showed you that even a baby step in the right direction yields amazing results. Now imagine if the execution were more than a mental fart and a whim of amoeba-like decision making. Ashton is a member of the community. Imagine that! I'd say that you suddenly may have realized that producing the artsy-fartsy stuff goes a long way. Now try to visualize that impact on merchandising, marketing, promotion, and most importantly, satisfaction.
- Figure out the audience. Apple has been spot on in this. Yes they ignore the business sector. Yes they pay close and dear attention to the artsy types. Yes they choose to leave some options out. Yes they alienate some people. After all of that though, do you see the dividends? I loosely ranted about this quite a while ago, and I'd argue that the number one core reason that we flail with the design-by-amoeba is this very reason.
- Goal. Four years we have run up and down the pitch not knowing what the hell we were doing. Is this fear? Is this rooted in some uber-geek insecurity that refuses to let Ubuntu become what it so rightfully deserves to be? Once we have an audience clearly in mind and rationalized, let's set a damn goal. Why are we pursuing the dark theme? What is a new icon set going to attempt and provoke regarding emotion? What the hell is the point of typography if we have nothing to communicate? What the hell is Ubuntu design going to say?
I'd answer that question with a single resounding "YES". It was one decision. It was all about a bird. I'd bet that it was argued, debated, and discussed. I'd bet that there were many inside of Canonical who wished to see that bird get killed. I'd bet it came down to your decision. It was a wise one. As you move forward, pay close attention to the culture you have created at Canonical regarding art and design. If there is one thing I will say about Steve Jobs (and I don't have much to say about him) is that he absolutely and fundamentally cares and believes in art and design. He pushes it. He observes it. He is passionate about it. He imbues his culture at Apple with that care. He puts it at the forefront.
Now imagine if we had a Steve Jobs with an ethical grounding. Someone who admits to his neglect of the art and design situation and, because of his absolute and true inner resolve, chooses to learn in an area where he needs to. Imagine that fictional Steve Jobs with a deep rooted belief in Free Software. Imagine that fictional Steve Jobs with the will to provide an ethical computing platform.
Now if only I could quit imagining.
When you were out in space looking out into the awe inspiring vastness, I wonder what it was like. Care to take us there?
11 comments:
I'd really like them to hire some design people. if we beat them on the philosophical, technical, & aesthetic levels (2/3 already) we'd be in a great position.
Anyone who thinks Steve Jobs knows art or design has to answer for NeXT. Steve Jobs is a businessman who knew his market for NeXTstations, and knew the market Apple had left when he came back. If you want to hate GUIs full of "clunk", NeXTStep is your whipping boy.
@ant
They already hire people.
There is a misconception that paying money results in solid art and design. This is a foolish agenda to follow. Look no further than Microsoft to disprove this.
If all we had to worry about was footing a bill, I'd say we were golden. I would gamble that given infinite resources, Ubuntu would still flail at art and design for many of the reasons I rehash in this blog.
@jldugger:
Thanks for reading! Wonderful to see a new face here.
Steve Jobs is human. He makes mistakes.
Likewise, so are we.
Even if Ubuntu were to finally gather up the proper collection of minds to propel its art and design vision forward, it may very well fail in the first, second, or third instance. You can probably think of more than one or two stories of now famous individuals or projects that failed miserably the first few outings.
I would hope that, if there is any culture out there that could be a bastion of innovation, it is our Free Software culture. That said, this should be a process. This shouldn't be a typical contest-you-win-we-integrate approach. That will clearly never generate the type of design pattern to lead us into the stratosphere.
This requires first and foremost the commitment to progress and process. Why? I would speculate that perhaps there are a handful of people out there who are entirely well suited to lead the art and design of an operating system. Currently, they work at Apple and Microsoft.
I believe that at some point our culture will learn to exceed that handful. We will learn how to communicate with our audience in ways that only our culture will be capable of executing. We will learn how to design computer interactions that others will seek to emulate and refer to as the benchmark.
How patient will our culture be to begin this in earnest? How patient would you be? How much are we all willing to learn?
Bravo.
Right on. This lack of vision and direction and the fact that visual illiterates decide on art related matters made me quit the ubuntu art team. The main problem is that in general, developers mistakenly believe that a coherent and unified piece of design can be created like when programming an application—assembling it from bits of code written by many programmers. But in art this approach produces a horrible patchwork. A portrait cannot be drawn by many artists because each artists has his own inherent style and such a creation would be a Frankenstein. Until this will be understood and the program oriented decision making process will be abandoned there wont be any change.
@jmak: I don't know if I would call people 'visual illiterates'. The reason I say this is that your casual twenty first century observer is extremely astute. Perhaps not adept at executing something, but certainly able to read a piece of design despite not being 100% aware.
I would like to believe that we can reach a point of Free Design -- by that very thing you dismiss -- the collaborative approach. I have seen many contemporary works that have embodied this pattern, and they work tremendously well.
Ultimately however, this comes down to vision. We need to start with the proper people and belief system within Canonical before we can even begin to discuss the issues.
Thank you all for your comments.
Troy, I don't mean someone is visual illiterate because he/she cannot differentiate say the red from the green. You need that level of competency in order to recognize the traffic lights. But my experience is that the overwhelming majority of those in decision making position have little knowledge of what unity or coherence or style means in arts and design. I am not saying this in a bad way, since nobody is knowledgeable in everything. What I am saying is that these people should have enough self respect to stay away from commenting or interfering with things they hardly know about.
About collaboration.
After spending close to two decades in various design fields I can say this. So far, I haven't heard better collaboration method than the graphic studio paradigm. In this context, the customer and the art director hammer out all the niceties of the design and when it goes down to production all the details are already decided upon; after that only minor changes are allowed to be introduced into the process. This way the unity of the design is maintained, of course its quality depends on the original idea and the its execution. I believe that a unified and coherent design, even if not as brilliant in its details, is better then a patchwork with superior details. The ubuntu paradigm goes like this. Take a little bit of strawberries, a bit of blueberry, some apples and bananas and viola here is the fruit basket. And after so many years, they still haven't realized that this is not working.
Troy, I don't mean someone is visual illiterate because he/she cannot differentiate say the red from the green. You need that level of competency in order to recognize the traffic lights. But my experience is that the overwhelming majority of those in decision making position have little knowledge of what unity or coherence or style means in arts and design. I am not saying this in a bad way, since nobody is knowledgeable in everything. What I am saying is that these people should have enough self respect to stay away from commenting or interfering with things they hardly know about.
About collaboration.
After spending close to two decades in various design fields I can say this. So far, I haven't heard better collaboration method than the graphic studio paradigm. In this context, the customer and the art director hammer out all the niceties of the design and when it goes down to production all the details are already decided upon; after that only minor changes are allowed to be introduced into the process. This way the unity of the design is maintained, of course its quality depends on the original idea and the its execution. I believe that a unified and coherent design, even if not as brilliant in its details, is better then a patchwork with superior details. The ubuntu paradigm goes like this. Take a little bit of strawberries, a bit of blueberry, some apples and bananas and viola here is the fruit basket. And after so many years, they still haven't realized that this is not working.
I'd really like them to hire some design people. if we beat them on the philosophical, technical, & aesthetic levels (2/3 already) we'd be in a great position.
Bravo.
Anyone who thinks Steve Jobs knows art or design has to answer for NeXT. Steve Jobs is a businessman who knew his market for NeXTstations, and knew the market Apple had left when he came back. If you want to hate GUIs full of "clunk", NeXTStep is your whipping boy.
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