THE UBUSTU FEED

Although probably not inspired by our critique of the originally proposed wallpaper, a member of the Ubuntu Studio team held an either/or vote via the Ubuntu Studio mailing list to determine the official wallpaper for the upcoming Gutsy release :

Option flame:
http://andrew.wedderburn.googlepages.com/flames-ish.png
http://andrew.wedderburn.googlepages.com/flames-ish-s.png

Option lights:
http://andrew.wedderburn.googlepages.com/ubuntu-ish.png
http://andrew.wedderburn.googlepages.com/screenshot1.png

“Lights” (pictured above) won by a landslide. A few people were curious whether the original gray wallpaper from the first Ubuntu Studio release would still be available. Rest assured, if its not, we’ll hunt it down and host it here ourselves. As for the new wallpaper, new theme, new icons, whether you love them or hate them, it still only takes two clicks to change ‘em. Here’s a little more insight into the new artwork from the lead developer of Ubuntu Studio :

From the chat here and forum votes its clear that “lights” is the preference. I will now take this chance to explain the art. We lost our lead artist mid-way through the development cycle. We had a design direction that also suffered because of this. We called for another art lead but nobody stepped up. Its now open to the community here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/Artwork/OfficialHardyIncoming

So with v2’s idea being moved to v3, we had to scramble to put another idea in place. What will ship with Gutsy is the result. The gloss is gone. Everyone loved it but it’s being done to death and we are moving away from it to create something really unique for Hardy. So while people wont like it, ultimately, it’s the tools that matter. So everyone get prepared to contribute to Hardy. We’ll be posting a lot to -devel and all constructive chat is welcome.