Re: Proposal for new art for GNU PSPP

[Hugo Alejandro]

I'm no graphic designer, but I have closely followed the design
guidelines of GNOME, so here are my answers.

2013/7/4 John Darrington <address@hidden>:

>
> I have had a look through all the artwork.  I am not a graphic designer, but
> here are my comments:
>
> The files named aplication-x-spss-* are misspelled ("application" has two Ps)


→Yes, that was a mistake because my primary language (Spanish)
application = aplicación


> The gnome guidelines recommend NOT putting the paper background for icons
> unless they have something to do with a physical piece of paper.
> https://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/stable/icons-types.html.en


→That's right, sim though, if I think PSPP files correspond to a
physical piece of paper:

    - The product of PSPP are the results tables or graphs, which is
managed on a virtual paper (export to another format) or is
susceptible of being printed.
    - PSPP currently does not have a file format that handles only the
results but can be easily obtained from the data.
Moreover, the use of a piece of paper as background brings advantages:
    - The metaphor of the document is very useful in GNOME 3. By
having as background a piece of paper, a user automatically identifies
the file corresponds to a document.
    - The document icon silhouette allows readability when converted
to formats icons low contrast or high contrast. (universal access).
    - It's easier to remember when comparing the type of document and
the application function like (as the icon of a spreadsheet)

Finally we must consider that the documents belong to the design
guidelines of GNOME 2 and are not the most current
(https://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.2/note-on-gnome3.html.en). So
I followed pages GNOME shell design and GNOME 3 with designers blogs.
In addition there are exceptions like the file icon of a website or
working files "Blender", which realizes the importance of the metaphor
of the document.


> The application-x-spss-sav and application-x-spss-por icons differ only in
> colour.  This would make it impossible for someone with colour blindness or
> with a monochrome monitor to distinguish.  I suggest you make the 
> distributions
> depicted in these icons different shapes.  Simply flipping the image might be 
> the
> easiest way to do this.


→ The designs GNOME icons are based on simplicity and content of the
files, so that they generally represent a function and can be used by
more than one application. An example of what I mention, you can see
the icons used to represent office files, so the text document icon
represents content that can represent any text editor and so that icon
is used for *.odt, *.doc, *docx, wordperfect document, etc.
Under this premise, an icon for a statistical program should represent
complex statistical content, so that icon could represent SPSS files
to other files such as Stata.
Equally important is to mention that the *.sav and *.por files, may
contain the same data and that the difference of the *.por files,
being in the "portability" of the data due to coding system.
So defend under the guidelines of gnome, keep the same base icon for
both files *.sav, *.por and *.sps (aided by the metaphor of
documents). Likewise the same website I mentioned, recommends using
different colors to represent differences between files of the same
type.
Seeking information, design of icons in GNOME, difference icons
"hicolor" on others that require universal access. Also from my
professional point of view, as a psychologist, I can assure you that a
person who suffers from blindness, can distinguish without difficulty
differential staining of these or other icons, because since being
diagnosed (mostly since childhood) are trained to adapt its visual
spectrum, the visual social spectrum.

> I don't understand why there are directories under "scalable" with a 
> resolution eg
> scalable/24x24 - this seems like a contradition to me.


→That's easy to explain. What they are sent early developments of the
artwork. So is somewhat disorganized.
I also need to mention that I was inspired by the idea of guys from
LibreOffice to create flat icons based on the current design of GNOME
symbolic icons, while maintaining the current workflow application.
>From my point of view is the closest thing to what I wanted in PSPP
and therefore I have created symbolic icons canvas with two sizes
(16x16 and 24x24).

This has practical and technical reasons:
    -It is easier to transform the canvas to another format (PNG)
    -The make icons on canvas size 24x24, allows more detail to
enhance readability. On the other hand these icons can be reused to
create high contrast icons on 48x48 canvas.
    -The icons in vector format works really well in GTK +3, as the
theme defines the color of the icons and the scaling level. As GTK +2
know if you can do the same or if there are plans to GTK +3 to PSPP,
doing work that way allows for a "compatibility mode", but with the
current design of GNOME 3.

> Whilst I rather like the menu icons in hicolor/scalable/24x24 the monochrome 
> look doesn't seem to
> fit with the "hicolor" theme, which is the default.  Thresholding would make 
> them suitable for the
> high contrast theme.  With a bit of colour added I think they would be great 
> for the hicolor
> theme.


→ If verification systems using GNOME 3, you will notice that the
icons are scalable in the same location within the hicolor theme.
These icons are considered "symbolic" short and medium term and
replace the icons on the toolbar GNOME applications. Hicolor icons in
16x16 and 24x24 canvases for applications remain even want them, but
most applications are not going to use (in GNOME 3 icons in buttons
and menus are not displayed by default and toolbars of current
applications using symbolic icons).
*I do not rule color icons for non-GNOME systems. That would take much
longer, but prioritized before icons in high contrast.


> Some of them are duplicating icons which are already available in Gnome.  Eg: 
> Help, Edit-Cut etc.
> I think it is best to use the system's icons where available.  So we only 
> need to do icons for
> the PSPP specific stuff such as data-weight-cases, transpose-data,  
> variable-nominal etc.
>
>
> If these are to be distributed as part of PSPP, there is some legal 
> mumbo-jumbo which has
> to be dealt with.  I think it might be slightly different for artwork than 
> with code.  I'm
> sure Ben will have more to say about this.

→The idea is that the artwork can be distributed with the program and
maintaining design consistency between systems (Windows, Mac, KDE,
xfce, etc).
As mentioned above, the symbolic icons that currently hosts GNOME are
in vector format and operate at full capacity in GTK +3, and only
found in GNOME, so I reused the system icons and created two sizes of
canvas to approve it made in the project to use libreoffice and
current design icons GNOME 3 in GTK +2 systems.
As I understand, in order to reuse all or portions of the artwork
GNOME symbolic icons, give account of the original authors and publish
modifications under the license pampers (CC Share
Alike).http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


My arguments are based on the documentation I've read, although
everything is debatable. Try to contact with a graphic designer GNOME
project so I can focus a little.
I do not know if you are familiar with the new designs of GNOME 3, so
shipping example images.

info.png
Description: PNG image