[0:00] Welcome to the Fedora podcast. This is our eight, uh, episode and we are here with Máirín Duffy from the Fedora Design Team. She's the principal direction designer at Red Hat, she's the leader of the design team in the Fedora Project. Hi, Máirín.
Máirín Duffy[0:10] Hi, how are you doing?
Eduard:[0:19] I'm fine, yeah. Thank you for coming here. I know you are always busy, more when we have the Fedora 28 just launched now.
Máirín:[0:24] Oh, that's right. That was today.
Eduard:[0:27] Yeah. Well, I want to talk with you about the Design Team. What is the Design Team? What did you do in the Fedora Project?
Máirín:[0:33] So, the design team is basically the Fedora Project's in-house design agency. We do everything from branding, and logo design, and graphics, and illustration to, uh, UX design and, um, infographic design. Just, you know, workflow design and occasional usability testing and that kind of thing.
Eduard:[0:56] Cool. So, you're in charge of everything that need, that is related with the logo design and the website look and feel and everything like that?
Máirín:[1:06] Um, well, you know, it, I guess, two things. Uh, first of all, it's definitely like a very collaborative team. I wouldn't say like there's a very strong hierarchy to it. I think it's, um, it's a lot of people working together.
[1:20] So, the website's a good example. Um, the website's team and the design team are both responsible for the look and feel. And we really work closely together on website issues.
Eduard:[1:43] Uh, cool. Um, how this design thing start? Because Fedora was start with another logo. Now we have the Infinity logo. So, how's this, uh, workflow, Fedora Design team?
Máirín:[1:58] Sure. So, um, I want to say the Fedora Design team started in like 2005 or 2006. And while it might seem somewhat obvious now in 2018, um, that you can do design in an open process the same way that we do open source code, where, you know, you follow your entire design process in the public.
[2:25] You have a community of people engaged. You have volunteers from just a diverse range of nationalities and everything, joining in. That wasn't always so obvious that design could work that way.
[2:38] Um, I actually was told when we started the team, while the open-source method works for kernel development, but it'll never work for anything related to design a graphics. Which, you know, several years later, [laughs] uh, I guess we've shown that it actually does work.
[2:53] Um, so the idea is, you know, "Hey, we have Fedora. It's this open-source operating system. But all of this design work is kind of happening behind closed doors. Why is that? Why don't we bring some of this design work out into the open? Why don't we try to engage a community around the practice of design?"
[3:13] Because there's a lot of people excited about open-source, there's a lot of people excited about that culture and wanting to help, but they're not programmers, you know. They, they can't necessarily or they don't want to help at a technical level in terms of like coding, they'd rather help at a technical level of coding and graphics or, you know, usability stuff.
[3:33] So, um, that was really where the team kind of came from. It, it started as the Fedora Art Team, because UX design tends to be something you can't really do in a drive-by fashion. You can't just sort of come in and like do a UX design ticket and then be done. Um, it's, it goes a little bit deeper than that.
[3:53] But with artwork tasks, you know, logos, icon, design, small graphics, those are things that you can do at a really atomic level. So, if you're a volunteer contributor, you can kinda come in, spend a few hours on a ticket to create a graphic for someone and then be done.
[4:08] So, it really started out with the, as the art team because it was a lot easier to do it that way. And as the team sort of grow, grew and matured, we sort of expanded our reach and renamed ourselves the Fedora Design Team, because we definitely want to be more involved, uh, in UX and usability and sort of deeper, uh, issues than just graphics.
Eduard:[3:31] Uh, cool. Also, I started with the, with the community with a, with a help, friend of yours, but is, she's also a designer and work with the Tika a lot. She introduced me to the Fedora community a lot of years ago. And she was my mentor in, as ambassador.
[4:52] Her work is really amazing. I know she did a lot of fliers and all this kind of stuff that ambassadors use. And normally, as ambassadors, we go to the design team to ask for this kind of stuff.
[5:06] For example, the release party posters, and if we, uh, do we have the sheet cue, and we have a lot of sticker designs. And that come from the design team. There is an specific line of, of products that you produce per release base?
Máirín:[5:25] Oh, what do you mean by product?
Eduard:[5:27] I don't know, maybe, uh, logos, or fliers, or anything in the website that is specific per release. Or, do you work, uh, in activities, it is not necessarily based on each release?
Máirín:[5:40] Oh, OK. So, yeah, there, I mean, there's a few deliverables we have every release that we produce. And depending on, you know, for example, what the ambassadors are looking for or how the website functions over time, that set of deliverables has changed.
[5:56] But the main deliverable that we have that's release-to-release is the background wallpaper of the Fedora desktop itself. Um, and that's usually a very collaborative process. We usually have many people who have hands, whether it's conceptualizing or mocking it up, or doing the final rendering.
[6:13] Every release, that's kind of a cool thing that we do. Um, and, yeah, we occasionally will do like release fliers or banners, um, that can be put on the website, those kinds of things that are affiliated with the release.
[6:26] But I would say the majority of the work that we do isn't so bound by the release. We tend to do a lot of swag. I actually think we should, maybe we should do less. But I guess that's a conversation for another time. Um, but we do do a lot of swag designs, um, prepping for print. We do, um, logos for various projects across Fedora.
[6:45] And sometimes even people from communities outside of Fedora that are open-source projects come to our team because we're well-known. And they'll ask us to do it as a favor, and we do that sometimes. Uh, we'll do icons for applications, that sort of stuff. And a lot of that stuff is, it's just not bound to a release.
Eduard:
[7:01] A problem I had before as a marketing representative and also as ambassador is that there are some legal stuff tied to the Fedora logo and their usage. Um, there is, uh, a specific guide about how or when or where you can use the logo?
Máirín:[7:21] Yeah. So, um, there's a few components to that, I guess. Um, and some of it is, and I, I'm gonna preface this by saying I am not a lawyer. So, anything that I say does not contu-, constitute legal advice or anything like that. Um, there, there's like a number of components to that, right?
[7:38] So, there's the actual, the logo as a trademark. We have to be careful in what context the logo is used. You know, for example, um, you know, to manufacture a Fedora toilet paper might not be the best thing for our brand.
[7:52] So, you know, you can use the logo exactly right, with the right color values, and it's all aligned perfectly. But if it's printed on a piece of toilet paper, maybe no. So, there's that. And then there's the actual, um, guidelines for the logo in terms of its appearance, right?
[8:08] So, for example, if you're not careful, and I learned this the hard way. [laughs] Um, if you're not careful when you send the Fedora logo to the printers, um, oftentimes, printers will require colors, uh, being CMYK, which is a certain color space.
[8:24] Um, computers tend to work in RGB. But the way that light displays on a screen, um, using the display of, uh, mixing of colors of light versus the mixing of inks on paper is different. So, you need different color models to reproduce colors.
[8:41] Um, so if you send something that's an RGB from a computer to a printer, the Fedora blue tends to come up purple. So there's that sort of component of it, too, or things where, you know, for example, if you open up the logo source vector and just start moving things around and scaling things out of whack, or misaligning things, we don't like that either.
[9:05] We don't like when the logo is placed next to other logos, there's specific guidelines that come into play. Or if people add components to the logo, um, we don't like people doing that either. So, for example, if somebody takes the Fedora logo and then puts something underneath, and, you know, there's, there's different levels to that.
[9:24] Like, I'll use the toilet paper example again. [laughs] So maybe somebody takes the Fedora logo and then underneath in some fancy font, they put toilet paper. And they put it right up against the logo so it seems like there's this new product, Fedora toilet paper.
[9:36] We don't want people doing that either, 'cause they're sort of adding on a component that's not approved. Um, so we have like different templates that are pre-approved. If you go to, um, have it memorized, it's, uh, fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines, uh, logo/U, usage, G, guidelines.
[9:55] That has sort of these branding guidelines for the actual usage of the logo, like don't change the font. Don't change the size. Don't add components to it. Um, use this color palette. It has all those that level, which is sort of like the visual look of it.
[10:11] Um, in terms of like trademarks and licensing, um, there's a sub-page under the Wiki, it's like fedoraproject.org/wiki/legal and somewhere in there talks about like trademark guidelines. And, um, there's some of those components about usage of the Fedora logo as a trademark is in there as well.
[10:29] Um, I guess on top of that, if you're looking to use the Fedora logo on something and like selling it for money, whether or not you're covering costs or if you're making a little extra on the top, that sort of thing is not something that say the design team deals with or even Fedora Legal deals with. That's a Fedora Council thing.
[10:49] So, you'd have to open up a ticket with the Fedora Council and say something like, you know, "I wanna hand out Fedora," or, "I have a t-shirt company and I wanna create Fedora t-shirts and put them for sale on my website, can I have permission to do that?"
[11:02] Um, you, you have to get their approval to do that sort of thing. So, there's sort of maybe three or four different components there.
Eduard:[11:10] Yeah. I remember the, that some years ago, there's, there was a stuff called a Tox Crystal. There is a lot of Toxes with several customs or designs. And one of the, I, one I love is the Fedora one.
[11:26] But I remember that I was told that I cannot use that because it's not approved by the design team or even by the council to use, uh, the Fedora logo with that Tox or, or any other, or over any other kind of logo that represents, uh, another borrower specific software outside.
Máirín:[11:45] Right. Yeah, and like the thing, the thing about that like, there's two dimensions to that, because Tox as a logo is a trademark. And I believe, I might not be correct, but I believe Tox as a trademark is owned by the Linux Foundation.
[11:59] So, whenever you combine two different trademarks, you sort of enter into like this legal, uh, zone that you might not want to be in. Um, you definitely have to be in consent, in contact with both trademark owners and have their consent. And usually, that's a really difficult thing so it's probably not worth even trying.
[12:19] So, there's that dimension to it. And then there's also sort of just the design aesthetic dimension to it. So, even if you're combining Fedora with another trademark and it looks great and the design team says, "Hey, that's great aesthetically and conceptually," you have to have the permission of the trademark owners, and that's where you get into legal territory.
[12:36] So, that situation where you're mixing up, uh, the Fedora logo with the Tox trademark, you're sort of straddling both zones there, um, in terms of, you know, it's not just the design team's call, it's also like a legal thing.
[12:50] And I think sometimes maybe we get painted as like a bad guy 'cause we're not letting people do fun things, but there's a lot of dimensions, um, and reasons that we make the calls that we make. Um, so...
Eduard:[13:02] And that's where, where legal...
Máirín:[13:03] I hope that helps people. [laughs]
Eduard:[13:04] Yeah, that's where legal stuff became tricky and interesting.
Máirín:[13:06] Yeah.
Eduard:[13:06] The, the main people that used to come to, or go to the, to the design team is ambassadors, right? I mean, they are, uh, always being in conference, uh, showing the product, showing the, the software, and trying to highlight how we're, how great is the community.
[13:31] So, there's a place where they can get all the design stuff, for example, I don't know, like swag, like GQ or, or they have to request, uh, every time they're going to use, every time they need to create that ticket or issue or a way to communicate with you to get these credits? Máirín:
[13:52] Yeah. So, we have actually tried a few times to have almost like a catalog of ready-to-go designs that ambassadors could just download if they wanted to have some t-shirts printed up or that sort of thing. Um, but we're designers, we're not developers and sort of off-the-shelf software.
[14:13] Even if off-the-shelf software existed for this that was open-source, we'd have to work with infrastructure. And like sometimes applications we look at, infrastructure team's less than enthused about deploying them.
[14:25] And I'm not saying that to like, you know, throw them in front of a bus or anything. It's more, you know, there, there's like a lot. It's, it's a complicated situation, right? So, anyway, we've tried all sorts of different schemes. We've tried a shared drive on Fedora People.
[14:39] So, if you go to like fedorapeople.org/groups, no, /SRV/group/designteam or something like that, you'll see our old shared drives that we had. Um, we've tried SparkleShare and Git. Uh, the problem that that has is, um, especially for folks who like don't have a lot of bandwidth, it, it, over time it just became multiple gigs and it could take like a day to sync the repo, which was ridiculous.
[15:06] So, then we tried doing multiple smaller repos, but then that got to be a mess because then we had to have admins to create new repos and it got out of hand. So, I mean, our current scheme right now is because we've migrated to Pagure as our ticketing system...
[15:22] [crosstalk]
[15:23] and Pagure is completely backed by Git, basically when we get a request coming in for like a t-shirt or a poster or that sort of thing, we will attach our source files and we will attach the print-ready files to that ticket in Pagure, and then like close it out.
[15:42] And if somebody just wants something basic like a t-shirt, or a poster, or something that's generic, for the most part, they can search our Pagure, like the main design team Pagure issues. Make sure you search closed issues. But for the most part, they should be able to find a lot of artwork that way.
[16:00] It's not organized as a neat catalog. You know, maybe if somebody out there, um, has the skill to sort of do a, a Web front end on top of that, that would be awesome. But, um, I mean, it's a way right now. And then we also have a side repo on Pagure.
[16:16] I think it's called design-assets. I don't know off the top of my head. But if you look around in Pagure, it's under the Fedora design group. Um, but we have another one that's just sort of super basic stuff like the logo in CMYK, a basic design for a t-shirt that is just the Fedora logo.
[16:34] Um, that just, you know, uh, the logo that's scaled for printing out on a ball point pen, that kind of stuff we have in that side repo, too. But I don't think a lot of people know about it or use it. So, I think moving forward, the main design repo is probably the way we're gonna go. Eduard:
[16:52] Yeah. I cross with that problem a lot of times. Actually, in the Wiki we had, uh, parts called marketing collateral or something like that where people sort...
Máirín:[17:01] Oh gosh, yeah.
Eduard:[17:02] They use the graphic stuff...
Máirín:[17:03] Those are really outdated.
Eduard:[17:04] Yeah.
Máirín:[17:05] And I hope people don't use them anymore [laughs] because some of those are older than, they're pretty old I mean.
Eduard:[17:13] It was awful that most of data was from Fedora 17. So, I was like, "No, please, don't grab stuff from that. Go to the design team of yours, please."
Máirín:[17:22] Yeah.
Eduard:[17:22] Also, I was working a lot, uh, with the measure and Maria Leonova was the one working for the, from the design team. And she say, "What?" And I say, "Yeah, I know what." It's, it's...
Máirín:[17:33] [laughs]
Eduard:[17:33] hard to understand why, you know, but, well, yeah.
Máirín:[17:37] I have seen stuff older than that. Like I've seen like before it was Fedora, like Fedora Core 5 stuff getting used somewhat recently. Not good. [laughs]
Eduard:[17:47] Yeah, sure, obviously. Uh, I don't know. But people sometimes, uh, just need, uh, go with the urgency, you know. They need something quick...
Máirín:[17:55] Right.
Eduard:[17:56] And they grab the first thing they, they can, they can grab. Uh, the design team produces lots of stuff. And I think, uh, you have, uh, easy onboarding process but I'm not actually sure how it is. So, can you tell me how's, how the onboarding process works for the design team?
Máirín:[18:11] Well, so there's, there's two types of things we work on. And for release-related stuff, you know, for example, the wallpaper. The wallpaper is something that sort of takes place over months at the beginning of a release cycle. So, like say today, we just released Fedora 28.
Eduard:[18:58] [laughs]
Máirín:[18:58] tended to not be very nice, um, or at least aesthetically pleasing. Um, so since then, I wanna say, 'cause we, we stopped doing that several releases ago, but it's kinda hard to just sort of create a wallpaper out of nothing.
[19:15] Like any, any design, I don't care what it is, I don't care if it's an illustration or even like a robot or s-, you know, something that you're building, you have to have a concept behind it. Like you, it has to have some meat. So, um, you, you can't just create from nothing.
[19:33] So, what we decided to do since Fedora is sort of, um, I wanna say like, like one of the four Fs is first, and then another F is features. We kinda tend to focus on moving technology forward. And we also kinda wanna be inclusive. So, we decided that we would highlight different famous technologists, um, mathematicians, uh, anybody who's technical.
[20:00] We wanted to sort of pick someone per release and then just riff off something about their career or what they discovered or what they invented and have that be reflected in the artwork. And it's not like a very direct relationship all the time.
[20:17] The one that I'm most proud of is, um, a couple releases ago, I think it was F26, um, the, who, it was Alexander Graham Bell. So, that was B. We do it in alphabetical order, too. The first was Archimedes. The second was Bell. The third was Cousteau.
[20:36] I'm struggling to, oh, Emily Duncan was the most recent one. Um, so we tried to do them in alphabetical order by last name, too. But for F26, it was Alexander Graham Bell. And among many other things, um, he's credited with developing the telephone.
[20:56] So, we thought about, like we started just riffing off different ideas and we go through different visuals. And, uh, again, this is like something that spans months, you know. But we sort of honed in on, we liked imagery that involves sound waves because sound waves can kinda look cool.
[21:14] And we found some, you know, we're just looking for like inspiration, right? Um, we found some images that like dealt with transforming sound waves into objects. Um, and we thought that was kinda cool.
[21:26] So, what happened is, um, Kyle Conway, who is a design team member, recorded himself saying the word Fedora and then took that sound wave and transformed the bars of the sound wave into trees and reflected them in water 'cause, you know, trees go up and sound waves are somewhat parallel, um, what's the right word? They're sort of reflected across an X-axis.
[21:50] So, he designed the trees for the top half of the curve and then reflected them. So, it's sort of like this landscape with trees on an island and the trees are reflected in the water. Um, so that's, that's where that background comes from.
[22:01] And you might not realize that just from working, just from looking at it fresh, not knowing, but it has that tie to like the telephone and sound waves and Alexander Graham Bell. So, we try to follow sort of a pretty, a pretty regimented process for going from concept to final art just for the wallpaper. And, again, that's something we do like clockwork every release.
[22:25] Um, and that wallpaper, like I, I've gone into such depth on how we do the wallpaper because that, the, the other release graphics sort of key off that. Like they might use the wallpaper elements of the wallpaper in them. So, that's sort of the most important thing we do every release.
[22:40] For stuff that's not release-bound, like somebody needs an icon or a logo for their project, basically, the process is, um, for the most part, we meet in IRC for an hour every other week in #Fedora design. And we just go through our tickets. We do like ticket triage and, you know, different discussions of what we're working on.
[23:01] So, pretty much no matter when you file a ticket with our team, somebody should look at it, you know, within at least or, yeah, well, at the most actually two weeks, somebody should look at it and triage it. Um, you know, from time to time, that doesn't happen but, you know, we, we try our best.
[23:17] And so, if you want a logo, you file a ticket. We have different templates in our ticket system. So, like if you say, "I want a logo" versus "I want swag or whatever," it asks you different questions. Um, so fill out the questions to the best of your knowledge. And then we'll start, you know, we'll triage the ticket, try to determine any information that we need from you that you didn't give us.
[23:39] And then either somebody from the team who's in the meeting will pick up the ticket or will advertise it to other team members on the list who maybe can't make the meetings. Someone will pick up the ticket, start sketching out things, you know, and there's just a usual back and forth.
[23:53] And then once the, once the ticket is completed and the assets are created, we upload print-ready stuff. We upload the sources. We'll upload everything to the ticket. We use the ticket as sort of the file store. And then you're off, it's done, and we close the ticket. So, it's sort of two different workflows based on what kind of asset we're creating.
Eduard:[24:14] And then please don't hate me for this, but I still use that wallpaper because I don't like the jellyfish stuff. I still have the, the Fedora 26 wallpaper in my desktop, even when I'm using...
Máirín:[24:38] Oh, yeah.
Eduard:[24:29] Fedora 26, 27, sorry.
Máirín:[24:30] You know, it seems like a lot of people really, they either really loved the F26 wallpaper or they really hated it. Like there seemed to be extreme reactions. It was definitely a departure in terms of it was very light. Usually our war-, wallpapers are mostly blue. And there, there's a lot of reasons for that.
[24:48] Um, I've gotten long, private email thesis on how, if you use any other color besides blue, all the bad things that that mean. Oh, my goodness, I could, I could write a novel about it. So, that's like I've been very sort of cautious in like trying to keep it to blue 'cause I don't wanna upset people.
[25:06] But with that one, we sort of departed from that a little bit. It's, it's heavy on black and it's very, it's very, overall, it's a very white wallpaper. Um, so you might guess which camps like it and which don't. But, um, yeah, I mean, I, I think if a design is good, sometimes it can provoke extreme reactions. Like, "I really love this" or "I really hate this."
[25:28] So, you know, I think maybe the folks we've pleased with F26, that's great. You can keep using it. You don't have to change it if you don't want to. And maybe those folks that we didn't reach with that wallpaper, maybe they like the jellyfish one 'cause that one was mostly blue.
[25:42] So, I mean, we have to, you can't, you can't please a 100 percent of people all the time. You just can't. So, you know, we just try to change it up and do what we can.
Eduard:[25:51] The Fedora 28 also look great, but I don't know. This, well, have something that appeals to me. I don't know why. It maybe looks deep in the forest or something. Um, there is a, a question I have because there is a theme we have that is called Fedora Badge. And how is this Fedora Badge work with the design team?
Máirín:[26:12] Wha-, what is this? Fedora Badge?
Eduard:[26:14] Fedora Badges.
Máirín:[26:15] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Fedora Badges are great because, um, it's, it's sort of a separate project. But then like the actual artwork of the Badges is maintained by the Fedora design team. Um, and, uh, Marie and Maria are really good about, they, they sort of meet on a separate schedule from the main design team and they do ticket triage for the badge artwork.
[26:35] Um, the reason that I say that it's kind of a really good project for the design team to get involved with is Badges have, like Mar-, Marie, she was my intern when we first created the badge artwork guidelines. So, she put together an amazing style guideline, um, just booklet to walk people through.
[26:56] This is how you design a badge. You know, these are the elements you can use. This is how the color codes work. These are different assets of like badgers and pandas and whatnot that you can use in creating your own badge.
[27:08] And, um, so it makes it really easy even if you've never interacted with the Badges platform or you're not familiar with our artwork to sort of get up to speed. And then, um, both she and Maria do this workshop.
[27:21] Um, they've done it at Flock, I think, a couple of times and they've done it at other conferences where they sort of do a little Inkscape boot camp and they show people how to use Inkscape. And then they open up the Badge templates which, um, you know, Marie put together Badge template files.
[27:37] And then, um, everybody who's doing the workshop can pick up a badge that needs artwork. Like they can pick up a ticket to do it and they create it during the course of the workshop. It's, um, a really neat experience.
[27:48] And if you're planning to attend Flock and you see that on the schedule, definitely go if you're curious about this stuff 'cause you'll, you'll walk out of it having new Inkscape skills, which is always useful. Um, but yeah, I mean, I don't know if you want me to go into sort of badges as a platform and how badges work. But in terms of the artwork, um, that's how it works.
[28:09] And it's, it's a good, it's good for the design team to be involved, too, because badges tend to be small atomic tasks, you know, just to put together the artwork. And a lot of times, depending on the badge, you can just remix artwork that's already been created for other badges.
[28:26] Um, so even if you're not like a talented illustrator but you have some design sense, you can grab pieces and components of other badges to create a new one. Um, so it's a really good entry-level task for a would-be design team member to do to sort of learn our processes and get used to Inkscape and that kinda stuff.
Eduard:[28:47] That is my, my other question. There isn't a specific, uh, software that we need to use to make designs, which is Inkscape, maybe GIMP or anything related?
Máirín:[28:52] So, um, uh, it's sort of like a religious thing in a sense, like whether or not you use open-source software or what operating system you use and that kind of stuff. And in the past, I've definitely been, as like the team leader and just as a human being, I've been much more hardline and almost, uh, maybe mean about it.
[29:22] Um, I think I've softened up lately. Um, but yeah, I mean, the main thing that we require -- and there's a lot of practical reasons -- the main thing we require is that you're using open-source tools and open-source formats to create the artwork.
[29:36] The reason that I bring up this sort of, uh, you know, I've been really hardline about this in the past, um, is that there's two types of folks who come to the design team when they're just starting out. There's people who are very invested in open-source and culture, and maybe even are technical.
[29:53] So, they're sort of, they get open-source, they get Fedora, but they have to learn design 'cause they don't have that skill. And then there's people who are talented designers. They're talented artists, but maybe they don't know so much about open-source. So, they might come to us, and they're not using Linux. And maybe they've never used Linux before or they've never used Inkscape.
[30:13] Um, so, you know, I mean, the main thing is like we want people to come into our community. We want to work together with them. And I think everyone, like Ryan Lerch, who's my colleague at Red Hat and on the Fedora design team, has kind of this interesting term he uses, their RMS line.
[30:30] You know, RMS being Richard Stallman. So, everybody has like a personal RMS line. And, um, I think that if we want to increase the number of people involved in open-source, 'cause that'll make it better if we're smart about it, just increasing people doesn't make it better.
[30:48] But in terms of growing the community and having more resources, that, that definitely helps. Um, we also want more users of open-source software because we want as many people as possible to enjoy software freedom, right?
[31:02] So, if I have a bouncer at the door of my Fedora club, and I say, "Oh, you're using a Mac, you're not allowed in, go away." I mean, that's sort of not very nice, right? Like it's sort of, um, it's not very welcoming.
[31:17] So, understanding that most designers today is, is sad and, you know, upset as that makes me to think about, um, most designers today, use Macs. So, if we don't let people in the door if they're using a Mac, then we're probably missing out on a lot of talent, a lot of people that, you know, we could easily convert to using Linux at some future point.
[31:44] But we're never gonna get them there if we don't even let them in the door. So, at this point, and this is a very long-winded way of saying, um, I'm OK if you use a Mac and you come to design team. If that's your background, that's fine. But I really must insist that you use the open-source tools on top of the OS.
[32:00] So, I really want people using Inkscape. If somebody comes to the design team and is using Illustrator or Photoshop, the problem is Illustrator can export SVG, but it doesn't use SVG at its core. Photoshop can, it actually can't save out XCF, which is the GIMP, native format. Um, it can save out flat bitmap files.
[32:22] And GIMP can open PSD files, which is the main Photoshop format, but there's different things that are doesn't support in those files. And I mean, the thing is, is I want anybody coming to the team who doesn't have however much money it costs to get the Adobe Suite. Um, you know, it's a lot of money.
[32:42] I don't want you to have to pay a certain amount of money just to be able to participate on the team. And if we have people producing files that you need a certain expensive program to work with, then that excludes people.
[32:54] So, my thought is that you need to use Inkscape, you need to use GIMP, you need to use the open formats to level the playing field. So, no matter what resources you have, monetary or otherwise, you have a shot at joining the team and be productive and interacting with us.
[33:11] And I, I also kind of, I, I've long thought that a lot of the work we do in Fedora on the design team kind of serves as a showcase for what the open-source tools we ship are capable of. You know, like the wallpaper that we just put out for Fedora 28, we created did that with a combination of, well, actually it was mostly Blender.
[33:34] Um, and that's a tool we ship with Fedora. The F26 wallpaper we were talking about that, uh, kind of emulates the sound waves, that was something that was created with Inkscape. So, anything that you see in Fedora's artwork was created with tools in Fedora.
[33:49] So, it sort of shows what you can do with Fedora, what you can make. So, there's sort of that thing, too. So, yes, basically, you know, in summary, if you're talented designer and you use a Mac, that's fine. There's no problem.
[34:04] But install Inkscape and we're happy to teach you how to use it. We have a lot of resources that we can point you to. But that's sort of where the design team's Richard Stallman line is, if that makes sense.
Eduard:[34:16] Yeah, sure. Also, um, this Mac thing is happening a lot in developing, in the developers work, too, so they feel bad about it. There's a lot of people using MACs out there and we need to raise them up.
Máirín:[34:29] Yeah. I mean, I guess, in one sense, the Macs are closer to Unix. So maybe that's OK. But, yeah, I just, I'd rather more people, and even if it's not Fedora, I would just rather more people using Linux. And I'd rather more people using Linux for all across the disciplines, not just development.
[34:46] I mean, I've been using Linux as my primary operating system a little bit longer than I've been working at Red Hat. So, that's, that's a pretty long time. [laughs] Um, and I mean, I, I've grown up and that my skills have developed as the actual tools available in open-source have developed and grown.
[35:05] Um, but I mean, if you're just starting out now, the, the tools are absolutely professional grade. Like, honestly, there is no excuse. I get if you have 20 years of experience using Illustrator or Photoshop or, you know, the company that you work with requires whatever, fine.
[35:21] But like if you're a student just starting out and you don't have any baggage, there's no reason why you couldn't use the open-source tools on top of Linux and produce incredible professional work. There's just no excuse. Eduard:
[35:35] Yeah, sure. Also, I been using Linux since, uh, I don't know, maybe 2009, 2012, less. Let's say maybe 2005. And right now, it's a lot of, a lot easier than, than then. Maybe people just need to make the jump to Linux and see how easy it is to use it now.
Máirín:[35:47] Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, and I, I, occasionally like I hear from designers, like, you know, "Oh, I'd love to use GIMP, but oh, it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that." And they have information about GIMP that's like 15 years old. You know what I mean?
[36:10] Like, GIMP is capable of a lot. It's the development, you know, OK, so the releases don't come super quick. But even so, I mean, what's available today versus, you know, when I played with GIMP in high school, it's totally, totally different. It's like a totally different story.
[36:27] But I, I feel like sometimes somebody will try it out. Like they'll test the waters, and they'll have a bad experience, and they just won't come back, even if it's years and years and years. I don't know how we change that kind of perception, because then they'll spread it around, too. You know what I mean?
Eduard:[36:41] Yeah. So, there is any word or anything you want to say to the people out there listening to our podcast?
Máirín:[36:48] Come to Fedora if you wanna contribute to open-source. I think it's a great, friendly community. There's so many different skill sets that we support. In, in terms of being a designer, if you're a designer, and you'd like to contribute to open-source, the Fedora design team is a great place to start.
Eduard:[37:05] And there's, uh, um, another thing. Uh, when people can find the design team to make contact and start to work with you?
Máirín:[37:14] So, we have a Wiki page. It's, um, fedoraproject.org/wiki/Design. And we have, um, a sub-page on there linked on the main front page that talks about, it's, I think it's /design/joinus. But it basically has step by step, we actually have a pretty solid workflow for joining. And we kinda walk you through that process.
Eduard:
[37:38] Sure. I help people come here to, to join us. And thanks a lot, uh, Máirín, for, for your company and your conversation here. I hope a lot of people will join soon to the design team. Thanks a lot.
Máirín:[37:52] Thanks.
Eduard:[37:53] Well, uh, this is all for this episode of this podcast. And I'll see you in two more weeks. Bye-bye.