[Design-devel] issues with the website homepage banner (Theme futurePrototype)

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi Laura - and web and design teams,

Quoting Laura Arjona Reina (2019-07-10 10:18:47)
> (Sorry for the long mail, I couldn't find time to  shrink it...)

Please no apology: Structural issues like this one is exactly what I 
envision that the design team can help address, so your lenghthy email 
is appreciated as a concrete case for us (in addition to your concrete 
plea for help).

While at it: Thanks for the stream of emails you've cc'ed the design 
team in recent years.  Please continue to do that, I see value in that, 
even though we have not yet been able to react to any of them.

The design team currently consists of ~2 members, both quite busy 
elsewhere, which explains the loud silence you might have noticed from 
us.  Hopefully that will change - personally I haven't given up yet, and 
the 20-30 people showing up to our BoF at Debconf17 in Canada 2 yars ago 
indicates that there is quite some interest from others as well.




> We have had some issues to setup the website homepage banner for the new theme 
> included in Debian 10 buster (theme futurePrototype 
> https://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/futurePrototype ).
> This mail is to explain what I've been able to figure out and see if we can 
> improve further.
> 
> 1.- Starting point
> 
> Alex Makas provided a png with the website banner (thanks!)
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/futurePrototype?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=website-banner.png 
> 
> but until now we have used 2 png files for the website banner: one with the 
> background and other with the debian swirl + text + motto
> 
> I'm not sure why we are using 2 files; I *think* it is because the 
> older background png files were designed in a way that they were 
> fitting wide screens nicely, but I'm not sure if the stretch/buster 
> background PNG files include that feature.

My guess is that initially only the swirl was a graphic, then name 
changed to use a non-free font requiring fixating it as a graphics, then 
background was changed from a flat color to an illustration needing a 
graphic, and then motto was fixated into a graphic.

It would IMO be ideal if the text was not fixated as graphics but was 
preserved as letters selectable and therefore web-searchable.  At least 
for the motto.  Not sure that is doable, however - it is far easier to 
throw opinions than to struggle with implementing them ;-)

[ details snipped ]

> You can see those files in the test site we have for the new-homepage 
> branch:
> 
> https://debian-newhomepage.larjona.net

WAUW!!!

Amazing facelift of the front page.  Congratulations to the web team for 
that!

[ details snipped ]

> The result will be visible in the website in the next hours but you 
> can see the png file here:
> 
> https://deb.li/f0rF
> 
> I don't know if this result can be improved or not, and if the issues 
> of bad kerning in stretch or thinner font in buster are bugs or 
> features and if they are related to inkscape or the font package or 
> the font upstream.
> 
> Any advice is welcome, as well as advice about the specific 
> requirements we (website team) should provide in the artwork contest 
> so designers know what to provide, exactly.

Do I nderstand you correctly that essentially your original problem was 
bad font kerning, and fixing that you now have a problem of not being 
able to match the font thickness?

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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