No Human Theme In Ubuntu 10.04?

In an interview recorded on February 19 2010, Mark Shuttleworth revealed that a new light theme will replace the Human theme in Ubuntu 10.04. The Human theme has been the default theme in Ubuntu since the first release.

In the interview Mark says:

...we'll have some new styling which is going to be the starting point of another five year view. We've been Human for the last five years and now we're gonna be light oriented.

I'm sure Mark is referring to something like the Elementary theme, which has been a hot topic these last few months.
Some people think that interpreting "some new styling" being "the starting point of another five year view" as an entire new GTK / Metacity theme redesign might be a bit of a stretch. As 23meg from the Ubuntuforums.org points out, it can be interpreted as only the starting pieces of a new five-year outlook landing in Lucid as well.
During the Ask Mark session at Ubuntu OpenWeek, Mark was asked about the artwork for Lucid. Back then he replied:

New window decorations, some new icons for the panel indicators, some new styling on boot and login, no new gtk theme.

I must admit, I'm really in doubt about what to expect in Lucid. There are no artwork drops secduled for this release, but the User Interface Freeze is just around the corner, so we'll soon know what Lucid Lynx will look like.

Breathe Icon Set - A call for help

Yesterday, Cory Kontros posted a development/announcement thread on the Ubuntu forum, because the Breathe Icon set is looking for help. Currently there are only 2 people working on this set. The project is still very young, but off to a good start. All the icons are available as SVGs, which means that they are scalable. The forum thread reads:

Breathe Icon Set is a new effort to create a set of icons mixing the modern style of KDEs "Oxygen" icons with Ubuntu's "Human" set. Oxygen is a good, comprehensive and modern icon set. It doesn't have overly heavy outlines like Tango, but for our needs, it lacks the "Human-touch". So we will use it as a starting point.

We start with a base Oxygen set and replace the icons as suitable ones are created. The idea is to create as modern a set as Oxygen but with that distinctly Human feel.
Also, this set aims to one day be considered for a default replacement for the Human set but is in no way dependent on it.

The set is constantly evolving so what's here one day might not be the next. So try to keep any aesthetic ranting to a minimum. (especially if you offer up no alternative that you sit down and create)

Other info links:
* Launchpad page
* Wiki
* Mailing List

People wanting to help with the creation of this set are encouraged to join the Ubuntu artwork mailing list and read over the wiki for resources.

Read the full post on the Ubuntu Forum