Ubuntu Studio Variant Of The Breathe Iconset

Cory Kontros recently announced that Ubuntu Studio is looking for a icon refresh and is considering depending on the Breathe iconset as a base for Lucid. The idea is to create new icons in the Breathe/Oxygen style and inherit Breathe as a dependency. This new look will be a nice update from the current Tango styled icons. Saleel Velankar has already made the first submissions on the wiki.

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

Humanity Icons Pack

For a while, my fellow blogger on OMG! UBUNTU! have been writing a lot of posts about the Humanity icons for Ubuntu 9.10:

• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/humanity-style-icons-checkgmail.html
• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/humanity-style-icons-for-pidgin.html
• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/humanity-style-panel-weather-icons.html
• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/humanity-style-icons-for-parcellite.html
• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/humanity-style-icons-banshee-tomboy.html
• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/which-humanity-style-icon-would-you.html
• http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/11/humanity-style-icons-liferea-fusion.html

Now you can grab all of the icons in the Humanity Icons Pack that includes monochrome Humanity panel icons for:

Printing, Shutter, Tomboy, Banshee, File Operations, Rhythmbox, Deluge, Fusion-Icon, Transmission, Gwibber, Emesene, Lifera, PolicyKit/Seahorse, Exaile, gPodder, Gwget, CellWriter, Gnome-Do, Specto, HPLIP, Brasero, Weather.

And there's more to come! http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Humanity+Panel+Icons+Theme?content=115260

A Tango Internet Service Icon Collection

Breakdance is a collection of internet service icons following the Tango style guidelines, and the first release has just landed on Launchpad.

Right now it’s at version 0.1. There is 11 icons available in 48×48px, 32×32px, 22×22px and 16×16px, plus the scalable SVG version (in alphabetical order):

- Brightkite
- Digg
- Facebook
- Flickr
- Friendfeed
- Identi.ca
- Laconica
- OpenID
- Ping.fm
- Stumble Upon
- Twitter

This project right now consists of a compilation of Jakub Szypulka earlier works related to internet services. Of course all icons are available under the terms of Public Domain.

Source: https://launchpad.net/breakdance

Give Gnome A More Modern Look

click image to view in full size
When compared to KDE 4, OSX or Windows 7 the default Gnome desktop looks… let’s face it… old. Here are a few steps I took to make my desktop look more modern:

- Change the theme:
I’m using the Dust theme which is included in Ubuntu 9.04 (also available for earlier releases).
- Change the icon set:
I find the Oxygen icon set to be one of the best set’s out there, I really do love the upcoming Breathe icon set. Although Breathe is still work in progress you can already take it for a test drive.
- Change the wallpaper:
Of course I use the photo wallpapers from my Ubuntu Wallpaper Photo Pack, which recently was updated and now holds eighteen photographs (43 MB).
- Adjust panel properties:
Transparent panels look very modern and makes the panels more integrated with the desktop background. Under panel properties I also set the size to 34 pixels.
- Add custom system sounds:
The sounds I’m currently using are the Rhodes system sounds I created myself.

If you like to rock out with your dock, I would recommend that you try Gnome Do.

Revampeing Logo For Déjà Dup

On the Gnome ArtRequest page (Fantastic page! Why doesn't Ubuntu's artteam have such a thing?) I read Déjà Dup could use a revamped logo. Thanks to Andreas Nilsson and his Gnome Planet blogpost for pointing out "10 ways for an artist to contribute to the GNOME Project". You can see the current Déjà Dup logo above. This the GNOME 'refresh' image superimposed on the GNOME hard drive image. I have no idea if the ideas (see below) I suggested works any better as metaphor for 'backup program'.


This is not me being brilliant - I just stumbled across Cucusoft's Restore iTunes from backup which I used as model. Simply adding Tango icons, isn't exactly brilliant work for the creative mind, but I think the metaphor works very well.

I also did a few other attempts, though most of them was not worth wasting your time with. If you don't like the "lifesaver" metaphor, perhaps you will like the "safe" better.

How to change icon size in Nautilus sidebar

While we're waiting for the Nautilus sidebar to categorize items displayed with headings, we can make the sidebar a little more beautiful by changing a little code ourselves.
On the Ubuntu forum is a how-to guide that allows you to change the icon size in the Places sidebar in Nautilus filemanager. See modified Nautilus screenshot below:



It requires getting a bit technical and it will take some time. You should be able to uninstall this simply by reinstalling nautilus package with Synaptic, but use it at your own risk! The original how-to guide was written for Feisty Fawn(in 2005), but a single step can be altered for Interpid Ibex.

Read the whole thread here...

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