One of the most common complaints about Ubuntu is that there is just too much orange/brown in the default theme. Although this might seem like a simple matter of changing the theme, it is not.

For one thing, there are also plenty of people who like the default Ubuntu themes (myself included.) More importantly, though, Ubuntu has developed very good branding and marketing and the orange/brown is part of that. Dropping the orange/brown color scheme could even confuse people who associate Ubuntu with orange/brown.

So what can be done about this problem if changing the theme is not an option? A lot. Luckily, some of it has already been done.

I propose leaving the Human theme as the default but including or providing easy access to a small number, no more than 4 or 5, of other themes.

This capability to do this is really already around. Just launch synaptic package manager and install blubuntu-look. Then go to the Appearance windows and switch to Blubuntu. Unfortunately, Blubuntu is not well promoted and should be simpler to install.

This is why I propose creating a place in the Appearance window where one of a few themes can be selected to be installed and used. Of course, third party themes can still be installed, but, hopefully, fewer people will find the need to use a different theme.

So where are these themes going to come from? Well the normal thing to do would be to assign it all the Art Team, but instead I think the Art Team should focus on just the default theme and leave the alternate themes to a competition, as some people have suggested should be done with the default theme.

In order to make the competition more structured, I also think that there should be categories and one theme from each category (the one with the most votes) should be included. The categories don’t have to be specific. For example, there might be a green category, a blue category, a dark category, a plain category, and an other category.

Finally, to make it easier to submit entries, a new function could be added to Ubuntu so that once you had come up with a theme you liked you could easily submit it with the press of a button.

Through this idea, I believe Ubuntu can overcome the color concerns of some people, appeal to more users, and not lose branding and marketing work, all at the same time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Distros, Ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.