Goals
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The trunk/Identity/Images/Themes directory exists to:

  * Organize CentOS themes' artistic motifs.

Description
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The artistic motif of theme is a graphic design component that provides the visual style of themes, it is used as pattern to connect all visual manifestations inside one unique theme.

Artistic motifs are based on conceptual ideas. Conceptual ideas bring the motivation, they are fuel for the engines of human imagination. Good conceptual ideas may produce good motivation to produce almost anything, and art works don't escape from it.

TreeFlower
     CentOS like trees, has roots, trunk, branches, leaves and flowers. Day by day they work together in freedom, ruled by the laws of nature and open standards, to show the beauty of its existence.

Modern
     Modern, squares and circles flowing up.

If you have new conceptual ideas for CentOS, then you can say that you want to create a new artistic motif for CentOS. To create a new artistic motif you need to create a directory under Identity/Images/Themes/ using a name coherent with your conceptual idea. That name will be the name of your artistic motif. If possible, when creating new conceptual ideas for CentOS, think about what CentOS means for you, what does it makes you feel, take your time, think deep, and share; you can improve the idea as time goes on.

Once you have defined a name for your theme, you need to create the motif structure of your theme. The motif structure is the basic direcotry structure you'll use to work your ideas. Here is where you organize your graphic design projects.

To add a new motif structure to CentOS Artwork Repository, you need to use the centos-art command line in the Identity/Images/Themes/ directory as described below:

     centos-art add --motif=ThemeName

The previous command will create the basic structure of themes for you.  The basic structure produced by centos-art command is illustrated in the following figure:

     trunk/Identity/Images/Themes/$ThemeName/
     |-- Backgrounds
     |   |-- Img
     |   `-- Tpl
     |-- Info
     |   |-- Img
     |   `-- Tpl
     |-- Palettes
     `-- Screenshots

Usage
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When designing artistic motifs for CentOS, consider the following recommendations:

  * Give a unique (case-sensitive) name to your Motif. This name is used as value wherever theme variable ($THEME) or translation marker (=THEME=) is.  Optionally, you can add a description about inspiration and concepts behind your work.

  * Use the location trunk/Identity/Images/Themes/$THEME/ to store your work. If it doesn't exist create it. Note that this require you to have previous commit access in CentOS Artwork Repository.

  * The CentOS Project is using the blue color (#204c8d) as base color for its corporate visual identity. Use such base corporate color information as much as possible in your artistic motif designs.

  * Try to make your design fit one of the theme models.

  * Feel free to make your art enterprise-level and beautiful.

  * Add the following information on your artwork (both in a visible design area and document metadata):

       * The name (or logo) of your artistic motif.

       * The copyright sentence: Copyright (C) YEAR YOURNAME

       * The license under which the work is released. All CentOS Art works are released under Creative Common Share-Alike License 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

See also
--------

The Backgrounds/ directory is used to organize artistic motif background images and the projects used to build those images.

Background images are linked (using the import feature of Inkscape) inside almost all theme art works. This structure let you make centralized changes on the visual identity and propagate them quickly to other areas.

In this configuration you design background images for different screen resolutions based on the theme artistic motif.

You may create different artistic motifs propositions based on the same conceptual idea. The conceptual idea is what defines a theme. Artistic motifs are interpretations of that idea.

Inside this directory artistic motifs are organized by name (e.g., TreeFlower, Modern, etc.).

Each artistic motif directory represents just one unique artistic motif.

The artistic motif is graphic design used as common pattern to connect all visual manifestations inside one unique theme.  The artistic motif is based on a conceptual idea.  Artistic motifs provide visual style to themes.

Designing artistic motifs is for anyone interested in creating beautiful themes for CentOS.  When building a theme for CentOS, the first design you need to define is the artistic motif.

Inside CentOS Artwork Repository, theme visual styles (a.k.a., artistic motifs) and theme visual structures (a.k.a., design models) are two different working lines.  When you design an artistic motif for CentOS you concentrate on its visual style, and eventualy, use the centos-art command line interface to render the visual style, you are currently producing, against an already-made theme model in order to produce the final result.  Final images are stored under Motifs/ directory using the model name, and the model directory structure as reference.

The artistic motif base structure is used by centos-art to produce images automatically. This section describes each directory of CentOS artistic motif base structure.

The Backgrounds/ directory is probably the core component, inside Motifs/ directory structure.  Inside Backgrounds/ directory you produce background images used by almost all theme models (e.g., Distribution, Websites, Promotion, etc.).  The Backgrounds/ directory can contain subdirectories to help you organize the design process.