xpdx9 splash screen

[Gare]

Perhaps if the discussion wasn't so focused on the ability and slovenliness of the designer, they might even have participated in the discussion and given us some insight/feedback.

TG is the only place I've ever seen such a debate about a splash screen.

Paul, it is I and not the all the contributors to this thread who apparently intimated but did not declare any artist slovenliness or incompetence.

Many other posts simply say they don't like the view when they launch the program and are going to customize it.

I said "Lazy Thinking", Paul, and you heard "Lazy Programmers", for Christ's sake. I also said in my original post that I thought the splash screen was designed by a committee, and in your last post, you more or less agreed, but to make a different point about time constraints.


TG is the only place where one gets slapped three times for saying something once.

I'm not going to get the final word or an adequate trial on this one, am I?

My turn to be disappointed,

Gary

[pauland]

Gary, the lazy thing.

You did indeed say "Lazy thinking" and I guess that the designer would have been the one to do that thinking, but I take your point. Lazy programmers didn't enter my mind - they don't design splash screens.

You're not on Trial Gary and never was.

We can be disappointed together, sadly.

[mwenz]

...I smiled at your comment about the splash screen being uninspiring. I doubt that 'inspirational' was part of the brief!

Uninspired, inspirational, or meh. It really doesn't matter in the long run on the one hand. On the other hand, Adobe's splash screens have gotten comments over time as well. The CS5 series "box" splash got some debate. Beginning with CS6, one cannot say they are not artistic whether one likes them or not. But they are a design meant to demonstrate capabilities (at least PS and AI capabilities).

In any case, it doesn't take much to change the thing. Or ignore it. It is more difficult to not say something regardless of how those words will be taken, distorted or defended.

Said my piece.

mike

[Gare]

On a note of positivity to try to make up for all my negativity, from this designer's education and POV, when time constraints and an antagonistic group of bosses force you to come up with a graphic for an intangible item such as software, it won't kill you to practice a little "visual gestalt".

God and Fate willing, I'll be teaching a course in logo design this Fall, and I'll say here what I might say there: icons and pictograms have survived thousands of years with general comprehension, so go back to the cave, look at the wall, and draw what you see, or what your mind's eye sees.

Huh?

It's a farking design program: you show glyphs of design tools, not this ultra-stylized silliness that presumes self-importance and comprehension.

Corel Corp. "owned" a pencil icon, and then got weird or something and went back to Dr. Mike's love of ballooning, even though he left the company in the last century. Adobe is trying to show an abstract idea (a photo retouching environment) with abstract art. I don't think it works, but whether it does or not, historically Adobe demands that they are the taste-setters and trend-makers, so I go back to my cave on this one.

Xara could have and still can "own" a draughting pen. minimiro did a stunning illustration of one for Xtreme version 5, and it has life and can be posed several different way for future iterations of Xara Designer.

You own a paper mill, you use a pictogram of a paper roll in your signature.

You run a pizza shop and have no time, you draw a circle and draw and quarter it (or 6th it) to advertise.

You make the best design program (drawing program) in History, you put a mechanical pen with a bleeding crown on top of it to introduce your customer to the program loading.

-end of line-

[gwpriester]

Never say in one or two words what can be said in five or six paragraphs.

[Gare]

Never say in one or two words what can be said in five or six paragraphs.

Sixteen words.

[Karateed]

Well, what a spirited conversation....I think there's noone here really wanting to bash anyone else here. The ideas presented are valid on all counts from all parties as they are just that individual's perspectives. We don't have to take those ideas as gospel but the people most involved in the conversations are definitely well educated in this software and on what they like to see.

For me, a most uneducated Xarist, I don't like the splash screen at all. Were I to be a newcomer to this progam, I would have serious thoughts at what was being presented. I see the splash screen as my 'first impression' and if that's the case (don't fry me, it's only my opinion) then I'm not impressed. The flat look is not for me, the first thing I did with Win8 was get a shell to get rid of that toy nonsense.....but I digress. I won't have time for a while but as a purely amateur Xarist, I will attempt to make a splash screen using said program and though it will probably not be 'artistically correct', I'm sure it will be better than the one the Pros at Xara have placed in the program. None of this will happen until after August but it will happen and I will put myself in the firing line of you fine folks just to see what happens, I'm sure it will be fun.

And btw Gary, I totally agree with you on the SS, for ME, it sucks big time......the Xara5 SS was way cool and a new user would be attracted to that for the most part and repelled by the current SS, if that new user was ME....

I suppose that's the point, we all have different tastes so the SS isn't likely to affect the bottom line very much as tastes do differ like the North and South poles of the planet, yet they are also similar in some senses.....

Now, there's something to think about, don't you think?

Love this conversation and the fact of having differing opinions doesn't mean we can't be friends all.....

[Gare]

Ed—

You are a remarkable individual and I wish you were a Moderator. I'm not wishing you ill by saying that, incidentally.

Your first sentence isn't about you, or about the thread, but about diplomacy.

You are an inspiration to follow, and I stand in line behind you, sir.

It is indeed spirited, eh?

It's good to be alive and to feel it,

-g

[haakoo]

it is as it is

[gwpriester]

I'm reminded of some graffiti on the wall of the men's lavatory in art school. One person wrote, "Help, I'm trapped in an art factory!" To which another student added a small dot, then wrote, "Start here and draw your way out!"

.