Interview KPDF Icon Contest

Some time ago KDE-Look.org launched an icon contest where artists could submit an icon to be used for KPDF in the next KDE version. It seems the contest has now been prolonged. Curious about this icon contest I contacted the initiator Albert Astals Cid and some jury members to ask them some questions.

First of all because you guys are the jury, could you introduce yourself?

Enrico Ros: I'm Enrico Ros, hacking on KDE on spare time which is a fun and creative thing to do. Now I'm involved in KPDF 'restyling' that means bringing it to a good level or at least made it meet users expectations. As of now most of the frequently requested features have been implemented (search, links, continuous mode, centered pages, better zooming, faster thumbnail generation, ..).

Albert Astals Cid: I am a computer science student in Barcelona (Spain). I began translating KDE to Catalan language on 2002. On 2003 I began fixing various small bugs of the KDE applications. I took over KPDF maintainership on late August 2004. I also like helping everywhere I can.

Kenneth Wimer: My name is Kenneth Wimer. I have worked in R&D at SUSE LINUX for more than 5 years taking care of screen graphics and usability, as well as the coordination and technical aspects thereof. Working on KDE goes hand in hand with my daily work at SUSE.

Frank Karlitschek: My name ist Frank Karlitschek.  I'm the guy behind KDE-Look.org, KDE-Apps.org and Gnome-Look.org. I also work in the KDE artwork team. In the daytime I work as a director operations for a big internet agency. (www.dmc.de)

Why are you trying to collect icons through an icon contest?

Enrico Ros: It's for sure a good way to collect bright ideas from the artists community at KDE-Look.org. We're seeing good entries and some good concept art. Sometimes looking at sketches can carry new ideas through the programmers and users mind too :-).

Albert Astals Cid: The current KPDF icon is not good. So I thought a contest was the only way to get a new icon given I don't have any artistic abilities.

Kenneth Wimer: This contest should spur interest in KDE as well as making it easier for "newbies" to join the club :-) Many users are overwhelmed by the breadth and complexity of the project at first but contests like this will help to draw people to the project while offering them an easy way to start contributing to KDE.

Frank Karlitschek: KDE is a community project. It is important for KDE to motivate users to contribute to KDE. Together we can build the best desktop of the world. ;-)

Does the contest only apply to icons? Because we've seen a couple of submissions with a splashscreen as well.

Enrico Ros: It was meant to be an icon only contest but since we have seen such a good response (we can count 29 submissions on KDE-Look and the contest isn't even over). We will try to use as many graphics as we can! If we had and idea of the overall response we could have made the contest rules more strict and asked to provide icons for program internals, so that the whole new KPDF interface was themed too. Hopefully we can tackle this next time.

Albert Astals Cid: Currently KPDF starts so quickly I don't think a splash screen would be any benefit.

Kenneth Wimer: This specific contest is really only for an icon although the design of the icon will most likely be used on a splash screen or for the program in some way, so it doesn't hurt submitting extra graphics as well.

Frank Karlitschek: The contest is about icons. But help is needed in a lot of areas. Don't hesitate to submit your work.

There are rules for submissions. One of them is that the source files are required to be in SVG or SVGZ. Why is that?

Enrico Ros: If the icon was generated from an SVG or other formats it's important to have the source. It may happen that we need a custom sized icon, or a scalable image to blend somewhere in the page. As for rating, if I have to choose from 2 good icons, one only available at 48x48px and the other as SVG, there is no doubt, I'll go for the second.

Albert Astals Cid: SVG is a vectorial graphics format, it means the image can be scaled to any size without looking bad. Another rule is trying to be "Crystal compatible" that is because Crystal is the official KDE icon set.

Kenneth Wimer: Yes, there are definite rules. SVG (or SVGZ) must be included. Although certain small icons still need to be prepared by hand we are striving towards a system in which all icons can be rendered automatically from the SVG sources.

Frank Karlitschek: SVG is the icon format of the future. The plan is to switch all icon from png to svg. All new icons should be SVG.

Why are you concerned about the Adobe trademark issue as KDE mime for PDF uses the Adobe logo as well?

Albert Astals Cid: Quick answer: Just because Adobe did not sue Everaldo yet it does not mean that they never will do it.

Longer answer: We think It is clearly different using the logo in a mimetype than using it in an application. Using it in a mimetype just means "Hey, look that is a PDF", that is not bad for Adobe by any means. Using it in an application seems to mean "Hey look I am endorsed by Adobe" so it is clearly bad for Adobe as KPDF is in direct competition with Acrobat Reader.

Enrico Ros: Apart from the legal issue, I'd like to highlight the fact that by forbidding to use the Adobe stylized logo we enhance creativity. Take a look at new entries on KDE-look.org and you'll see what I mean. I think it's good to made it clear through the artwork that KPDF is more an 'Ebook Reader' than an 'Adobe Acrobat file Viewer'.

What do you think of the submissions so far?

Enrico Ros: The quality is high and it even has some peaks :-). I'm sure that when Albert created the contest, he didn't expect such a high response rate. For me even 2-3 icons to choose from seemed great, but now we have (wow) 29 entries.

Albert Astals Cid: I did not think we would get so many (29 at the moment) of them and I am happy to be wrong.

Kenneth Wimer: The submissions are great! We are happily pleased to see such a positive reaction to the contest. This proves that contests like this can work really well.

Frank Karlitschek: We have a lot of great submissions so far. But there is still a chance for new submissions, of course.

Can you mention some particular submissions what you like or dislike about them?

Enrico Ros: Well, I won't name sets because the constest is still running, but I think that some of them have a very good concept idea underlying the design. Others are done smoothly and they are great looking. All the splash screens artworks are well done. Of course there is something I dislike, mainly because don't blends well on desktop with default icon style. I must confess you that I have some entries I like so much, but it will be really hard to decide.

Albert Astals Cid: I reserve my comments for now :D

Kenneth Wimer: The two icons that caught my eye are KPDF Pack and Bookish. The first fits very well into the crystal theme and the second contains a visual metaphor which explains the functionality of the program well although there are other entries which are very good and might appeal more to the other jury members :-)

So when does the contest close now?

Albert Astals Cid: 15th of October at 12:00 CEST (mid day in Central European Standard Time). Also check the announcement at KDE-Look.org.

In which KDE release can we expect this new icon to be used?

Albert Astals Cid: We missed KDE 3.3.1 so it will not be in it :-D Probably it is going into KDE 3.4, as introducing a new icon in the middle of a x.y.Z release could confuse our users.

Enrico Ros: I'll import the icon in the "kpdf_experiments" branch (where the new and powerful KPDF is growing) as soon as we have a winner, but for HEAD it will have to wait a bit longer. If the icon is imported into HEAD you'll see it maybe already on KDE 3.3.2.