Another version. I want the heading to be more integrated to the rest of the window instead of the summary page.



Other iterations over the logo: in (a) I just changed the positions, in (b) I decreased the size of the gear, in (c) I decreased both the gear and the K. In (d) I changed the gear position to resemble the kde logo.

I vote for c.

I vote for d, but I like c as well.

I vote for d.
Btw I also like the formatted page design better

lucashappy wrote:Another version. I want the heading to be more integrated to the rest of the window instead of the summary page.

Unless it's possible to adapt the colors of the overview page to the system color theme, it would look weird as soon as a color scheme other than the default is chosen.
If it is technically possible to make it adapt to the color scheme, I think it's a great idea!

That integration is actually difficult regardless of the color because we use standard widgets. So, I would leave the title out for now.

It looks nice, but in my opinion the header "Your financial summary" kills too much vertical screen space at the the top: for me a NO-GO!

The balances are too big, for my taste, but the layout with those tab-like lines looks just great. Cool idea.

mkae wrote:It looks nice, but in my opinion the header "Your financial summary" kills too much vertical screen space at the the top: for me a NO-GO!

The balances are too big, for my taste, but the layout with those tab-like lines looks just great. Cool idea.

I would keep the balances at the same size as the section title.

The title size seems fine, and it could be adjusted later. The white space between the title and the first section could be reduced.

In any case, it is a damn long scrolling page with lots of info, so I wouldn't worry much about it.

My vote for the above would be "C" also. Nice and weight-balanced.

Today I saw a preview of the new artwork on Planet KDE, the only thing that I think is still missing is the sidebar with monochrome icons

I have a comment on the proposal for the new start screen, but it’s actually more of a general comment on icon design: It’s best to avoid having symbols inside circles (or other shapes), since that makes the icon much slower and more difficult ‘read’.

This is related to the traditional principle of ‘staging’ in animation. If an object works even when it’s rendered as a silhouette, it’s much quicker and easier to ‘read’. Take a look at the image below heading 3 (‘Staging’) at http://www.87seconds.com/en/video-marketing-blog/read/the-12-basic-principles-of-stunning-animation-video for a nice illustration of the concept. Here are a few other nice examples, including two videos: http://craigbowman.com/animation/principles-of-animation-part-ii. And an explanation: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Traditional_Principles_of_Animation/Staging

This concept applies equally well to icon design as to animation. For an example, take a look at default (Oxygen) icons for media control in the KDE music player JuK. What’s the icon for ‘pause’? A circle with a small symbol inside. What’s the icon for ‘play’? A circle with a small symbol inside. And for ‘previous track’ and ‘next track’? Circles with small symbols (triangles) inside.

Contrast these last two icons with the ‘previous document’ and ‘next document’ icons in Kate. The Kate icons are actual arrows, work as silhouettes, and are thus much quicker to ‘read’ and easier to understand. (Though the non-triangle part of the arrows are perhaps a bit short, making the two icons a bit too similar (try to tell them apart when you’re squinting, to simulate how a person with vision impairment might see them).)

My recommendation would be to avoid having circles (solid or outlines) or other shapes as backgrounds for icons. Instead, let the icons themselves have shapes (silhouettes) that shows the meaning of the icons.

lazyit wrote:Today I saw a preview of the new artwork on Planet KDE, the only thing that I think is still missing is the sidebar with monochrome icons

I wouldn't go with monochrome icons. Being a financial application, it's already dull by itself, so we would like to keep it colorful if possible. Not blinking-1998-styled icons, but the pale-colored style helps bring a little life into it.

Sorry for being away for so long but I've been very busy in the last couple days.

huftis wrote:It’s best to avoid having symbols inside circles (or other shapes), since that makes the icon much slower and more difficult ‘read’.

Your point is something that I never thought about! Is really interesting! For that specific page I think isn't something that we need to worry about since it's seldom acessed by the user (please Hei Ku, correct me if I'm wrong). Furthermore the user has other visual clues about the meaning of the links besides the silhouette, as is the colors and the titles. The bottom gray icons may be colored to increase the readability if desired but I think they're fine since they're even less relevant fo the day by day use.

The sidebar icons, on the other side, need to be easily recognizable by the users as they are the main navigation item of the app. They should follow the principle that you explain.

lazyit wrote:Today I saw a preview of the new artwork on Planet KDE, the only thing that I think is still missing is the sidebar with monochrome icons

Hei Ku wrote:I wouldn't go with monochrome icons. Being a financial application, it's already dull by itself, so we would like to keep it colorful if possible. Not blinking-1998-styled icons, but the pale-colored style helps bring a little life into it.

I think they should be colored since it can be more recognizable by the user but we also should make monochrome versions of them to be included in the Awesome Community Icon theme. I think the overall aspect of the sidebar depends of the widget theme and not of the application. So the progress of this topic may change things later.

Well, icons is something that I'm not good doing it, but here is a initial sketch of some of them. When we're in agreement about the shapes we can work on colors and a polished version.

I just checked our commit logs. We use over 60 icons. Some of these are combinations (eg. transaction-edit, transaction-find, etc), but nonetheless it is not nearly as simple as changing the icons on the taskbar.
That's why I'd stick to the artwork for now, and leave the icons for later.

They are part of the oxygen set, so they should be on the queue to be replaced anyway.

Hum, okay. What's still missing in the artwork?