New Splash Screen For Lazarus 4

[LBox]

@LBox. Sorry for offtopic about Delphi columns.
I like your splash screen, except the spots of cheetah. May they be more natural, not regular ellipses?

No problem, especially since the topic you are discussing is not taken out of thin air, but from the current splash screen.

Regarding the cheetah's spots, I initially adhered to minimalism, but of course they can be made more natural,
but I don't think that this will somehow greatly affect the overall picture 

[LBox]

How about something like option D but leaning more towards the lilac/purple with a hint of the smoky grey of the original? 

Here is version "H" where version "D" is mixed with version "A" by 50 percent 

[LBox]

Version "D2" where the footer, lower text, and cheetah retained their color from version "A" 
I think this mix looks good 

Well, considering that the current splash screen, to which many are accustomed, is in blue tones, it would probably be wrong to radically change the tone on the new splash screen. By the way, for the same reason, I did not touch the inscriptions “Free Pascal” and “Lazarus”, inheriting their color and ratio from the current splash screen so that the new splash screen would retain recognizable elements from the current splash screen.

[LBox]

For quick comparison I attach the "D2" version next to the current splash screen 

Of course, the final word is with the Lazarus developers who are responsible for releasing the versions.
I hope they liked this idea, and I will be very happy if they choose something from the proposed options 

[Warfley]

I really like the more colorful blue design, and it fits really well with the existing lazarus design, but I must admit I am a real sucker for a good orange and really like the orange variant. That said, to the degree that Lazarus has a color scheme (Design wise it's not very good or consistent), it tends to blueish anyway, so I must admit the blue fits much better anyway.

[Thaddy]

We are not talking sports here, do we?

[Warfley]

Lol just realized that today is probably the worst day to make such a comment, but in my defense I'm not american 😁

And @Thaddy, I guess you're dutch? Also not meaning this

[Awkward]

I really like the more colorful blue design, and it fits really well with the existing lazarus design, but I must admit I am a real sucker for a good orange and really like the orange variant. That said, to the degree that Lazarus has a color scheme (Design wise it's not very good or consistent), it tends to blueish anyway, so I must admit the blue fits much better anyway.

Want to use different colors for different versions (stable, beta, trunk)?

[Warfley]

Want to use different colors for different versions (stable, beta, trunk)?

I actually kindof already do this on my machine, as there already is an orange and a blue icon for Lazarus in the icons folder. To make the icons recognizable in my start menu, I have my lazarus stable shortcuts using the blue icon, and the shortcut to lazarus trunk using the orange icon.

[LBox]

First, I like the offering, it looks very nice.

With the above out of the way, I am of the opinion that the combination of Free Pascal and Lazarus is something special.  For all the languages and development environments out there, the only one that is genuinely comparable is Delphi (which should come as no surprise.)  Because of this, I am of the opinion that Lazarus and Free Pascal would be best served with a graphic that exemplifies how special the combination is.

What I'd really like to see is an ambigram of some sort, something along the lines of what you find at https://www.scottkim.com/blog/categories/ambigrams

Needless to say, it takes a rather high level of graphic talent to produce something like that (which I can only dream of having) but, I believe that something like that would genuinely represent how special the Lazarus/Free Pascal combination is.

Trivia: Scott Kim's ambigrams were featured in an issue of the now defunct but at one time premier magazine: Byte.

I believe there is enough talent of all kinds in this forum to create something like that for Lazarus/FPC.

While I'm at it, not only I'd like to see a graphic that could do justice to the Lazarus/FPC combination but also one that could be "inherited" from by apps developed using them and used by those apps to point out they were developed using the FPC/Lazarus combination.  OOGD (Object Oriented Graphic Design )

I'm glad you liked it 
Regarding the Free Pascal and Lazarus inscriptions in ambigram format, I'll say that the idea is interesting, but not easy to implement and visually I think it's too radical 

As I said above, I tried to avoid too radical changes in order to preserve some heritage with the current splash screen 

[LBox]

I really like the more colorful blue design, and it fits really well with the existing lazarus design, but I must admit I am a real sucker for a good orange and really like the orange variant. That said, to the degree that Lazarus has a color scheme (Design wise it's not very good or consistent), it tends to blueish anyway, so I must admit the blue fits much better anyway.

+1 Agree 

[nomorelogic]

In my opinion it is a really beautiful and cool spash screen.
I think the blue version seems more appropriate as it recalls the current colours.
It would be nice, as someone has already suggested, to have the gold version for the trunk, as if to say: gold is coming! 

[dsiders]

<Shrug>. Change for the sake of change. IMO, keep the current splash screen... it already contains version information.

[Warfley]

<Shrug>. Change for the sake of change. IMO, keep the current splash screen... it already contains version information.

It's not about information right? It's the very first thing anyone using Lazarus sees. It will shape the expectations of whatever comes afterwards. If it's ugly or looks old timey, people will go into using the IDE already considering it old or outdated.
If you want people to pick up Lazarus, make it look worth picking up.

Design is probably the single most important aspect for the decision of someone to use or not use something. It can have all the functionalities you could ever wish for, if it looks like straight out of an IBM commercial from the 80s, no one is going to pick it up. Simultaniously, you can have something with very bad and limited functionality, but if it looks inticing, people are going to give it a try.

It's why I think dark theme, docked mode, editor color schemes, etc. should be chosable in the very beginning. I've seen more than often enough when Lazarus pops up cleanly, undocked, with bright colors (or even worse on linux using the dark system style, but the editor having a bright theme), that people ask "what the hell this is" (literally the wors a friend of mine said when I finally got him to install Lazarus).

[Martin_fr]

Well, settings IMHO are a separate topic (despite shared aspects, such as associations).

The image is part of the brand. And while brands can and do change, they usually do so over very long time, in very small steps. Making absolutely sure that even people who skip some iterations will still immediately recognize it. (And recognition is not the same as reading the text).

I don't think the current logo looks dated at all.

And, if you ask me

- electric traces => IMHO so overused, they are drastically reducing the recognizability. If everyone has the same logo, then what value would a logo have?
- Same for bit patterns in one/zero.

IMHO, those are 2 "we don't have anything of our own" elements.


The photographic image might be seen a mismatch to the remaining abstract graphics. That is different from dated.
Its more due to its high information content (you can even see the fur) it may be overkill. And I say that despite I really like it.

Yet, whatever might be said about it: The cheetah sitting on a column is an important part of the brand.
IMHO it must be preserved. (in some form)

As should be the specific shades of blue that we already have.