Need an artist

[folderol]

The soft-synth Yoshimi needs an image for a  start-up splash screen. If you look here you'll see what the desktop icon looks like along with some information about the project, and  this is where you can find the story about how the name came to be.

I have this mental image of Yoshimi throwing rests, crotchets etc. at scared fleeing robots, but am open to just about anything really.  

Yoshimi is a free open source project and I can't offer you anything more than acknowledgment and the satisfaction of knowing your work will be enjoyed by hundreds of linux geeks every time they work on their music.

Hmm, hope that last point doesn't actually put people off 

[Oren]

I'll ask around, Will. Have one fellow in mind...

[folderol]

Thanks Oren

I've been advised to not make the splash screen too geeky - it has to appeal to musicians not nerds

[offthewall]

Do you have any more information such as :
size of splash; animated/not; info to include.

 
James

[folderol]

Hi James,

It will be a static image. This is partly because the program takes a very variable amount of time to set itself up, depending (mostly) on how many and what type of instruments banks you have.

We are thinking of something like 400x300 pixels, and the desktop icon (or a representation of it) needs to appear somewhere.

We've had one idea suggesting a top line of just "Yoshimi" with the robot head to the right, but with the eye 'pupils' shifted so it seems to be worriedly looking at the text.

I quite like that myself as it creates a nice link to the way it came about, but as I said, the field is wide open. The desktop icon has been Yoshimi's 'identity' since 2009, but we've never had a splash screen before.

As well as the image looking good and getting the viewers attention, we want it as clear as possible what Yoshimi actually is!
Ideas we are also trying to promote are ease of use, exceptional quality of sound, great flexibility.

It would also be helpful if the lower part of the image had relatively clear space that could be over-written with progress/status information - we don't actually have any, but it might get added later.

Phew!

I know that's asking a lot, so we'll happily accept any 2 features out of a dozen

 

[offthewall]

OK.
So ... any other text apart from the name?
Any preference to background colour. Don't want it to clash with other elements of the program.

J.

[folderol]

The colours in the program are basically greys and pale blues.

One we've already received has a sky with a sunburst near the top as the background, then:
Yoshimi
the future of
sound synthesis

That text is not ideal, but it's difficult to come up with a few lines that get straight to the point.

It's a software synthesiser (soft-synth).
It is fully polyphonic.
You can have up to 16 different 'instruments' all sounding at the same time.
There are already many banks of instrument sounds, but you can create your own.
No samples are used, sounds are mathematically calculated as they are wanted.
Sound quality is limited only by your hardware.
At it's simplest, you can just run it, select a sound and play.

[offthewall]

First try.
See if any of this works.

 
James

[folderol]

I like this a lot, especially the crotchet tail hooked over the 'O'

I'd suggest a wording change though.

"polyphonic/multi-voice/sample-free/easy"

You caught the essence well, but I think this rolls off the tongue better

Any other ideas from you (or anyone else) would also be more than welcome. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I would like to offer the Yoshimi list users a choice. They will be the ones seeing it time and again, so I'd like them to feel they have a say in things.

[offthewall]

Easy changes.
Each element is simple to change, if there are any other problems.
I'll have another think when I get time to see if I can come up with alternatives.

 
James

[Oren]

I think James has pretty well nailed it!

My graphics guy feels he is not up to the challenge. Hosers, eh?

[elwoodblues91]

Nice job on the graphics James! The color scheme is a bit too loud & cute for my pallet...but to each his own.

[offthewall]

Personally I agree, Thom.
But ... with something like this you work 'to the brief', not to your own preference.

 
James

[offthewall]

Here is a third one to try.
Did a little extra drawing for this one.

 
James

[folderol]

Thanks a lot James, I'll put these to the list users and see what they think.