Show HN: Linux Mint Redesign Proposal

I thought the redesign was to do with the STRUCTURE of Linux Mint, not a piddly logo change.

And the central menu isn't as worker-friendly when you have a screen-full of stuff already on there.

And what's with the predilection for the panel at the BOTTOM of the screen. We are always working downwards on the screen. Therefore it's more useful to put the panel at the TOP of the screen and out of your way. Just because MSFT and Apple put their panels at the bottom of the screen is no reason not to think carefully about panel placement.

The reason why it looks sort of like Mac is:

- Sans fonts. But we wanted to keep fonts open-source, simple and versatile, so it can be easily used in different context and wouldn't require overcomplicated guidelines. Therefore, primary + secondary font structure is less efficient in this case due to a more complicated hierarchy maintenance in the future

- Simple logo. Same reason as the fonts - the more complicated it is, the harder it will be in maintenance and the more design resource it would require. I mean even current LM materials has 12 variations of the logo and it's a mess.

Stock people - I mean there are just two, if I don't count the login screen. The first one (with a logo on the back of a long sleeve) is there to show that logo can be used for the physical items as well. The second one in the interface is there to mainly show a profile UI but I think we should have went with a default icon (if the user keeps it blank) instead.

And you are totally right about how hard it is to push for the design solutions in OSS. We started this initiative in June LAST YEAR but soon found out that many people don't understand the whole reason for a brand redesign and don't see how brand creates a visual foundation. So then after some time, we decided that we need to create a brand concept to show specifically how brand creates a visual system, so it would be clear for the community and the devs why you can't start just with the website updates or UI/UX detached from the rest.

And indeed most of the negative feedback right now can be grouped into unwilling to change or tech people preferences.

When we think of Linux Mint though, in it's core it is about being more user-centric and friendly than other Linux distros. This also means that you need to be very beginner friendly - that's why Cinnamon is so Window-like in the first place. Both of these things mean that from a visual standpoint it can't allow itself to be technical and shouldn't follow aesthetics preferred by most of the tech crowd (and I mean why if we have Arch, Manjaro, Debian, etc. for really advanced users who don't care about the GUI). It also means that it needs to be willing to change cause users preferences grow, interface assumptions slowly change with our devices and products we use. And it should be simple for the easy maintenance (but I talked about this one already).