This week in design – 13 August 2010

It’s Friday the 13th! Thankfully it’s past midday so safe to write this post. We’ve had a busy week although it’s been a bit quiet as people have been away on holidays or working remotely. First up this week? We can’t go anywhere without talking about the theme.

Updates to the Ubuntu desktop theme

Last week we teased that a new look and feel was coming which was in turn picked up over the weekend and then Otto talked about it in more detail on Monday. We’ve had a lot of feedback and Otto and Andrea are in the process of reviewing that feedback and making updates and fixes. The theme is already included in the current builds of Maverick. Otto will update you all next week on this blog with more information on what further improvements are coming to a desktop near you!

Staying with the desktop – let’s talk papercuts.

We’ve fixed 60 papercuts! Big thanks to Vishnoo for all his help on this project. Here’s hoping we can close out the last 40 in the next 2 months before release. If you would like to get involved and tackle some papercuts head over to the launchpad project page.

And finally on the desktop, this week saw the Feature Freeze and on the 26th it’s the Beta and UI freeze. The complete Maverick schedule can be found on the wiki.

Font
Beta testers out there will already be using the bold and italics that have been added to the font. Don’t forget that you can become part of the development of the Ubuntu font by heading over to the fonttest page. We also updated the project name this week to reflect the ongoing nature of the font development and renamed the project Ubuntu Font Family. An update will be sent out on Monday and every Monday between now and first full release.

Have a great weekend – we’re all going to get soaked on the way home it appears so have a great weekend and think warm thoughts for those of us cycling home.