Dear All,

Next Saturday, I will give a short talk about G'MIC in Brussels, for the FOSDEM'2013 event.
I'm currently writing my slides, and I'm quite unhappy with the look they have.
Mainly, my concern is about the background I'm using for the slides, which is :


The slides look like this (french version, in PDF) : https://tschumperle.users.greyc.fr/slid ... le2012.pdf

As you've already understood, I'm definitely not an artist

I was wondering if I could get help from you, talented artists of Gimpchat, to design a new cool background for these slides. I was thinking about something more design (of course!) and more G'MIC-oriented (maybe with the inclusion of the G'MIC mascott G'micky on the background..).

So, do you have an idea on how I can improve this thing ?
Thanks a lot for your help

PS : The mandatory features that must remain are : the logos on the upper-right corner, and the black line on the top (title of the slides will be displayed above it).

I think your off to a good start David. I don't think anything major needs to be done. Color is good, two points; with your background make it consistent, not alternating and consider using a similar solid background or compatible colored background for slides you wish to feature major talking points. You could maybe fade the normal background a bit although I would test as presentation look very different from a monitor to a large screen.

what size do you want and where do we get a pic of the mascott ?

I suppose 1280x1024 or even 1024x980 should be enough.

Where can i find the original graphics? Logos /G'micky...

The G'MIC mascots can be obtained directly from the G'MIC plug-in, through the filter section 'About / Gmicky/Roddy '. I don't have a high-res version of the logo, only the one displayed on the web page (http://gmic.sourceforge.net/img/logo2.png)

For the other logos :

CNRS logo : http://www.goldeniastudios.com/wp-conte ... -cnrs1.jpg
GREYC logo : https://madelaine.users.greyc.fr/icones ... arence.png

I've put a first draft of the presentation slides at this URL :

https://tschumperle.users.greyc.fr/s_fosdem2013.pdf

As you have probably noticed, English is not my mother tongue, so there are probably a lot of grammatical errors in the slides. If you feel reading it until the end, please let me know what you do think about it. Please suggest any improvement. I'd like to show very readable and comprehensive slides, as my talk will be probably not as clear :p

Thanks a lot !

I think the lack of information on each page - it is about G'MIC

i havent got much experience which the requested style and im not even sure, i can really contribute to the taks
but here is what i think:
the background Rononours privided looks really good, and i think its also "artistic" in a good way, but it too busy for what its supposed to do
it distracts from the text
i think something more neutral is required

so i played a bit around and all i came up with is this
(the scanlines are probably not a good idea)

Cause it is magic....

...the original xcf-file may as template for other helpers.

Edit: an other one with soft light blue.

I second Esper's opinion, although, the choice of colors is right on! Cool spectrum, halftones, very business minded.

In the meantime I converted two logos (GREYCY and CNRS) to vectors (SVG files Inkscape, Illustrator compatible).
If someone's doing background, use these to scale the logos up/down without losing quality.
May be also useful, David, for the future use.

I like them both, Chris.
Let's see what David says.

I love the second one...nice work Chris and Kit

Wow Chris, that looks really good !! I like the two proposals.
I'm currently trying to compile the corresponding .pdf, so that we can see how it renders at the end.
At a first glance, I'd say the second one is my preferred (more colors, more joy ), but it's a bit too much 'girly' for a talk. Wait and see...


EDIT : here is the link to the PDF, with the second background : https://tschumperle.users.greyc.fr/s_fosdem2013_2.pdf

Looks too dark for me, but I think that with minor color corrections (make it brighter), it will be really good. I'll try to tweak the colors a little bit, if you permit it Chris !

EDIT2 : Also, I notice that as the text is obviously written from left to right, it often hides Gmicky behind, and maybe a good idea would be to put it on the right instead, which would maximize its visibility.

Here is my proposal Chris, from your .xcf file :

https://tschumperle.users.greyc.fr/s_fosdem2013_3.pdf

I've shifted the hue of the colored layer so it looks less 'pink', and I've also decrease the overall contrast for this layer. I've also shifted Gmicky on the right to make it more visible.
I think this is looking nice, maybe I removed too much of the colors. I don't know.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Glad that you like it!
I make it brighter with a white gradient overlay in the middle.
Gmicky on the right and a bit scaled down.

edit: Oh...david was faster...

Here is the result with your latest background Chris : https://tschumperle.users.greyc.fr/s_fosdem2013_4.pdf

Looks really nice to me ! Thanks a lot !


EDIT : this really rocks now ! Thanks thanks thanks !

Tomorrow, I will finish those slides. Of course Chris, I will credit you for the background. Thanks again

Looking good, I'm sure it will be well received

Spectacular. It looks like a lot of hrs were spent on this presentation and you deserve a lot of credit for the excellent work.
Chris, your Gmicky turned out beautifully too. I love it.