How to create graphics for a Fedora spin

I’ve been spending some time lately putting together some how-to documentation for various tasks the Fedora design team does on a regular basis.
This is a how-to on how to create graphics for a Fedora spin. During a recent design ticket review we noticed a few requests for spin graphics, and there seemed to be some confusion on how to create them. Hopefully this guide helps.

Overview

There’s three main graphics you’ll need to create a page for your spin at spins.fedoraproject.org. What you’ll need before you start creating these graphics:

Things you need to get from the spin maintainer

• The abbreviated version of the spin’s name. This should be used in the name of the graphics files for your spin. For example, the ‘Fedora Electronic Lab’ has an abbreviated name of ‘Electronic-lab’, so:
  • It is listed as ‘Electronic-Lab’ in the spins directory on the front page of http://spins.fedoraproject.org
  • Its mini graphic is named: electronic-lab-mini.png
  • Its feature graphic is named: electronic-lab-feature.png
  • Its tagline graphic is named: electronic-lab-tagline.png
• A tagline for the spin. Here’s some examples from current spins (shorter is better!):
  • KDE: “Be free.”
  • LXDE: “Your desktop, light as air.”
  • ‘FCE: “Speed up your desktop.”
  • Electronic Lab: “An advanced electronic design and simulation platform for micro-nano electronics engineering.”
  • Design Suite: “Open creativity.”

Things you can download here

• The Comfortaa font, installed on your system.
  • Simply run yum install aajohan-comfortaa-fonts to install it. Do this before you open up Inkscape.
• The template file & script to generate graphics from it.
  • Spins Graphics Template – An Inkscape SVG you can use as a base to create your spins graphic.
  • Spins Graphics Generator Script – A bash script that will generate your spins graphics after you’ve edited the SVG template file. Save it to the same directory as the svg file, and do the following:
    • Give the script permissions. In a terminal,

      chmod +x spins-graphics-generator-script.sh

    • Run the script. In a terminal,

      ./spins-graphics-generator-script.sh spins-graphics-template.svg

Graphic specifications

Here’s the graphics you’ll need with specifications for each.

The logo for your spin

Your spin’s logo will be a ‘sublogo’ of the Fedora logo. What this means is that your spin’s name will be placed beneath the ‘Fedora’ wordmark in the Fedora logo. You’ll use Fedora’s headline font, Comfortaa, in order to do this.

The mini graphic

This is the smallest ‘banner’ for your spin. It is used to feature your spin in the main directory of spins on the front page of http://spins.fedoraproject.org.

Specs:

• Size: 120 pixels wide, 45 pixels tall
• Format: PNG
• Name: *-mini.png

The feature graphic

This is a banner that is used to feature your spin in the sidebar of the http://spins.fedoraproject.org site. You might also want to use it to advertise your spin on other sites, such as your blog.

Specs:

• Size: 232 pixels wide, 80 pixels tall
• Format: PNG
• Name: *-feature.png
• Font for tagline text: Comfortaa Regular

The tagline graphic

This is the graphic that is used for the design at the top of your spin’s page. At your option, it will have your spin’s tagline in the upper right, in the Comfortaa font. Your spin’s official logo will be in the upper left.

Specs:

• Size: 960 pixels wide, 120 pixels tall
• Format: PNG
• Name: *-tagline.png
• Font for tagline text: Comfortaa Regular

How to create the graphics

1. Install needed font. Install the Comfortaa font.

   yum install aajohan-comfortaa-fonts -y

2. Open up the spins graphics template. Download the Spins Graphics Template. Open it up in Inkscape.
3. Insert the spin’s name. At the top of the template you’ll see ‘Spin Name.’ Click on this using Inkscape’s text tool, or double-click on it using Inkscape’s selector arrow. Erase the ‘Spin Name’ filler text and type the name of the spin you’re creating graphics for.
4. Insert the spin’s tagline. At the top of the template you’ll also ‘Your tagline. It goes here. Could be two lines if you like.’ Click on this using Inkscape’s text tool, or double-click on it using Inkscape’s selector arrow. Erase this filler text and type the tagline of the spin you’re creating graphics for.
5. Design the graphics. You’ll now have a base set of spins graphics, but they have a rather plain background. You can change the background color of the graphics to reflect the spin’s branding and/or personality, and you may also add graphics on top of the banner / below the text to make it more interesting. [Open Clip Art] can be a good source of such graphics, as they are all public domain and acceptably licensed for use in Fedora.
6. Save the SVG. Once you have finished designing the graphics, save the svg.
7. Download the generator script. Next, download the Spins Graphics Generator Script.
8. Give the script permissions to be executed. In a terminal,

   chmod +x spins-graphics-generator-script.sh

9. Run the script. In a terminal,

   ./spins-graphics-generator-script.sh spins-graphics-template.svg

10. Rename the spin graphics. The graphics will be generated in a sub directory called ‘PNG’. Go into that directory and rename the graphics as follows:
    • Tagline Graphic Name: spinabbreviatedname-tagline.png
    • Feature Graphic Name: spinabbreviatedname-feature.png
    • Mini Graphic Name: spinabbreviatedname-mini.png
    • Logo Name: spinabbreviatedname-logo.png

Now What?

You can email the four PNG files above as well as the SVG you created to the spins maintainer, or attach all of them to a [Fedora design team ticket if you’re creating the graphics in response to a ticket. Please don’t forget to include the SVG source in case the graphic ever needs to be updated.

Inspiration

Here’s some spins graphics that have already been created, as inspiration for what you might want to do and the style you’ll want to follow.

Tagline Banners

LXDE

Electronic Lab

Games

Mini-Banners

More

For more examples, check out spins.fedoraproject.org.