Web engineering and design team

Discover the latest news and work from the web and design team.

The Web and design team at Canonical pride themselves on building things properly, not quickly. Always looking for creative ways to push the boundaries of the web.


Canonical
16 July 2010

This week in design – 16th July 2010

Design Ubuntu

In this first ever “This week in design”, Iain updates us on the work the design team have been doing on guidelines, the desktop and the font. We also name some community helpers lending their support.

Canonical
16 July 2010


Canonical
16 July 2010

Friday afternoon treats…

Design Ubuntu

I came across a thread this afternoon talking about a piece of promotional work by Goce Mitevski for Ubuntu.Simple, elegant and clean. Lovely.

Canonical
16 July 2010


Canonical
14 July 2010

Vote now for a more supportive future!

Design Ubuntu

Evan, seen lurking here in the background, has a favour to ask. Stackoverflow is a website that allows professional and enthusiast developers to ask questions of one another in order to share ideas, solutions and make the life of developers better. It’s an extremely high quality resource but those clever folks over at...

Canonical
14 July 2010


Canonical
8 July 2010

Ubuntu font: what the glyph!

Notes Ubuntu

Having read some of the comments and bugs I thought it might be useful to add some clarification on a couple of terms. What we have released so far is only the regular weight of the font. Fonts – in general – come in many weights from ultra-light to ultra-bold. The fact that regular is

Canonical
8 July 2010


Canonical
7 July 2010

The Ubuntu Font Family

Design Ubuntu

Ladies and Gentlemen, Today we are kicking off the Ubuntu Font BETA testing. This is a happy day! Today all Ubuntu Members will have access to a private PPA so that they can use, test and enjoy the font. The first four variants of the font family are scheduled for completion 8 August 2010 and

Canonical
7 July 2010


Canonical
6 July 2010

Never judge a book by its cover!

Notes Ubuntu

Ubuntu Software Center has amazing improvements lined-up for Maverick Meerkat and early alpha adopters are highly excited about the progress. However, what is Ubuntu Software Center? It’s merely a container, it’s only as good as the content within. We’re already aware it’s a show-stopper for new Ubuntu users and there...

Canonical
6 July 2010


Canonical
2 July 2010

Showcase to celebrate ‘Art in the Open’ bringing contributors’ work to millions

News Desktop

Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase calls all artists to contribute to next version of Ubuntu Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu project, today announced its support for the Ubuntu Free Culture showcase. The showcase will offer artists, photographers, and musicians of every background the opportunity to have their work...

Canonical
2 July 2010


Matthew Paul Thomas
30 June 2010

Help wanted: Testing programs that use the notification area

Notes Ubuntu

We have a list of dozens of Ubuntu programs that use the notification area. What we need now is a description of how each of them use it.

Matthew Paul Thomas
30 June 2010


Canonical
30 June 2010

Doing the Polka (dot), step by step

Design Ubuntu

Anyone who has seen the new visual identity for Ubuntu and Canonical probably noticed the marketing material includes several stunning images created of differently sized dots; inside the Ubuntu Lucid CD sleeve, on banners and such. What most probably

Canonical
30 June 2010


Canonical
28 June 2010

Discussing Unity in Linux Format

Design Ubuntu

Issue 134 (August, 2010) of Linux Format magazine contains an interview by Jono Bacon in which I discuss Unity and other related topics. Below are the questions Jono asked me and my responses.How did you get started in Open Source?I had to build a UNIX shell and UNIX-like kernel for a university course on operating

Canonical
28 June 2010


Canonical
23 June 2010

Art in the open

Design Ubuntu

Are you a musician? Do you make beautiful illustrative wallpapers? Do you take amazing photographs? Do you make clever and inspiring videos or animations? You may be interested in the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase. Do you make open-source tools for creating any of the above? I hope you will be interested in the Ubuntu Free

Canonical
23 June 2010


Canonical
23 June 2010

Introduction to Unity Launcher

Design Ubuntu

This article illustrates briefly the main functionalities of the Launcher for Ubuntu Netbook Edition (aka Unity) and how we got there. Don’t miss the video!

Canonical
23 June 2010


Canonical
22 June 2010

Open Season : Maverick

Notes Ubuntu

It’s back and it’s bigger than ever! It’s that time of the year again, time to start hunting down those nasty trivial Papercut bugs. Huh? Papercuts? To refresh your memory, a Paper cut is “a bug that will improve user experience if fixed, is small enough for users to become habituated to it, and is trivial

Canonical
22 June 2010


Canonical
11 June 2010

When users first encounter Ubuntu: six showstoppers

Notes Ubuntu

We recently conducted usability testing to see how users respond to Ubuntu on their first encounter. Overall, first impressions are good.  Typical remarks include: “It is bold and different.” “Ubuntu is fresh and accessible ….” “This is good. People are getting tired of Windows.” What we were looking for during these...

Canonical
11 June 2010