Shakespeare said, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” That may be true (although Bart Simpson once quipped, “not if you called them stink blossoms” and he may have a point). But what about visual identities? Would Batman be the same if it was done ala South Park? Or, for something a bit closer to home, would Ubuntu be the same if it looked like OSX? Sure, it would likely run the same, but would our reaction to it, and the reaction of newcomers, be the same?

I’ve read plenty of arguments for and against the human theme, but regardless of your feelings towards a brown desktop (although aren’t most desks brownish?) you have to admit that it is unique. To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of Ubuntu’s default look and I don’t think Gutsy is going to change my mind (based on my beta install). However, I have kept human-ish looking themes for most of the time. I think most newcomers will tend to judge Ubuntu by its cover and for that reason I think it would be great if some serious effort was put into making the human theme really attractive. There is already a good collection of ideas on sites like gnome-look.org. Perhaps the Canonical folks could pay someone to really invest some time into making a knock out theme. Or maybe they have people on staff who could do this.

I think even the broader community itself could do a really nice job. For example, I stumbled across a page on the wiki today that presented a whole host of ideas for Gutsy wallpapers. I think the “elephant” one was actually adopted as one of the pre-installed options but not the default (again, based on the beta). I think all of the “animal” themed wallpapers were extremely original and in keeping with the human theme. I also think all of them looked better than the brown “vista” theme that I was greeted with. In fact, I think the animal themes are absolutely perfect for Ubuntu. After all, each release is named after an animal and most animals are at least somewhat naturally earth toned.

Ubuntu is already a solid alternative to both OSX and windows. It would be great if by the Hardy release it could look as good as it acts. Ubuntu is poised to make serious inroads into the proprietary OS market. Given that people tend to judge a book by its cover, a really attractive human theme could make a big difference in the reaction of the general computing populace. While looks may not matter to “serious” Linux users, they do matter to casual users - and it is casual users that will move Ubuntu into the mainstream.

Start with these wallpapers and then develop a really nicely integrated GTK, Metacity (or compiz) theme, and icons. I don’t have the talent to do this, but I know it exists right here in the Ubuntu community.

In celebration of the soon to be released Ubuntu 7.10 (the Gutsy Gibbon), here is my human-ish themed Gutsy desktop. It is based on one of the “lion” walls and the Phacile theme off Gnome-look.