Well, good afternoon everybody. Thank you for being here today. I'm Neil Romanoski. I'm the Dean of University Libraries. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you to the Graduate Research Series, which is collaboratively hosted by University Libraries, Graduate Student Senate, and Faculty Senate. This series celebrates and illuminates the research process of graduate students when we hear them share their research and the various successes and challenges and discoveries that they encountered in that process. So this afternoon, I'm delighted to introduce Ivan Mosley. We'll be speaking about his research, how to be good in black, the legacy of the black codes. Ivan is currently working towards a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting and a Master of Arts Administration here at Ohio University. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Wake Forest University and is an alumnus of the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive and the Advanced Playwriting Program at the National Theatre Institute. In 2018, his play Evelyn and his brothers was selected as a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. So without further ado, please help me in giving a warm welcome to Ivan. And hey, all the rest of you that I did not say hi to. Thank you for being here. You could be anywhere else in the world, but I appreciate your presence that you're here. So guys, we are going to start my presentation. I'm going to share my screen with you guys and give like a thumbs up or anything if you can see it. Yep, we can see it. Cool. All right then. All right, so we're going to start from the beginning. All right, so this is my presentation, how to be good in black, the legacy of the black codes. And so the focus of my presentation today is the black codes of the 19th century. And so the black codes were laws that regulated free black labor in the late 19th century. The research, my research question is how do the black codes transform to affect African Americans today. And so the significance of the black codes is that they do see my research I found that they do still affect African Americans in some form today because they just transformed. They were repealed, but there were laws that went in their place. And so you have things like the war on crime and the war on war on drugs that just took their place. So my research, I find it important because this research builds on the work of such African American intellectuals as W.E.B. Dubois. Okay, and then we're going into my presentation content. So first we're going to go into my library resources. And then we're going to go into what inspired me to look at the black codes and what inspired me to write this play in general. And then we're going to go into my initial research.  And then I'm going to go into commonalities within the black codes. And I'm going to then I'm going to move on to the effects of the black codes in the past and the present. And then I'm going to end with how this relates to my play. So my library resources. So shout out to Lorraine Wilkner. She has been a big help. She is the subject librarian for the theater and performing arts. And she also serves as the subject librarian for African American studies. So during our many meetings we use the search terms Negro, hetero-normative, black, colored, masculine, feminine, labor, laws, wage and work. And it led to so many other things. It was just like as soon as you searched one thing it led to something else and it led to something else. And it was just a spider web of research that we found. So I visited the following databases. So like the Oxford African American Study Center, Gender Watch, ProQuest, JSTOR, the Journal of Homosexuality, Alice, Articles Plus, Hate in America and Hine Online. So one of the most useful was the Oxford African American Study Center because that documented African American history from the 16th century to the present. Also Alice in Articles Plus and JSTOR and ProQuest were very helpful. And Lorraine also directed me to national organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And we also used eBooks. So what was the inspiration for this play? So as a queer African American person, I know firsthand that there is a link between queerness and blackness. And not only that, my mother and her siblings worked as sharecroppers in the 1960s and 70s. I hear so many stories of how her fingers got ants in them when she was twining tobacco or she was twirling cotton and she was putting it up in the pack house later in the day about dusk. So with slavery as my heritage, because sharecropping can be seen as another form of slavery, and I'm going to explain to you why later in the presentation. But yeah, so with slavery as a part of my heritage and with the queer experience as part of my heritage as well, I wanted to write a play that connected the modern African American experience to that of the 1860s. And I thought the best way to do that would be the black codes. Like I said, the black code codes regulated African American free labor in the 1860s, but they also changed to regulate black folks and their autonomy through the present day. So my initial research. So I met with Dr. Baena Jeffries, Chair of the African American Studies Department. Shout out if you are here. Then I met she directed me to Lorraine and then we started with the Oxford African Americans Study Center. And then we found excerpts from the black codes in multiple states, such as South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Ohio, because people often think that the black codes just were related to the south. But no, Ohio had some as well. And also, incidentally, these are all places that I've lived.  So after the Civil War, there are four million free black men and women as a result of the passing of the 13th Amendment, which outlaws slavery. There's a loophole in that amendment, but we'll talk about that later. So the southern economy after the Civil War was decimated because it mostly depended on an agricultural economy and the agricultural economy depended on enslaved black labor.  They could just just walk away.  Thus the black codes were passed between 1865 and 1866. They were later repealed. However, they were replaced with Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century and in the early 20th century. So now we're going to see some of the commonalities of the black codes. Black people had to have employment, but there are rules to that employment. So your employment had to be through a white man, first and foremost, and you had to renew those contracts yearly. You could not terminate the contracts and black people could work for themselves, but they had to have a court-approved license. And there could be anywhere from 10 to $100. And if you adjust that for inflation today, so $10 would be like $170. And $168 would be about $1,700. So I don't have that kind of mind lying around. It's a pandemic. But black people at that time certainly didn't have that kind of money around because they didn't have jobs as a result of slavery yet. So failure to provide proof of employment led to a vagrancy charge and imprisonment. And so what happened was you had to have proof of employment from your employer. So you had to have written proof. And once they imprisoned you, you went to prison and they could also lease you out to other plantation owners and other businessmen. And then we see the proliferation of slavery once again because of the master was known as the employer. And the employee was known as the servant. So all these, through the rules and through the titles, we're starting to see a return back to slavery again in form, if not name. And so now I'm going to go into the effects of African-Americans past and present. So the black code codes, because of the way they were structured, they led to the following. So the beginnings of the prison industrial complex. And then they also led to the exploitation of black labor and lowering of black wages. And they also led to the implementation of white patriarchal heteronormative standards. And so with the beginning of the prison industrial complex is a system with that in which the government and corporations collaborate to use prisons and other industries for profit. And so like in. So an example of this is how in Georgia, they use conflict labor to build a lot of the public work such as the roads. And so my resources for this section were the article Lexi's of the racialization and incarceration from Convict Lease to the prison industrial complex by A. E. Raza. And then I also use the e-book, the New Jim Crow mass incarceration in the age of color blindness by Michelle Alexander. And so here we are back to that loophole, right? So the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery. However, that loophole said specifically, except as punishment for a crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted. So lineman's terms is that they could use slavery as a form of punishment against criminals. However, they never defined what the crime was. And so the black codes were defining crime along lines of race through laws dealing with vagrancy, labor contracts and employment. And so and so continuing on before emancipation prison was used for mostly white people afterwards the prison system adapted to conscript mostly freed African Americans into forced labor through the black codes. And so the prison housing conditions were akin to those during slavery. For example, when W.B. Dubois was doing a study of prisons in Georgia, he found that that many of them didn't have a hospital, a doctor or a chaplain, even though they were required by law. Under the black codes, a conflict's labor could be leased out for the following reasons. The South was in economic depression after the Civil War and the states wholly endorsed it because not only did they have a sizable supply of cheap labor through the prisoners, they could use their labor to boost their profits to pay back some of the debts they incurred during the Civil War. And so the vagrancy laws from the black codes and Jim Crow transformed in the latter part of the 20th century to imprison even more black people. So this transformed into like the war on crime under Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s and then then that transformed later into the war on drugs under Richard Nixon in the 1970s. And it carried through like several other presidential terms. It kind of lessened when Obama signed the First Sentencing Act in 2010, but the more or less the war on drugs is still being fought to this day, just not as intensely. And so the war on drugs went when Richard Nixon declared that he formed the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1973. And initially it had 1470 agents and the budget of less than $75 million. Today, however, it has nearly 5000 agents with a budget of $2.3 million. So it's almost three times the budget it was in 1973, but it's a little over three times what the number of agents was in 1973. And so Ronald Reagan expanded these policies with like mandatory sentences for specific drug offenses.  But if you had powder cocaine, you would get an even softer sentence. And so Eric D. Larson compared a 1960 study of incarceration rates to a 2010 study. And in 2010 he found that black people were incarcerated at four times the rate they were in the 1960s. And Michelle Alexander in her book of New Jim Crow, she posits that there are more black people incarcerated today than there were during slavery. And so we also have the, with the black codes, we also have the exploitation of labor. And so for this, I use the following resources. So I use the article, Southern Labor Law, Explorative or Competitive by Jennifer Roback. I use another article, Separate and Unequal in the labor market. Human Capital and Jim Crow Wage Gap by Celeste K. Rothers and Mary Ann H. Wanamaker. And finally I use another article, Black Lives Matter in Building Bridges. I'm sorry, Black Lives Matter in Bridge Building Labor Education for New Jim Crow Era by Eric D. Larson. Okay, and continuing on. So because of the restrictions of the black codes, most black people had to go back to their farm master's presentations, right? And so this time when they went back, they had to sign contracts, these yearly contracts, right? And with these contracts, wages were paid over the lifespan of the contract, right? And they were paid higher wages around different times of the season because the contracts were based around agriculture and planting season, right? So for example, the closer it was to harvest, the more you would get paid. And if it wasn't close to harvest, the less you would get paid. However, the workers, they needed advances on their wages to live, right? So because they needed advances, they were always indebted to their employer. And there was a perceived con to this system of yearly contracts, right? Because the employers believed that all the workers had to do was breach contract before harvest. So they could just take their money and run, and they wouldn't have to come back. So by 1867, alternative contracts were widely used. And two of those that were mainly used were sharecropping contracts and rental contracts. And so this is, I'm about to explain to you why sharecropping was another form of slavery. So the worker planted crops, and they kept a small percentage, usually about a quarter and a half for themselves when their employer sold the crop at market. And the advances were further deducted from that share if they needed advances. However, the employer, they provided fertilizer, mules, and equipment for planting crops. And that could also be deducted from your share. So you're doing all the work, but the employer is reaping all the benefits just as in slavery. And then we're going on to rental contracts where a tenant could pay a fixed price for the land they worked. It could be a fixed dollar amount or just a fixed share of the crop. So that made the tenant responsible for the failure or success of the crop. And so either way, employers believed through these contracts, the planter or the worker was further incentivized to stay on the plantation or on the farm because they had a more vested share in the crop. And then continuing on. So after the black codes, the Jim Crow laws continued the de facto segregation of the school system. And so African Americans couldn't receive the same quality education as white people. And so because they couldn't receive the same quality education, they weren't receiving a lot of the same skills training as white people. So therefore you have not a lot of highly skilled African American workers, which led to a racialized wage gap. According to a work paper by Carothers and Wanamaker, in 1940 white people earned 25 to 32% more than African Americans. And as the 20th century continued, the separate but equal policies of Jim Crow and the black codes translated into the economic gap between blacks and whites. So you have mortgage policies and highway constructions which provided opportunities for class mobility and equity growth for white workers. However, black workers didn't get those same advantages. What worked for them, what worked for, sorry, white white workers didn't work the same for black workers because of those mortgage policies and that highway construction. It pushed black workers into poorly poor areas that didn't have the best funded hospitals nor the best funded schools. And even if, even as they gained access to unions, seniority policies within those unions and job segregation kept them in low paying positions. And today there are inequities still in black neighborhoods, especially with regard to heavy policing. And you don't even have support from like the labor unions because a lot of labor unions have remained silent on issues with black lives matter. For instance, when Mike Ferguson was killed, I found research that stated that a lot of the labor unions remain silent and discouraged anyone from speaking. on their behalf. And so there we're going to the implementation of white patriarchal heteronormative standards. And for this, I use the following resources. So aberrations in black toward a queer critique by noted black queer theorist Roderick A. Ferguson and then use another article that you used in the previous section. Black Lives Matter and Building Bridges, Labor Education for New Jim Crow era by Eric D. Larson. And so before emancipation slaves could exist in like non monogamous and sexually fluid relationships. No one really cared. However, with the black black clothes implemented after emancipation.  Those African Americans who did not adhere were imprisoned and denied their pension. And so you have the connection between queer queerness and well, the denial of queerness and this patriarchal view of labor, right? And of relationships. And today, a lot of these heteronormative standards such as marriage and such as on labor have led to the death of many LGBT folk.  And I want to also add, because of these heteronormative standards, trans folk who are sex workers can be arrested for walking while trans because there are several laws on the books that police just arrest them for walking just for walking if they believe they are sex workers. And these heteronormative standards have also led to discrimination in housing and environmental contamination for black LGBT folk. And then just continuing on for women under the black clothes and Jim Crow, they were relegated to work on the plantation and later domestic workers. As such, they did not receive many of the protection protections under the law such as mother's pensions for widows for most of the 20th century. Today, even late, there are labor law exemptions that still went render black women unprotected. And under Jim Crow, black women were deemed unwombly because their wage work included what would be defined as men's work such as lifting heavy materials. But during the Reagan era, when they decided to pursue unwavered work as mothers in their own home and seek government assistance, they were paying as welfare cleans who just wanted to exploit the system. And so now we're coming back, how does this connect to my play, right?  And so my play mixes history with it, even just within this relationship because Jacoby is a contemporary urban night and Remus appears to be a slave from the late 19th century. The two men have opposing goals. So Jacoby wants to stop their journey to wait on Hippolyta so he can get wings to get away from Remus and specifically Remus and his stories because he feels that they are oppressive. And Remus wants to go further into the field because that's what they've done and he just wants to continue on that path. So unable to reach a decision, they decided to sleep on it. But when they awake, they are visited by Conjure Chestnut and his disciples, Timmins, Banjo, Augustine, and Gethsemane. Conjure advises Jacoby and Remus to avoid Hippolyta and remain where they are. So the question I'm asking throughout this place, can they trust what Conjure is offering and can they trust his crew? So how this relates back to the black codes is Conjure's followers seem to be affected by the black codes. They all refer to conditions for blacks after the Civil War. And for one thing Banjo has been in prison for vagrancy. And Augustine, his wife, could only find work on a plantation after the Civil War for a time. And Gethsemane allowed her body to be used for medical experiments to avoid imprisonment because she couldn't find work anywhere else. With these characters, my play is also mixing times. So it's connecting the modern black experience to the 1860s because Banjo's term of imprisonment seems like 100 if not hundreds of years. Because that represents the fact that vagrancy laws were used in Jim Crow and the black codes and they transformed into different policies throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. And Augustine works as a farmhand in the 1860s and a civil rights worker in the 1960s. And the experiments on Gethsemane correspond to those performed on African Americans throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. So as the black codes create a system to steal free black's physical labor, Conjure reveals himself to be a thief of souls. And when Hippolyta comes, she awards Remus the Wings instead of Jacoby. So that goes to show the black codes defined blackness as a crime. My play says blackness is queer connected tradition and ever evolving. And so in my play that is represented through Remus and Remus as a storyteller and Remus as a queer man and Remus as someone who is always looking to expand his knowledge and he's not just one thing. And when Jacoby is trying to get away from that, he's trying to get away from blackness in a way. The definition of blackness is queer and connected to tradition and ever evolving. And so by punishing him and giving and having Hippolyta give the Wings to Remus instead of him, what I'm saying is not having the definition of blackness as queer, as connected to tradition and ever evolving is really the true crime. And that ends my presentation, you guys. I have my email listed. If we can't answer any questions today, I'd be glad to email you back. Any further questions? Thanks so much, Ivan. Yeah, we're going to open it up to audience questions now. So feel free to type your question in the chat or raise your hand. Thank you, Ivan, for that presentation. It was very informative and interesting. My name is Kelly and we're going to library and I have a question for you while other people are typing out their questions. What was the most surprising thing you learned in your historical research? Most surprising thing.  And I feel it's out there. And I definitely want to pursue that in the future as I am doing more research for this play. Thank you. That's very interesting. Yeah, I hope we're on the verge of understanding a lot more of that. Okay, since other people are still typing, I have another question, so I'm just going to pause the mic here. What advice might you give to a fellow student wanting to use historical research to inform their creative process? What would you tell them to do? So what I would tell them to do, find a subject librarian for that is specific to what you want to research and what you want to pursue. First off, but then once you have that research, immediately read it. But also give that research some time to faster in your mind. And so when you're giving it time to faster, you're giving it time to transform and you're giving it time to not only transform into theme, but you're giving it time to transform into character. And specifically, which character it applies to and the decisions that they make and also it also guides plot, right? Yeah, also guides plot because I didn't know Banjo was going to react the way he did until I found out that they imprisoned people for vagrancy and that they also further disenfranchised them even after they were released from imprisonment through things like voting laws and grandfather poll taxes. So yeah, just give it time to faster. And well, not faster, but transform is a better word for it. Faster faster has has negative connotations. Thank you. You're welcome. So I think we still have a couple of questions coming in in the chat. Steven wrote, he's interested to know how you launch from research to the creative process, which I think you already touched on. But he also says he's not researched a ton for place himself and is curious about how research shows up in the text when you're creating a play. Did you want to add anything more to the answer that you just gave Kelly or we've got another question in the chat that I can move on to if you feel like. Yeah, one more time. He's interested to know how you move from the research process to the creative process. Oh, okay. Yeah, man. Yeah, man, man, like I said, you have you have to sleep but but also. Yes. Yes. Sleep on it. Let it transform. Then also in a more specific way, ask your yourself as you are. As you are sleeping on it and letting it transform. What character does this apply to and and not only that, how does it result into action specific to that character? And and and what what and what is this this saying about the research that that I have so far? Does that make sense? Yes, yes. So we have another question from Miriam Intra tour. She says thanks for the fascinating presentation Ivan. I really appreciate how you laid out the library sources you use throughout your talk. Is there any information you really wanted or hope to find but could not. For example, a resource that seems not to exist or has not been have not been kept. Okay. Yeah, I want to find and and we it is just we we didn't. Yeah, I want to find more information on on conditions and. More more information on homonormative relationships within within the intabelle himself. It's out there. I just just just just didn't happen upon it yet. I know it's out there because we found some things. I just just want more and I'm curious about more more resources.  Lorraine Lorraine shout out to Lorraine again. She also get gave me resources in that areas as well. She gave me some starting resources in that area. But but also. I'm also so curious to. To look look into. To. Like what are. To. Sorry, sorry, my mind's blanking right now. I'm also interested in like what are. Mothers pensions and why specifically weren't they given to black women. And what were the benefits of those pensions and how long they could last usually for white women. And where were they enough enough to so that they didn't work. Is that what I because I know is also because black women during Jim Crow weren't perceived as motherly. But what were the benefits of it for white women and help and. And like what were the benefits of it for white women, but also. Like, like, like I said, how long did it last? What do they usually spend it on? Did it did it did it did it did it help them raise children? And if if so. What was the need still need need for for black labor and all that so so yeah I'm really interested in that as well. So yeah. And then I'm also interested in these labor law exemptions and how they're not not protecting black women. I want to look at that more. For the modern day component of it anyway. Thanks for that answer Ivan. We've got one more question in the chat. So generally is wondering if any of the area prisons would allow you to bring your play into the walls of the prison. And are there plans for the play to be presented here once restrictions are lifted? Okay, so the second question that's easier to answer. So I don't know specifically. There's the same thing we're going to do in person classes and everything. But but right now I'm not sure. As to if they will be restricted. I mean lifted for the. For for the theater program and when those restrictions are lifted, then that's when. I will be able to do do stuff in person. However, if they're they're not. We're still still going to do it for play. So so how that that process is going to work. Is that that we'll get get three developmental readings throughout out next year as a third year I will and then. And then so sometime. And in the fall we're going to start casting it. And then then I believe at that time I'll also be assigned a director or I'll look for a director myself. My. My my preference is to have a black director. Because I really, really want to get black directors a chance but but also.  Moving on from that once once we've got the director and we've got that cast. And about late late March next year we're going to start rehearsals. And and then. We we will do we will start presenting the play like that second or third week in April. So so either it will be in person and if it's in person. Either be in Cantner or the radio broadcast building. And if it's online or zoom I'm fine with that that as well. And then as part of play fest we will also have mentors. Rear for for all three mentors that you like this time because I got lucky this time as well. But but yeah that that will be the process process for the play going forward for next year to include in the theatrical calendar. But will it be be performed in prisons? I haven't thought I haven't thought of that yet. And I haven't thought of how to make make that happen home because I don't see a lot of magical because it's also magical realist. And it's a little bit surrealist. So so I haven't seen a lot of but I haven't heard a lot of those plays being performed in prisons is more usually. More more like. Well Shakespeare's been formed in prison so so so now that I think that that you can never never say never. But but yeah. On a personal level I haven't I haven't thought about that yet. I'm dead to make a long story short. And thank you though. Thank you. I will dream big in the future. Thank you. I'm going to take your advice. I think we might have one more question coming in from Lorraine so. That's what I'm here for. Just thank you so much. So I think we're probably going to go ahead and wrap it up at this point. I haven't on behalf of libraries I want to thank you so much for the wonderful presentation and for your research. And thank you for sharing it with us. I am recording today's presentation and it will be available on the library's YouTube channel. Thank you all so very very much for spending a little bit of time with us this afternoon. Have a great day. Bye guys. Yes. Thank you. Thank you Steven. Thank you Kaylee.


Well, as much as we're going to get this morning. Hi everybody. And Yeska first got in touch with me about three or four months ago to tell me about some really cool design ideas she had for helping to promote Debbie and more. I'll admit I was skeptical but I'm an engineer, I don't do this design stuff, I don't know what I'm looking at. At least that's what I said when I first saw it. Then she showed me some of her ideas and I thought, wow, that's really pretty, that looks gorgeous. And I thought it's probably best if she presented it to the rest of us. Don't be prejudiced, please give it a fair go. I think it's really nice, it's a bit different. Tell us what you think. And Yeska, go for it. I hope everyone can hear me. Great. So, well actually the first question that would come up is why does Debbie actually need a new design? Well, if you're looking at other distributions on the market, they all have more or less good designs too. And I noticed that Debbie has been kind of like in the back of all this. Since it's quite known that Debbie is a really good distribution, I was wondering why should not Debbie have it too? Well of course, as a lot of people, well maybe not everyone knows that, but Debbie used to be taken by other derivates to be used as because it's so cool that people would take it as a base. And well these derivates would succeed as well. So that's another question, why should Debbie not do the same? So what would this mean actually, a campaign, what would it really mean? I mean it's just a bit more than well creating some nice fleshy stuff. It's actually supposed to have a message. It should represent either the project, either the audience which it's talking to. It really will represent the values, the philosophy which is behind the project. Which can be quite of a challenge because it has to either, well the people inside have to identify with it as well as the people from the outside who are actually watching it. So let's see a look of other examples. Let's look at IBM on here. As you can see, they have quite a large logo history. Well a logo change which just does not only mean to be fancy just in a time, but it also shows that there is something moving, like that the project is just not standing still, which is quite obvious here. As you can see, IBM had some name change here, but I think you can imagine that this logo would not match anymore with this one. And here's another example. Well another two examples actually. This is HP and Intel. Well actually, well you can see here these two Intel logos are not too much slightly different than the first one and the second one. So sometimes the changes are really small and if you do it good people even would not notice it, that really something dramatically has happened. Now let's go to Debian, the story so far. We've got the penguin also known as chicken and well I don't have to say too much about this one. Everyone knows that. So when I started to create a logo for Debian I just got inspired by a few things. Well you all know that genie lamp thingy? I think it was, well I found out that it was used for the developers actually. I was quite inspired by that. I was also inspired by this positioning of the swirl and the font. So surprise, let's see what just came up. Well as you can see the swirl is a little simplified. It has a specific reason because if it's simpler it can be printed more easily. It's also easily recognizable. I mean just notice if you take a look at your Debian Conf9 t-shirts and your badge you see that this logo is a bit different from the one you're wearing at the t-shirt. This would not happen if the logo is some kind of simplified. Of course I try to do my best to keep the logo recognizable so that everyone relates it's the swirl. I've changed the font because the old one was a commercial one and actually this logo I've also made with a commercial one but as I was using this swirl I converted it to paths so it's not a font anymore. But still if people would like to use a font that quietly looks like this one I found a free alternative which you can see here. It looks actually quite similar and it's free downloadable so if people would like to make some invitations or small events whatever they can use that font. Well to be exact these two fonts in here are different. If anyone wants to know what kind of fonts that are I can tell them later. For this font it was just one font with different styles. Well and another thing that I was trying to give up is quite a flexibility. You can see here is just the GNU Linux but as there are so many Debian related projects you can write anything you want under this logo. Right. Okay here we see an example how a nicer website could look like without using flash. So well the main thing is just not just the design itself. I mean a very important thing would be to simplify the navigation because we really have to think does the user want to read all that text. I mean this is just a part of the site. I mean I just couldn't take the whole picture in my browser window. So that's definitely something that people would need to work on and think about what is really useful to give users to read. I mean it's fine to have further information but maybe it's better to place them as a link. Well so that's basically about the website. As you can see it's possible to realise with CSS. It's not a big deal. Probably just well at least for this sample one graphic would match perfectly. Well maybe two for the footer. So let's continue. I've got another example for a boot screen. Just to show that the design needs to be kept consistent like it would have an influence on everything that really relates to Debian. So as you can see this how a boot screen could look like. Right here you can see a few examples of what either you have name badge, name cards, maybe a CD. Here's not a sample of a website. It would be much more actually. It would be the desktop. It would be trade booths. Well pretty much everything. So it's quite a lot of work to do. I mean what I've done here is just a start and to continue this if it's going to be accepted of course there will need to be people to help and to realise all these things because it's really a lot of work to come. Okay now let's come to the image campaign. Some of you will have asked me what it actually is. An image campaign can be well something communicative that shows in well I would say visualised pictures. It can be either photographs, it could be drawings. It could be well illustrations that what I've chosen. They could be used as posters. They could be used as flyers. Well whatever it's needed for. But well the main issue is that it's communicating with the audience and telling how cool Debian actually is. Okay so the audience for this campaign is well actually two of them. I mean the server part. I think everyone knows that Debian is famous enough on servers right. So I targeted basically well advanced users who are already using Linux but are totally scared of touching Debian because they would say it's too complicated. Well I can assure it's not. I've installed it myself. It was not too bad actually. But well the rumor it still remains. So that has to be changed. Another target which would be quite interesting are well the normal users who even haven't touched a computer because it's quite proven that if you put someone in front of a computer who doesn't have a clue it really doesn't matter which operating system you give him. Well maybe well I don't know if that would be possible but sometimes you can also convince windows users to switch. Well probably they would be too scared to touch Debian as well so I would like to take away the fear. So just let's start with the illustrations now. Well what I try to do in here is to put that emotional aspect of well the open source community as a whole which well a little bit ironic as well sort of. I mean and I try to relate to each picture a message. I hope it's readable up there. If not it's just can you read it? No hang on softer with passion it is. Okay that's the next one. I hope that's correct up there. Social interactive software and there's the next one.  Thank you. Okay well that's a typical office situation. Isn't it good to have a system that works for you isn't it? Well that's softer with a message. Well I was almost finishing my illustrations then. Gunnar told me that well Debian is also used on an embedded market which I didn't know at that time so just I had this idea. And now I've seen the little geek toy you're carrying around so it's pretty cool. All right well I still could not forget the admins and the geeks around here so I thought maybe this would relate to quite good. Bug fixing is not funny sometimes but it's a challenge isn't it? Great so that's about it. We had these six illustrations. We have the logo we have the other designs I made. There are still a lot of things to come like I said. And well are there any questions? Yes. There is a small detail you said that the logo you know the Debian text below the swirl was now written in a font that's really downloadable and I'd like to know if it is a free font or if freely downloadably solve the risk to it because I would like a really truly free logo in all parts. Yes. Well from what I've read if I did not get it wrong it is really free. But I mean sorry I think for like beer yeah. What is the name of that font? Well this one is called like I said I took two for these two parts. This one is called what was it called? Go to Gothic something like? The other one is Milford. Milford black I think. I have to check that. I actually forgot the style but I have it on my computer and how I can check that. So I really like the full page graphics you had up. The only criticism I have about them is I think the text on the top left hand corner needs to be about 20 times the size. Well which one were we talking about this one? Or you mean these? Oh okay well these were printed originally like A2 so it's quite big. Well it's just it appears bigger when it's really printed so it might be a bit confusing now. Okay. Some of your slides use pink some others use blue. Can you help us understanding why you choose those colours? Well I actually wanted to keep the identity because I've seen this red is on the website already as well as the blue is. So I just didn't want to put something completely new which is not the identity of Dabian so I just wanted to keep that. So IRC is busily working out the licence of your fonts but so far it's looking good. You mentioned a little bit about the website can you speak a bit more about that about what you want to do in terms of... How does this fit in? Do you actually want to comment on the amount of text that's there and... Well the text is here for just a sample actually I think I've copied it from the first side. Yeah I've just copied this text to here. How do you mean? Do you mean what I can provide to change the side? Can you... Just speaking during the week you said that there's too much content on the side basically and that you want to rejig that. Does that fit into your ideas of the redesign? Is that part of it? Yes of course yeah. Otherwise it would not make sense. Sorry just to get an answer here. So how are you going to encourage people to do that? Ew! Well I mean a lot of people... Since I've been here to DevCon everyone is telling me that the website sucks so I think it's just not an issue that I would bring up it's like everyone would do this so I think people who are responsible for the web should start listening to it. Between yesterday and tomorrow GERFREED RONDA posted in his blog the work of Cayle Soderman since 2007 which is a total redesign of our web page all of them, packets, website, planet it's also integrated and Cayle had one step ahead and he already did most of the work because the WML pages are not easy to migrate and integrate Cayle already did most of it and it's implemented and there's a prototype so it's one important thing that those need to be aligned and as I understood this is not implemented yet right? No, no. Thank you. I was just about to point out a similar thing that yes the website has looked like this for quite a long time and it does need a redo but so yeah I really also wanted to point out that as far as I know the web team is onto that and working on something as well now as has been said already having prototypes up for testing that do integrate with the whole infrastructure behind and under the website like WML and all that, the translation and so so I was just wondering have you been in maybe these are two similar things have you been in contact with the WWW team or have you kind of like checked with them what can be done or how it could be done saying that the text should be reduced is one thing but then you have to decide what text to keep and then this design I agree is very nice and recognizable but I think yeah you should really check with the WWW team what they say and how it can be integrated with the technical infrastructure as well because this is quite challenging well I heard that well people said that there were a lot of tries to change things but from what I've heard I don't know if it was a rumor but people told that it was really difficult to push some changes so I was thinking ok so well maybe before I would start to do all the work and convincing them I just show this first and see their reactions before anything would be done well the implementing thing I mean I could provide some part of the CSS that's no problem but I have no idea about the technical background you're using I mean normally I would use a content management system for that I have no idea about the WML stuff or what it's called WML and you know to reduce the text or to overwork the navigation I think that's a thing which can be discussed separately as well it has to be discussed because well I'm not the only one who would who would have the right to decide which content should be kept or not right so I guess from what you've been saying we're not just looking at the website this is to look at the whole feel of a default installation of the package so the installer, your initial desktop if you install desktop the website everything together to be integrated so at this stage I guess we're just looking at how the system feels and I suppose what I'm trying to ask is is there enough feeling that this should be done that we should be integrating putting together a new feel and then integrating this into everything hey I believe we've got a release freeze coming up in December that we need to get this in boy well of course it would be really cool if some people would just well help realising it because I can do this all on my own which is quite obvious it's really a lot of work so well I mean I don't know when is the next release I was just going to say two things one is I think on the font probably a lot of people seem to be agreed from RSE that if we were going to adopt this design we can sort out when we adopt the final version that we will use a free font and just assume that we don't need to decide during this talk exactly what that font would be and a second issue I think certainly from my point of view the current work done by various people on the website doesn't contradict the design work here because I think the two things can be put together I mean yes there's a lot of technical level work needs done it's relatively easy if you've done the technical level work to migrate from the current design to plug in these kind of suggestions I think yeah well I don't think it's a big deal too I mean just a little CSS really really not I really try to keep it very simple because well otherwise it would just not fit to the project hey are you open for a contribution if so in which level and like do can you use just one part of your work or you mean what can I provide to help this thing moving on or how do you mean I mean usually when people propose some new design or new stuff or that they show some options and they are open to change and so it's I think it's important for the project I don't know how are you dealing with this sorry you mean the license not on license if if we agree that we should do some change in the swirl on the font and oh you mean if you come up with changes for font or for the swirl that would be accepted is that what you mean well this is difficult because well it would be pretty much the same if you would ask me to code I mean the result would be very crappy because I can't code but I would not even have the idea to do this the thing is behind all this there's a whole concept I mean people are very welcome to work within this for example if the font is downloadable and stuff and people would make their own badge name badges or for t-shirts or whatever they are free to use it and make also new creations with that I would really like to keep this well the core stuff as it is because otherwise it's not going to be well it's going to kind of break the whole campaign I hope you understand that I mean it's really not about keeping people away or something exactly hi a couple of things one was that the idea of having to make everything consistent was sort of presented as a blocker for release I don't see that at all because we've got an incoherent image at the moment so why not continue with an incoherent image for the next release the second point is what was the second point no I'll think about it okay okay so I know that you've done this as part of your course how much work did you did this take for you a lot I think I 7 months altogether it was really really hard work because before well starting to make the design I've done a lot of research and well at that point I would like to thank you Steve for the support thanks Guna for the support I hope I did not get too much on your nerves because I was spamming him with all the stuff I've done so far for he give me his comment I also would like to thank to Stockholm he's not here but well they or you guys give me the support well to be able to do my work as good as I could well part of the research I've done I've also had to see what my experience actually is within this project to observe how people are in this project to see read a little bit about the history of Debian how is it pursued in the outside world how would people see it check the forums how people describe Debian et cetera so it was really a lot of work and then well later on I had to think about the right way to express that well to express the results I've collected so it was really really a lot of work cool and you've presented this already in your college I think you mentioned earlier how well was this received by those people oh it was actually quite a well it was my final exams actually and I was a bit worried because no one really had a clue about open source Linux I mean they hardly know how to switch on and off a computer so well I was quite nervous for my presentation now but well I started to talk and explain and well actually there was just one question coming up where the name Debian comes from luckily I knew the story that it was the thing with Debian Ian I think this is true right yeah yeah so I was quite surprised because they didn't have any further question which is a good sign in exams which means that my companion was pretty clear cool excellent have you had the results of your exams through yet yes I have I passed wonderful thank you one thing that bothers me in many websites which are designed by an artist is that when I use a bit larger fonts things often break have you considered what happens for example when you say double the font size in the web pages well I've actually I had to do this for the presentation for people to see that it's text right but I mean well CSS can do magic right okay one more thing I'd like to say and I think I'm echoing something that was also said in IRC is that okay I'll read this straight from here okay it's great to hear that someone has put in this put in so much work into this I guess making sure she doesn't get flamed until she just walks away is the next part of the game so I think you will you will probably notice that pushing things in the open source world and perhaps Debian in particular might be a bit hard sometimes but yeah well you guys are not too bad now it's okay I mean I know it would be a challenge somehow but I mean it's not the first time I've worked with Debian so I know what I'll be going through it's fine I mean most of you are really nice no no seriously I mean I will not be sort of offended or anything like that well it's fine I mean I like you guys and that's why I made it for you I was involved I'm still actually quite involved in the wiki and last time I was really calling to get some people to work on designs and I was really hoping that the wiki could use the same templates as of course of course as the website and I'm really happy to have some people working on it it's of course very unfortunate to have two teams working on different project we all remember Linda and Lin Tian and sometimes we can choose to have two products Linda and Lin Tian and it's probably going to be tough to choose and to make everyone happy with project which is within all whichever but I really find it great for all you did and the work that clearly do it and thank you for doing it because it's really so great to have it Thank you I'm glad to hear it One thing about this design process that's obvious to me is that it's perceived not as a programming problem that requires knowledge and skill but a problem that only requires strong opinions and vision How do we avoid the bike shedding that's going to explode in the project when people start to see this design and they want to propose different colors, different fonts, different layouts well all you need is gimp in a few hours then you can actually do some changes to the thing and obviously a lot of people is going to join in to have their say and put their finger mark on any visual design in Debian Well I actually already taking this red like as you see here on the website for the swirl I mean I don't know if people had changed the color of the swirl it is now well the thing is people who are arguing in this context are mostly driven by taste somehow and as we know everyone has different taste so it really doesn't matter if I would take it pink people would say oh I don't like pink I hate pink I prefer green the other one would say no I like purple and then someone else say I like blue so what are you going to do I mean you really can't make it suitable well tasteful sort of for everyone because tastes are pretty different but the only thing I can do is to explain the concept and well explain why I've chosen this color and not the other one Hi are you the sole copyright author on this and have you decided on license yet? I've been asked that a few times okay well I think some nice creative comments Cheryl like license would be fine for the project I guess well maybe yeah or GPL yeah Hi personally having no idea about accessibility in general did you check how this design works out for blind people and how does it compare to the original website well I never tested the original website I've got some I'm partially sighted myself and I have some blind friends too I don't know how they get along with the old website but well it is possible to keep things semantic on a technical background so that people can read it if you just avoid too many graphics and put the alternate text on them it should be fine well I tried to do it as accessible as possible I think well the design is so simple that actually it should be possible to keep it accessible as well I mean this is just would be basic CSS really I just wanted to follow up to something you said two minutes ago which was all you could do is explain why you chose that particular colour and I just wanted to be mischievous and ask why did you choose that particular colour oh I didn't mention that already well just take a look at the website you have this blue in here and you have the red here well actually I was a little bit undecided as well which one to choose and when I was doing the illustrations I thought well these colours kind of like match somehow and I was thinking ok I'll keep this too so that's why I wanted to keep the identity a little bit I just didn't want to make the change so dramatic because people do relates to that blue and reddish colour looking around the audience here and on IRC you've got quite a reasonable range of comments I mean hopefully mostly positive from what I can see that my next question would be assuming you have enough asbestos clothing what would you do next what would be your plan for implementing this ok so of course I will help as much as I can as much as it's possible for me I would provide the design needed for instance if they would be desktop theme or the boot screen like you've seen no hang on I would well try to get some ideas for a trade both well I would really continue to work on this because well like I said in the beginning this was just a start and of course I can leave you guys along with that so I would really really like to help and anything what is needed to be done I'll do it cool just a very final tiny remark considering the blue that seems to confuse some people I think as far as like trademarking and recognition and all that goes you're very safe with the pink or the purple or the red or however it's called because everybody knows that as the Debian colour as far as I know the blue was really mostly pink because it contrasts well with the pink so we can actually see the blue dots on the pink stuff so I think if you just stick with the pink everybody will say ah yeah sure that's Debian all right and yeah the blue was mainly chosen for visibility reasons I don't think any particular there's any particular connection with Debian so yeah I guess I just wanted to explain maybe that's why some people are a bit confused by the blue well yeah well actually of course it's flexible I mean for instance if you would make a vote which design you prefer and people would say well they like the blue but they prefer in red well no problem this can be changed of course I mean I've heard a lot of people prefer this one actually I don't know how about you but these things definitely can be switched I mean okay the illustrations I would rather keep in those colours if that's okay but yeah sure I mean the swirl could be done in red as well yeah about the fonts I know they're very similar the free one and the one you've used for your designs but well I can see the difference and I think I've always thought that it would be particularly cool if Debian actually had its own font and we do have a package called Metafont for doing that sort of thing and designing it into our font is a nightmare it is yeah designing a font that can carry six letters and then building on that is a different thing and we could I mean would you be interested in working with some font keeks to generate a font either somewhere between those two or maybe even preferable to the one that you chose originally I don't know there are licensing issues because we can't go too close to the the one you chose originally because then we just ripped it off no no no the thing is on this font if you're allowed to do that we could do that but maybe you'd actually prefer a very slightly different font from the original one no no no that's fine I mean this font is actually within the logo it's not a font anymore because as you see I removed the eye dot so I converted it to paths so in that case it's not a font anymore no no I'm not talking about the script whether it's a license issue or not now I understand that you turned it into a font I mean if I would like to create a font or I was wondering if we have I imagine we have some font keeks amongst us and there is a package for generating fonts that is widely available and there may be an interest in generating a font that is like that so that we can use it and call it the debut in font and that's it well I mean if this tool is easy to use and it gives you fast results fine but the thing is creating fonts is a really really nightmare oh my god I've just tried it once and after five minutes I thought I'm gonna throw my computer against the wall I mean I really I really don't have patience to do this it's so tricky and it's so much work well first of all this is too much detail I just I can't do this, this would be too much I would sit I don't know for how many days to make one letter I really wasn't suggesting you do it but if someone is interested in doing it they could spend the rest of their life having fun yeah so referring to the different colour schemes that you're using I think for the large posterised images I think it's a really good idea to have at least two different colour themes that we can use and I do like the two that you've chosen cool one thing I wonder about colour blindness is pretty common around how do we make sure that colours picked are good for colour blind people I made the design quite well as you can see the contrasts are quite big I also made the logo that can be printed on a black and white copy machine so well I think the colour issue would not be too well I'd say important or something I mean it would just not decrease the usage of it so that's why I kept the contrast very I mean I don't know how people deal with the old swirl with the same colour I know a font designer who does use the free software font package and does design for free software projects so how interested would you be in working with him so that you could design the font artistically in the way that you would like and then have him implement at least the six letters for that as a start I mean would it just work out if I would give it to him the logo and he would do it I mean because I'm really terrible at these things this is just I mean as I said I would have a lifetime font with this the problem I guess is that that is then a copy of an existing font would kind of naturally apply to that no no no it's not not anymore because like I said as soon as she converted to paths it's not a font anymore it's just a graphic so it really this issue does not exist plus as she saw there was the free alternative so this can be downloaded and from what I know it's been already checked that it's free so that's the thing yeah all I said is that copyright and so on for fonts is weird and not the same as for software there are weird things where you can get away with legally taking someone's font, printing it out and redesigning a new font from that and it counts as that's allowed that's why normally the big font foundries try to protect hard the names of fonts as trademarks because font designs are actually quite hard to protect under copyright so in that case you have to choose a different name for that somehow from what I got it but well like I said for the original logo that I've done it's paths it has to be paths because otherwise I would not be able to manipulate it and take away the dot from the eye I just wanted to say that I like the idea of having an identity for a Debian and I really look forward to to have those things done and thank you thank you you're very welcome just to be as everybody is here technically correct you do not have to take away part of the graphic element of a font in order to get that word for example Turkish includes a letter that's dot less lower case i or even dotted uppercase i so I don't know the difference in pronunciation but that letter should exist as it is in several fonts and they would be legally fonts without having to translate into into curves well and there is a point in this because well I am sure you have seen all kinds of Debian t-shirts or the world which have something that looks like an extension to the whatever font was used for the original design that are well basically extrapolated because we don't have access to that font you mean the original one that is used now okay well I actually I must admit I've never heard about that font too after someone told me that it's non free I was like what so well I have really no idea about the special character support really I mean I've just chosen the fonts that would fit for the logo basically but well in the end I think it's fine to use Helvetica or some other standard font too I mean if you well I would say if you put it nicely together the font would match it's not a big deal I mean mostly you need these things to create some text rather than headline or well the logo will remain like this anyway so I can help with that too I mean if there is help needed to make fires or something well I'm there to help it's not a problem about the the web team have you talked with them I've talked with a few people here on Depconf well they said let's see how the reactions will be from the others and they told me a few technical stuff that I really did not get I'll just try to explain that the design is just pure CSS actually and I said well if I can do that maybe I can just tell the colors of the links or of the text and the navigation and the rest is just up to them because well like I said I don't have idea about the WML stuff you're using so now that you've passed your exam what are your life plans and sorry I mean you've obviously been spending a lot of your time on that how much of your time will you be able to spend on it in the coming months and years ooh well I'm flexible and well of course I'm actually looking for for freelance work I'm not a type to work in agencies because well it's really not for me so if I would do some freelance jobs I can of course schedule my time the right way so it's just that you don't have time you have to take the time so don't worry I will not disappear the current old logo is also being used in a more horizontal way with the swirl next to the text do you supply such variants the current old logo is also being used with the swirl next to the text for more horizontal outlines do you supply such variants would it be possible for you which one I don't you mean that the swirl is next to the one or two back backwards please yes at the top of the old website oh well not really because I got inspired by this genie lamp here so you know the thing is the recognition needs to be kept and if you put the logo there and the other time you put it underneath or wherever it's just not going to be consistent so I tried that when I was working on the first samples I've tried a few variations and I just thought it sucked okay thank you I'd like to see a variation for dark backgrounds just it's important for printing in shirts yeah I could do that well as soon as I go home to my computer because I I could do some no problem well maybe just to have a glimpse you can see it on the boot screen so it's pretty flexible to use okay I'd just like to thank you very much for your presentation welcome we look forward to seeing effectively I guess a marketing pack telling us exactly what we can use in what format in the near future to start to adopt so thank you very much thank you there are one or two more minutes well yeah I also would like to echo the thanks and I really like the new logo and the images and everything so my reaction is very positive to all of this and would like to encourage you to keep beating us over the head with some sensible design because really the current web page is quite difficult but I just wanted to make a comment about the horizontal usage of the swirl doesn't quite work for the word debconf like we're using behind you on the poster because there is no I in the word so it can in some cases putting the image on the side might be yeah of course this just relates to the logo so all these things would be of course I mean each debconf is in a different country each year so this also needs some research and work before that to create accurate logo for each debconf of course so I think each logo for each debconf will maybe not differ too much when it comes to the font but would have some symbols integrated with swirl which would be typical for the country for example I don't know if you guys remember the design I've done for debconf 6 there were these tacos with chilies and cables inside maybe you might remember that one so on that part we are quite flexible right I think that's the end thank you for being brave enough to come and stand in front of a room full of engineers and tell them how things should look hopefully you've not been scared away too much by nasty questions about fonts and stuff no no it's fine I mean I've prepared to that thank you very much welcome