communityblog-images
Justin W. Flory (he/him) committed 3 months ago
Images for the Fedora Community Blog
This README was originally written on the fedoramagazine-images repository, managed by the Fedora Magazine team. A lot of the content in this document was originally sourced from that repository, by the work of @pfrields and @ryanlerch. This information is slightly revised here because the same tips and useful information apply!
This repo holds the Source SVGs for the graphics we design for the Featured Images on the Fedora Community Blog.
Each article in the Fedora Community Blog is recommended to have a featured image. The image gives the article added visual appeal. It also appears in links on social media, to attract more viewers.
Image Guidelines
We have a small set of guidelines for the format of the images that help them look their best on the Community Blog site. These are:
- a size of 1890x800 pixels
- a 100px bleed area at the top and bottom of the 800px height. The background should extend into the bleed area, but the main focus and content of your image should not. This is because the images are trimmed at the top and bottom for the Recent Posts sidebars on posts.
- a 192px bleed area at the left and right of the 1890px width, some social sites automatically crop wider images, and keeping content in these bleeds makes sure your lettering and icons are not truncated by these sites. The template.svg has guides to show both vertical and horizontal bleed markers.
- exported images that are uploaded to WordPress can either be PNGs or JPGs. If you have an image that uses a photo, please convert it to a JPG to reduce the filesize.
Getting commit access to this repo
Please join and send an email to the commops list if you want commit access. Otherwise, pull requests are also welcomed.
How to use this repo
These images are created as SVG (scalable vector graphic) images. To work with these images, you should install a SVG capable application such as Inkscape. You will also need the git utility installed.
Getting started with the image repository
Use the Fork control near the top of this page to fork a copy of the repository.
Open a Terminal. (You'll type commands into the terminal for some of the following steps.)
Install the git and inkscape packages if you don't have them installed already:
su -c "dnf install git inkscape"
If desired, change directory into the folder where you like to store your project work. This example uses the folder name projects, but you should use a folder you have on your system. This step is optional:
cd projects
Now clone your forked repository of Fedora Community Blog images:
git clone https://pagure.io/fork/<username>/communityblog-images
Creating a new image using the template
- Open Inkscape, and choose File > Open... (or hit Ctrl+O). Navigate to the project folder, then into communityblog-images, then into images. Choose the template.svg file.
- Save this as a new file with a different name.
You can use the assets inside this file to start with the right-sized document, with some pre-configured backgrounds. Feel free to look at other SVGs for guidance. If you don't have experience with these images, try to stick with fonts and motifs that you see in recent banners. But also feel free to experiment! For instance, use photographs (freely licensed, such as CC-BY or CC-BY-SA) with a text overlay for a nice look. Unsplash.com has a large library of images in the public domain you can use to get started.
Fonts
There are a few fonts that are commonly used in featured images. You are encouraged to use these fonts in your images to help featured images fit into the general "theme" that other images follow. They are all freely available at the links provided. The fonts we commonly use on the Fedora Community Blog are listed below.
- Montserrat (friendly and Sans-like)
- Roboto Slab (friendly with serifs)
- Molot (heavier font, feels technical)
- Grand Hotel (for a fancy script-y feel)
To use these fonts on your Fedora system, download the font and unpack the OTF or TTF file (if required) into your ~/.fonts folder. Then update your font cache:
fc-cache
You will need to close and reopen Inkscape, GIMP, or other applications to take advantage of the new fonts.
Getting your work reviewed
To ask for review, you will use Pagure's pull request function. Make sure your SVG file is saved in the communityblog-images/images/ folder as above. Typically these should be named after the article in some way to make it easier to find images later. For this example, let's assume your SVG file is named using-inkscape.svg.
Open a Terminal and go to the communityblog-images/images/ folder:
cd projects/communityblog-images/images/
Add your new image to be tracked in git:
git add using-inkscape.svg
Now commit it with a log message:
git commit -m 'Image for Using Inkscape article'
Push back to your repository:
git push
Then you can return to Pagure and issue a Pull Request, which lets the Community Blog team know you have an image ready to review. Visit your repo at https://pagure.io/forks/<username>/communityblog-images and you should see the Pull Request button next to the branch listing. Select it, and follow the form to issue the PR.