Skip to main content

Your submission was sent successfully! Close

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates from Canonical and upcoming events where you can meet our team.Close

Thank you for contacting us. A member of our team will be in touch shortly. Close

  1. Blog
  2. Article

Aaron Prisk
on 6 September 2024

A desktop touched by Midas: Oracular Oriole


In the poem “To an Oriole” [1], novelist and poet Edgar Fawcett inquires about the origin and nature of the oriole. He likens the northern song bird to a “scrap of sunset with a voice” and an orange tulip in a forgotten garden that was magically transformed. This type of poetic and mystical imagery around Orioles can be found throughout classical literature and mythology. In many cultures, their presence was considered a divine and prophetic symbol of creativity, prosperity and community. These three virtues are rather synonymous with the spirit of Ubuntu and therefore we wanted to ensure our muse was given an artistic interpretation befitting its oracular aura.

Ubuntu 24.10 aims to capture the bird “that Midas touched” [2] in it’s official wallpaper:

You can download the official Oracular Oriole wallpapers in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes here.

As above, so below

When tasked with depicting our aureate mascot, the Design team at Canonical found inspiration from astrological iconography. Marcus Haslam, the Magician, explains:

“Incorporating the adjective (Oracular) with the Oriole was indeed a challenge.  I wanted this to be in keeping with the brand elements we have in our design system. The use of the circle, line illustrations and color palette fit in well and a good starting point.  My first task was building the Oriole bird out of concentric circles, this would form the centerpiece. As it progressed I added other elements to the design to bring in “Oracular.” The (all seeing) eye with the circle of friends inside was a gift, and the crystal ball added a playful aspect to the mascot.  I added planets around the outer edge to complete the Ubuntu world. When animated these move into position with a nod to the circle of friends logo.”

“Designing the mascot I always had the animation in the back of my mind and how it may work. The concentric circles  proved a very useful asset, it created a nice rhythm and movement for this Oracular mythical world.”

Vicennium visions

As tradition, our official wallpaper is accompanied by artwork submitted and voted upon by the community. The categories for this release being: Mascot, Digital Art, Photography and 20th Anniversary. Our many artists, photographers and pixel wizards provided dozens of beautiful submissions with two chosen from each category for inclusion. It’s our great honor to present the winners of the Oracular Oriole wallpaper competition:

Mascot Category

Oriole Mascot (Light\Dark) – @moskalenko-v

The Oracular Oriole – @meetdilip

Digital Art Category

Einsamer Raum – @orbitelambda

Arizona Nacht – @orbitelambda

Photography Category

schabing 2 – @schabing

Sunset – @gafreax

20th Anniversary Category

Legacy (Light/Dark) – @aaronprisk

Warty Remastered – @romactu1

Getting Involved

The Ubuntu Wallpaper Competition is just one of many ways you can contribute to the Ubuntu community. Discover how you can get involved at: https://ubuntu.com/community/contribute

References

[1] https://allpoetry.com/To-An-Oriole

[2] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems:_Second_Series_(Dickinson)/The_Oriole

Related posts


Freyja Cooper
24 April 2025

The hitchhiker’s guide to infrastructure modernization

Cloud and server Article

One of my favourite authors, Douglas Adams, once said that “we are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” Whilst Adams is right about a lot of things, he got this one wrong – at least when it comes to infrastructure. As our Infra Masters 2025 event demonstrated, infrastructure ...


Canonical
23 April 2025

Canonical and Ampere announce AmpereOne® SoC certification and other partnership milestones

AI Article

Ampere and Canonical are pleased to celebrate new milestones in their ongoing partnership including the completion of Canonical’s System-on-Chip (SoC) certification on AmpereOne®, and the extension of the partnership into the AI Platform Alliance, a strategic group of full stack ecosystem partners that provide enterprise-grade curated sol ...


Canonical
17 April 2025

Canonical Releases Ubuntu 25.04 Plucky Puffin

Canonical announcements Article

The latest interim release of Ubuntu introduces “devpacks” for popular frameworks like Spring, along with performance enhancements across a broad range of hardware. 17 April 2025 Today Canonical announced the release of Ubuntu 25.04, codenamed “Plucky Puffin,” available to download and install from ubuntu.com/download.   Ubuntu 25.04 deli ...