Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Andy Betts is a long-time KDE contributor who leads the Visual Design Team at KDE and is also a member of the Community Working Group. Additionally, Andy has served as a KDE Board member and currently assists in various capacities related to graphical design.
Andy’s work involves reviewing graphical changes to the system, providing improvements, maintaining visual conventions, and developing new concepts for Plasma.
In his professional life, Andy is a Manager of User Testing for a large cloud services provider. He resides in the United States.
Soon after the launch of Plasma 6, many contributors requested updates to the visuals in the new Plasma Desktop. Initially touted as a stability release, Plasma 6 evolved to be more consistent and bug-free than its predecessors. However, the one aspect missing from the release was a refreshed style.
Taking this feedback into account, a small team of designers from the Visual Design Team reviewed and created a few exciting changes for the current visual style.
The team worked on creating:
• A graphical design system
• New color selection
• New font selection with specific sizes
• New grids and spacing system
• A new editing workflow using Figma and Penpot
• Updating all 22px icons to a 24px size
• New shadows and blurs
• New components, such as buttons, dropdowns, toggles, checkboxes, tooltips, progress indicators, sliders, badges, and inputs
We would like to provide a preview of all these changes to the community and gauge interest. We also seek help from the developer community in implementing these elements.
Additionally, we plan to follow up with a couple of Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions to explore how we can execute these elements within our constraints.
Above all, we are committed to advancing our visual style. Our goal is to offer users a consistent look that helps them maximize their productivity while using our systems.
KDE is an open-source community developing free software for desktop and mobile, including the powerful Plasma desktop environment. Join the KDE community to contribute, learn, and shape the future of open-source software!
🔗 Explore KDE:
🌐 Website: kde.org
💬 Forum: discuss.kde.org
📢 Follow KDE on Social Media:
🐘 Mastodon: https://floss.social/@kde
📹 PeerTube: tube.kockatoo.org/c/kde
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/KDE
💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/kde
👾 Reddit: reddit.com/r/kde
🌿 Lemmy: https://lemmy.ml/c/kde
📷 Instagram: instagram.com/kdecommunity
🌌 Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kde.org
🧵 Threads: threads.net/@kdecommunity
🔔 Like, Share & Subscribe for More Open-Source Content!
📌 Hashtags:
#KDE #Plasma #OpenSource #Linux #FOSS #FreeSoftware #KDECommunity #KDEApps #Tech
Andy Betts is a long-time KDE contributor who leads the Visual Design Team at KDE and is also a member of the Community Working Group. Additionally, Andy has served as a KDE Board member and currently assists in various capacities related to graphical design.
Andy’s work involves reviewing graphical changes to the system, providing improvements, maintaining visual conventions, and developing new concepts for Plasma.
In his professional life, Andy is a Manager of User Testing for a large cloud services provider. He resides in the United States.
Soon after the launch of Plasma 6, many contributors requested updates to the visuals in the new Plasma Desktop. Initially touted as a stability release, Plasma 6 evolved to be more consistent and bug-free than its predecessors. However, the one aspect missing from the release was a refreshed style.
Taking this feedback into account, a small team of designers from the Visual Design Team reviewed and created a few exciting changes for the current visual style.
The team worked on creating:
• A graphical design system
• New color selection
• New font selection with specific sizes
• New grids and spacing system
• A new editing workflow using Figma and Penpot
• Updating all 22px icons to a 24px size
• New shadows and blurs
• New components, such as buttons, dropdowns, toggles, checkboxes, tooltips, progress indicators, sliders, badges, and inputs
We would like to provide a preview of all these changes to the community and gauge interest. We also seek help from the developer community in implementing these elements.
Additionally, we plan to follow up with a couple of Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions to explore how we can execute these elements within our constraints.
Above all, we are committed to advancing our visual style. Our goal is to offer users a consistent look that helps them maximize their productivity while using our systems.
KDE is an open-source community developing free software for desktop and mobile, including the powerful Plasma desktop environment. Join the KDE community to contribute, learn, and shape the future of open-source software!
🔗 Explore KDE:
🌐 Website: kde.org
💬 Forum: discuss.kde.org
📢 Follow KDE on Social Media:
🐘 Mastodon: https://floss.social/@kde
📹 PeerTube: tube.kockatoo.org/c/kde
📘 Facebook: facebook.com/KDE
💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/kde
👾 Reddit: reddit.com/r/kde
🌿 Lemmy: https://lemmy.ml/c/kde
📷 Instagram: instagram.com/kdecommunity
🌌 Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kde.org
🧵 Threads: threads.net/@kdecommunity
🔔 Like, Share & Subscribe for More Open-Source Content!
📌 Hashtags:
#KDE #Plasma #OpenSource #Linux #FOSS #FreeSoftware #KDECommunity #KDEApps #Tech
