Oxygen Design is a new independent and open source project, proudly part of KDE, started by Nuno Pinheiro and Filip Fila to pick up where the original Oxygen left off.
The original Oxygen goes back to March 2005, at a KDE gathering in Berlin known as the “Appeal meeting.” Kenneth Wimer and David Vignoni (creator of the Nuvola icon set) set things in motion, aiming to give KDE 4 a modern, consistent icon theme. Nuno Pinheiro joined shortly after, while working at SUSE with sponsorship from Novell, and took the lead early on, coordinating the project through its growth into 2000+ icons, wallpapers, sounds, and a whole visual language that helped define how KDE4 looked and felt.
Oxygen Design carries that same spirit forward as its own thing: Oxygen² (the icon set reboot for Plasma 6) is one of the projects under this roof, not the whole story.
These days it’s a handful of us chipping away at it in our spare time, mostly because it’s fun and the bugs annoy us personally. We still sweat the details nobody will ever consciously notice. That’s kind of the point.
More than anything, Oxygen Design is a space for designers: somewhere to experiment, play, and have fun with icons, themes, and interfaces. There’s no gatekeeping here. If you like making things, you’re invited in.
Want to know who’s actually behind this? Check out our People page.