A new project trying to get off the ground and currently in an "exploratory phase" is GYESME that describes itself as a "design-led" downstream of GNOME with plans ot only fork when needed that is "minimal by default."

GYESME is a brand new effort looking to build upon the GNOME codebase is a more design-led manner and focus on minimalism and modularity. GYESME is just in the process of being established and was tipped off to its formation this weekend by a Phoronix reader. There doesn't appear to be much to it yet besides their planning documentation. They self-describe the aim of GYESME as: "GYESME is a design-led downstream of GNOME focused on architectural optionality. It treats minimalism as a default state rather than a constraint, and modularity as an internal property rather than an afterthought.