New Icons
I have begun work on a number of new icons for the 2.0 release. We’ve been using Blake’s old icons since just after the initial non-beta release of OS X (dunno where Eric got the original). While they are excellent, as OS X evolves so does its interface, and I felt its time we change some things UI wise.
My goals are thus:
- an evaluation of all visuals used in Fire. Do they do what they visualise? are they too complex? How can the fundamental (as opposed to the representational) design of the icon by simplified?
- a complete update of the representation of all designs in use in Fire. We’re going to make ‘em pretty and clean
- a complete update of all emoticons (including service specific) to a single style. Sorry, I hate those old ones.
- resolution independence. Right now a number of icons were designed at the pixel level. With the rumours of 10.5 being resolution independent, even if for now we include the icons as a TIFF, they will be designed with much larger sizes in mind. For those who care, Fire already supports PDF as an appropriate file type for FireBrand, and it successfully displays them.
Along that lines I present some of the initial work in this. As you can see in the image included, the icons are fully scalable (they’re created with OmniGraffle for those who care). The smilies look distinguishable completely down to about 11 or 12px, and then they get a bit hard to distinguish, but, good luck making much of anything distinguishable at that size (the most basic smile, with one pixel face border, one pixel between the edge and the eyes, one pixel for the eyes, one pixel for the nose, one of the height of the mouth, one between the mouth and the chin, and one more for the edge is eight. A “grinning” face requires a minimum of 3 pixels for the mouth, but that leaves no room for eye distinction, etc. Plus we have a slight drop shadow too).
Thus far, at least, I’m keeping up with the general old presentation of the icons, but that’s because they were the most classic and basic. You can bet I won’t be putting lots of icons into icons into other icons like has been done of late. They look better with a unified toolbar look, which has already been updated in the Fire Source by graham.
Comments are encouraged.
February 20th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
To be quiet blunt, I don’t like these icons at all. In general I’m not a fan of the “gell” look as it reminds me too much of Microsofts MSN Messenger for Mac. My biggest complaint is that the icons aren’t “Mac-like”. They don’t fit in with the style of icons used throughout the rest of the OS and thus feel very out of place. They are also very washed out - the tops of the smilies blend in with the white background, which is very noticeable at the smaller sizes. I have other issues with the icons which I can raise if you are still interested.
February 20th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
I was waiting for the “I don’t like ‘em” message since everyone giving me positive responses helps me improve them not at all. There are ways to improve, of course.
Unfortunately, Apple has few applications using the non-metal windows these days which offers small point of comparison. However, looking at an application like Mail (classic), Pages or Keynote, Apple *does* use the same look, although on closer look I do see an area or two where I can improve the copying of their style. The key difference I’ve missed is a dark-lite border, hence followed by the glassy look for smaller icons. I had been looking at larger icons which don’t follow this same standard. Another is the +/- badges, which Apple seems to prefer a coloured badge with a white +/-.
I think one of the non-Mac-like concerns is that the colour is quite blue. Perhaps if I make them all the colour of the unsigned keys things will look a bit more “normal”. Apple believe it or not uses washed out colours in most of their icons :-). I am looking into getting the icons a bit more yellowish although it’s not the easiest given that there are only so many shades of yellow that appear yellow (eg, darkening red makes dark red, darken blue and you get dark blue. Even darken purple and you get dark purple. But darken yellow and you get brown. Lighten it and you get perceived whiteness).
I’ll lookin into that blend problem for the smilies.
Remember these are only tests, and by no means final.
February 20th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Apple has plenty of applications using non-metal windows, and the icons used in each are of substantially different style to those you have proposed. Take a look at the Apple HIG section on toolbar icons. The two non-metal examples they provide are Xcode and Preview, both of which have toolbar icons in a much more realistic style. The problem is deeper than a “dark-lite border”. Yes, the icons are too blue. I cannot see any Apple icons that have colours as washed out as these icons. It’s also worth noting that the icons don’t really convey what action it is they perform. That is a big problem with the current icon set, and I’m not sure if these really improve upon it in that regards.
I appreciate the effort you are putting in to this, but in my opinion you are exploring in the wrong direction.
March 28th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Honestly - I use Fire for several reasons [primarily it rocks and I have yet to find anything PC or Mac that is comprable_
That being said - as a designer I am very visual and as I do like the current icon set they are not sooo cool that I am eternally attached to them_ However given the the option of the current set or the new alternative posted on this page - I would have to stay with the current set_
One reason for this is this "new look" being proposed is very reminiscent of almost any other IM client's default look [especially on the PC side of things]_ I do think Windows Graphics when I look at this set_
You mention following Apple’s model up updating the look on occasion [as they tend to with new OS releases] - a thought would be to at least study the look of the icons throughout the OS_ Granted they are leaning towrd more realistic icon sets from one OS to the next but aside from “simple” as a driving force behind anything Apple does - they also make things clean_
You touched on the simple aspect just fine - but it’s simple via microsoft/windows_ Maybe at least you’ll retain the Web View options for something like “Smooth Operator” and so on_ Or perhaps an option to add our own icons [if you haven't already added that option]_
All in all - 2 thumbs down for the set on this page_
regards_
March 28th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
UberFu, I noticed you commented here long after the alternative set (that we’re thus far actually looking at using) was posted in the post “New Icons (Outra vez)”. We’re no longer looking at this set, except for perhaps the emoticons, whose style might only change slightly. What is your opinion of the newer set?
June 25th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
I agree with Mark Rowe. Gel icons is not good. May be try to make photorealistic icons ?