FreeLists / openbeos / [openbeos] Re: Icon Contest thread

[Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx>]

Hello,

Zenja started this discussion with some thoughts that I can very much agree 
with. But first of all, I'm absolutely amazed by the amount of submissions 
that we received! When I started this, I was not sure if we would get even 
one single submission. Instead, we have got 15 submissions, out of which 11 
have been done specifically for the contest. I know how much work is 
involved to complete all 11 icons! I didn't have all of them ready when I 
wrote the requirements and then I saw how much work it really was... :-) In 
any case, a big "Thank You!" to anyone involved, and a special thanks to 
Petter for his hard work with the contest page!


Outlines:

As I said, I can agree very much with what Zenja wrote. The black outlines 
help a lot. They help to give the clearest shape on any background, and the 
colors of the icon matter less on different colors of backgrounds (I mean 
wether the colors fit to the background is less of a problem, with colored 
outlines, it is a bit more of a problem, and the clearness is also a bit 
less the lighter the outline color).


Shadows:

Somehow I like shadows. Without the shadows, the more simplistic icons look 
too simplistic. :-) The object looks more alive with a shadow, there is one 
more dimension/more depth to it, IMHO.


Simplified versus Natural/Realistic

The Honey set and the hopefully comming set by Pawel, which both must have 
been a lot of work, show to me that these kind of icons don't work so well 
with regards to clearness at lower icon resolutions. Even more so without 
outlines. We should also not underestimate the performance impact that 
these sets are going to have. A) They are going to take a lot of storage 
space, even with my format and B) they will take longer to render. I hope 
I'm not the only one for whoem this is an important issue. Like I said, I 
absolutely know how much work these icons must have been... which is in 
itself another problem: A) It will take longer for us to complete the 
entire set, and B) icons are more likely to look different when done by 
different people. Especially later, when third party application vendors 
want to do icons with that style. With a simpler design, I see less of a 
problem there.


The BeOSish Sets

These sets have a number of positive points. They can be made to:
1) use very little storage space,
2) render fast,
3) look clear, with a good silhouette.

Plus Haiku can benefit from the association with BeOS. Any icon set done 
for another OS that looks like BeOS will always "look like BeOS". It's a 
somewhat unique association. IMHO, a BeOSish look will at this point in 
time, where so many different icon themes have been made, be more unique 
than any other style which we could try. And for most people, BeOS is a 
positive association.

I like all of the BeOSish sets very much, but I see differences: The zuMi 
BeOS set is the closest to the original BeOS icons. For this reason, I 
would not like to go with those. I would like a "fresher" look more. I 
think this can be achieved with the colors, especially with gradients, and 
in the case of my own set, with a little added perspective. zuMi has done a 
ton of these icons, 167 in total I think. If we stick to a BeOSish look, 
these can be used as a basis for many of the new icons. The McClintock 
icons add gradients. But ZETA used them, and I would like it more, if we 
had our own icons.

zuMi has experimented with detaching farther from the original BeOS icons. 
I like all of his sets. They are all nicely done, and I admire his ability 
to invent a style and stick to it. Alba is niceley done as well. The only 
problem I see with it, is that it will not be immediately recognized as 
unique. The flat look gives away the possibility to have a cleaner 
silhouette. And I can agree with what Stefano said about Garum at lower 
sizes. You can see how zuMi did pay attention to aligning shapes to pixels 
and all that, but somehow Garum is not as clear at 16x16. But contrary to 
what Stefano said, I think zuMis sets are as crisp as possible at 16x16.

Kabuto is nice, but for my taste, a bit too cold. I think the straight 
isometric perspective is responsible for that, as well as the colors to 
some degree. Less clear colors (ie more mixed colors, not so much straight 
greens/blues/reds, more inbetween tones) add some aliveness as well. I like 
the colors in the 575 set better, and the highlight effect is nice, IMHO. 
The image icon in the Alba set and the original Kabuto set is very nice, 
better than the splash of color.

Deborah, Marius set and Ponkan are other variations, I think Ponkan is less 
strict with the perspective, but in a way that I don't like so much. I made 
the same mistake with my harddrive and archive icon. Certain lines should 
always be the same direction. My criticism is about the same, I would like 
to get a more vivid look with improved colors and added perspective.


The Artistic Sets

These are going to have similar storage and rendering time problems as the 
naturalistic sets. The jagged outlines will take *a lot* of path storage. I 
find Miqlas set more recognizable, but not so much at small resolutions. In 
the set from Jean, many icons are too abstract IMHO. One positive thing is 
that no other OS uses such icons as default icons, although similar icon 
sets have been made for other OSs.


Dropline Neu and Tango

Tango is a very solid set, with clear guidelines. I have several problems 
with it though: The 16x16 icons are a special PNG version (which uses more 
storage space and therefor performance) and Haiku would look like many 
Linux distros. The colors are a bit too dull IMHO. Dropline Neu doesn't 
appear to have so clear guidelines, the perspective is different in almost 
all icons. They also seem to have a different level of complexity. For 
example, the executable and CD icons looks too simple compared to the 
others. The only icons I really like are the folder, the text editor and 
screen prefs icons. In any case, I think the uniqueness thing is pretty 
important, and I see more of a chance in that regard with sticking to a 
BeOSish look.


Summary

In all icon sets I see something that I really like. I think it would be 
possible to bring something from each set into the final icons. I'm talking 
about a paper airplane for the (full) trash can, a black harddisk maybe... 
a (gentle) glow from behind. So none of the work gone into making these 
icons was wasted! Not at all. If nothing else, it was important to try a 
direction just to actually see it and help make up our minds. Again, many 
thanks to all contributors!!


Best regards,
-Stephan