[openbeos] Re: Icon Contest thread

  • From: Petter Holt Juliussen <post@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:31:47 +0200

Stephan Assmus wrote: 

Outlines:

The black outlines help a lot.
I think a very dark version of the color on "the inside" of the outline works well. This is used in Tango, and
in 575 (a bit too bright version though). I know how the results look now, and I want to suggest that we
selects the set which would be best for Haiku, not the set which *looks*. What about merging the sets which
are mergeable of the top 5 for example? I'm not saying that we should take one icon from that set, and one
icon from the other, but rather select distinctions from the sets and combine them into a set which a lot of
people would love. I would suggest 575, Tango and Stippis icons - which are all on the top half of the
result list.

I think 16x16 icons is underrated here. Remember, it's not only desktop icons we need. We need good
looking and clear icons in toolbars, replicants, Tracker (most of us use list view I assume), Menus and
so on. In fact, most of our icons are going to be viewed in 16x16. Honey is definitely not good looking
in 16x16. It's even not good looking on too dark and too bright backgrounds. And this is a problem with
a white Tracker background.
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.

This is very important. We must remember that the icons must be easy to do, so that different people
can do them. I've seen a lot of Tango icons coming from different sources, and they mostly look like
they've been made by one person. I think we need clear guidelines, and a combination of 575 (especially
the "dark version outline", as explained above", the realistic perspective (which makes it more professional -
I'm wondering how the guidelines for Stippis set would look when it comes to perspective?),
as well as nice, bright colors that match our distinctive window tabs and default background color. 
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.
Agreed. I can't figure out how people see BeOS in Honey though. I've always thought that BeOS had
bright nice colors on their icons, which would give a user a warm welcoming feeling. I can't say that
Honey nearly BeOSish - when it comes to colors, perspective or feel.


As I've seen the results as of now, I can't say I'm too happy. But thats just my opinion. I think we should
consider everything (16x16!, how colors match system colors, how they appear (childish, professional),
perspective and so on. I think this is a decision which are too important for us to pick the top rated icon set.

Petter


Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. haiku
  3. Archive
  4. 09-2006