What is Digg?215 Comments
- raw10, on 02/13/2008, -5/+213Now write an article (with lots of examples) on how to make icons properly. I'd be more interested in the basics of good icon design. Someone once told me, "How not to do something is an infinite space. The proper way of doing it is usually much more limited."
- sgoogle, on 02/13/2008, -1/+129"The icon appears very much like a printer with an octopus hidden inside."
Best line from a Digg article I can remember. Dugg. - SHv2, on 02/13/2008, -20/+126Who can't tell the difference between Terminal, Activity Monitor, and Console? Can it get any easier? You are using Mac after all.
- meruru, on 02/13/2008, -5/+89...besides crashing , containing spyware, a bad DRM system, or pretty much anything else relating to how the program actually works.
- appleseed1234, on 02/13/2008, -13/+88There's no bigger turn off in a program than a ***** icon.
- homanh, on 02/13/2008, -2/+54The great thing about digg is that instead of wasting precious forum space writing "good point", or "QFT" or quoting people over and over, you can just click that neat thumbs up icon.
- TheSkinsFactory, on 02/13/2008, -9/+60Every single time i read one of these things that claim to know more than the rest of us, I have to ask myself "what makes them an authority on the topic?"
The truth is. as the author sits there and question the techniques and executions of such notable iconographers (for lack of a better name) as The Icon Factory (see #2, they did those icons) and then of course Apple (see #9) I sit and get aggravated.
Before I rant, you could say "well what experience do you have that you should be questioning their opinion?". I art directed via my company, the creation of icons for Disney.com (see top navigation icons), the icons in ATI Cataylst Driver GUI (which we did also), Toyota.com's top nav icons and many others. So i do have some experience.
1. Text inside of icons is sometimes a necessary evil. When you're dealing with file extension icons like Image, Audio, Video, and Document icons, you need to differentiate between the different formats. Not all users have their "hide known extensions" unchecked.
2. The shadows showin in #5 are there because the cascading explorer menu uses the default icon for that application. Are we not to have any drop shadows just because when it's shrunk down in a menu it may not look perfect? Please.
#7. You can not take the entire world into consideration when creating user interface elements. It's just an impossible task. So you might as well deal with what you know. The stamp is pretty universal symbol for mail. The comment about the eagle is ridiculous. So what? Besides, it looks like a hawk to me anyways. Apple is an American company. There is no standard symbol image for a stamp. Stick with what you know.
Anyway just some thought. Back to work for me. - borez, on 02/13/2008, -1/+45I miss the fat mac bin icon
- doktorrocket, on 02/13/2008, -0/+36"#3 Unnecessary elements"...not always the case. Look at the third example in #9, the "Jets-N-Guns" icon. This one needs more elements, not less. Specifically, it needs a flaming skull wrapped in barbed wire with a bowie knife in its teeth, dripping blood. And behind the wings should be a brace of missiles fanning out, straddled by women in bikinis. Put a few choppers in the foreground and then you're set.
- eleven, on 02/13/2008, -0/+30The database example was probably the one I agreed with the most. You don't need to represent the "database" in every icon - it should be pretty clear you're using one without have a while bunch of icons that are almost the same. It's not the database that's important anyways - it's the buttons function.
- nolesfan247, on 02/13/2008, -0/+29They make all of these wonderful notes, and then their 'favicon' looks like clown vomit.
- adooga, on 02/13/2008, -6/+34Um, the entire reason for icons is so you don't have to rely on text. But hey, if it "just works" for you, great.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2008, -1/+20I think the article's point was those icons get harder to differentiate when they get smaller and smaller.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2008, -2/+21This has to be the first "10 mistakes" article on digg that was actually worth reading. Not just for newbs either.
- kent1146, on 02/13/2008, -2/+19I can think of a few... like, bugs, and crashing and poor support.
- fitqueenb, on 02/13/2008, -16/+33Interesting, good info for newbies on icon creation, not a talent I poses!
- hierophantus, on 02/13/2008, -0/+16"In large size everything looks pretty and clear; but in reality the icons are small, and under rasterization anti-aliasing frets the objects’ borders."
Oh my! I wish you hadn't mentioned that. It's my #1 pet peeve in life. Just from thinking about it, I have to go get raging drunk now. - irgeorge, on 02/13/2008, -1/+17You're trying too hard. Leave comedy to someone else, it clearly isn't your thing.
- heypetray, on 02/13/2008, -1/+17Thanks, "teh techie"
- xdevit, on 02/13/2008, -0/+16Believe color and shape are most important. Yes I know that there are people that have forms if not are totally color blind but No matter how small the icon is you know what it is. Example look at your launch bar, im sure most of you have FireFox and you know that icon by heart. (orange | blue | yellow), VLC an orange cone .., or VNC its not the best design on earth but its simple and you know what it is when you see it. Yes most of them don't help you understand what they do but an icon isnt supposed to tell you a story of what it does, thats what the hint box/balloon is for. After that all you do is look for that icon and if they all use the same color pallet you have look for very small details.
- Camphlobactor, on 02/13/2008, -0/+15Yes, that was nostalgic. l remember my brother dragging icons into the can to see if it would explode.
- ftyuv, on 02/13/2008, -0/+15The problem is that then you can get buttons within the same app that look identical but do different things. For instance, adding a table vs. adding a schema. Both are adding something, so should they both just be the [+] icon? No, they should have something behind the [+] telling you *what* you're adding.
You could say "well you'll know because you're in the table dialog or the schema dialog," but what if the window is in the background and it's not clear which it is? What if someone (either the app designer or, if you allow toolbar customization, the user) wants both kinds of buttons in the same window? At the very least, you're limiting yourself in terms of future development, because either you'll have to never ever be able to use both buttons in the same window, or you'll have to at some point redesign your buttons, which is going to steepen the learning curve for the new version. Speaking of learning curves, since the "database" icon and the "plus" icon are both universal, putting them together is an easy way to tell newbies to your program what the button does -- they don't have to know your specific UI, they can just use their previous knowledge.
I agree with the notion of trying to simplify buttons, but if you simplify them too much, you end up not communicating as well. - mjfarina, on 02/13/2008, -0/+14I'd like to see an article on what icons he considers "properly designed." I've always found icons to be very difficult considering they are supposed to convey some sort of action or function in such little space.
- irgeorge, on 02/13/2008, -1/+14Clutching at straws.
- capiCrimm, on 02/13/2008, -0/+12I don't know about OS/2 Warp, but in my experience shred is entirely different from trash. Trash is more of a folder for future deletion. Whereas shred is immediate successive writes of random data to securely erase any trace of the file. Are you sure OS/2 Warp wasn't using the later idea?
- pradvan, on 02/13/2008, -3/+15The Disney icons are pretty nice! ... for me to poop on
- dinostabOMG, on 02/13/2008, -1/+13I'll get right on changing that thumbnail.
- GorillaCowboy, on 02/13/2008, -1/+11Nice wig.
- irgeorge, on 02/13/2008, -0/+9My mistake, proceed. I only comment on Digg to make undermining remarks, so we have something in common.
- mowe, on 02/14/2008, -0/+9Good point.
- inactive, on 02/13/2008, -0/+9Although, different Mail icons for different countries would be pretty cool...
- actionscripted, on 02/13/2008, -0/+8I'd like to toss the Firefox icon into the ring if I may. It's identifiable to almost everyone [that's ever used Safari or Internet Explorer] as a web browser icon, yet the unique orange palette and inclusion of the warped fox give it an amazingly unique visual flair.
Place a Firefox icon somewhere amidst a slew of other icons and see how easy it is to find. - Protoss, on 02/13/2008, -2/+10iCal, Mail, iTunes...I hate to use so many Apple examples, but they convey the action of the program so well.
- SHv2, on 02/13/2008, -0/+8Perhaps all that was needed was a border change? :P
- Angostura, on 02/13/2008, -1/+9Yeh. In Apple's defense though, one thing clever touch I liked about the original Aqua app and utility icons was that all the utilities were differentiated by having desaturated greyish icons, as opposed to the vibrant colour of the app icons. I always found this rather pleasing for some reason
- zengonzo, on 02/13/2008, -1/+9Right, but this article isn't for users, it's for designers ..
- springboks, on 02/13/2008, -0/+7It's not like turbomilk.com's favicon is anything that makes sense either.
- Darcy, on 02/13/2008, -0/+7I was quite tired and wanted a quiet place to nap. I asked the boys to quit playing games.
- WhatsUpWithJack, on 02/14/2008, -0/+7***** icons. I'm going back to MS-DOS.
- Cloud7654, on 02/14/2008, -1/+8Personally I could get past a bad icon. A bad UI, however, is unacceptable.
- demesisx, on 02/13/2008, -0/+6You design them using bitmaps and not vectors. He has a green checkmark next to one and a red x next to the other...the green one is a solution.
- championchap, on 02/13/2008, -2/+8That all?
I dugg it for being a really very good article with a lot of insightful and overlooked aspects to icon design. - JrGhoull, on 02/13/2008, -0/+6@ djm
doesnt "everybody" include yourself there big guy? - timusca, on 02/13/2008, -0/+6http://images.quickblogcast.com/76676-67171/zoolan ...
- willbb123, on 02/13/2008, -9/+15and if you are really having a problem, just read the app name...
- wush, on 02/13/2008, -0/+6you sly fox!!
- JrGhoull, on 02/13/2008, -1/+7can you get me a job? /joke
i like that digg has a few people that actually know what they are talking about...whether they are actually right or wrong i have no idea...but posts by at least a few people who deal very heavily in certain subjects make a nice change from the ordinary uneducated opinions. - dasdef, on 02/14/2008, -0/+6possess is a funny word
- boomybx, on 02/13/2008, -3/+9Great article. Hadn't thought of all those mistakes (for example, the "mailbox" mistake...).
- TheSkinsFactory, on 02/13/2008, -1/+6http://www.theskinsfactory.com/skinsfactory/?page= ...
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