Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:41 am Post subject:
I've got a good host provider so I'm not really worried about traffic, it's more of a worry about bandwidth limits. I released a bunch of universal binaries of my own little applications this month, and advertised a set of Blade Runner icons on the Apple downloads page just as the new SE DVD was announced... 982MB and counting.
Anyway, since the splash redesign has suddenly become a semi-official project I thought it was OK to make JPEG previews from now on because the previews are just for viewing not downloading. I'm glad you like the new splash image, I might leave it as it is for a while now and see how high the flag flies up the pole.
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:58 am Post subject:
Quote:
I've got a good host provider so I'm not really worried about traffic, it's more of a worry about bandwidth limits.
In my mind these two things are related. Anyway, hosting the splashscreens on ImageShack would take this stuff away from your own server ... there it doesn't matter whether they're JPEG or BMP.
Quote:
Anyway, since the splash redesign has suddenly become a semi-official project I thought it was OK to make JPEG previews from now on because the previews are just for viewing not downloading.
Well, I am among the impatient who can't wait until the next Beta release and want to use the new icons & splash right away
Quote:
I released a bunch of universal binaries of my own little applications this month, and advertised a set of Blade Runner icons on the Apple downloads page just as the new SE DVD was announced... 982MB and counting.
Joined: Apr 21, 2006 Posts: 95 Location: Utah, USA
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:59 am Post subject:
I just want to throw in a few of my own views:
I agree - the splashscreen is perfect in my opinion (minus whatever "legal" stuff needs to be done). I love the blue gradient, and it's very simple.
I also like the icon set you last posted - it looks great as well! My only complaint there is that the blueprints are too dark (in my opinion)...
I think that there should be a separate HTML file type (because NeoOffice recognizes it differently) but not plain text or rtf...
Basically, in my opinion, the icon for the file should be different if it opens in a different editor or editor configuration. Opening plain text or rtf in NeoOffice just opens it in a normal writer window - therefore, they should be the normal writer icon. Opening HTML in NeoOffice opens it in the writer/html editor which has a different look and feel.
Also - if you have time, I'd love to have separate "application" icon files as well - for the "SubApps" package that I've been working on. Currently, I'm just using the OpenOffice icons - but I'd love to move to this style of icon.
Joined: Nov 21, 2005 Posts: 1285 Location: Witless Protection Program
Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 2:29 am Post subject:
Random Thoughts
1. The Splash screen is looking ... GREAT.
2. The Icons are progressing nicely. Maybe you could do some combination of:
2.1 Using a white-er white for the images in the blueprint,
2.2 Using a lighter "blue" for the blueprint color?
That would help overcome many of the minor complaints while still keeping your excellent design. I can see the Icons now and growing to like the idea of using "blueprint" imagery for "templates". Very clever, and simple once you understand the thinking! Congraulations!
And THANKS to all who have contributed to this group ... effort. (Well, it did require someone who could do fancy-er graphics too! ) It's all - ways amazing to see the quality of work that comes form this "community".
Philip (I'm not bad, I"M NOT. and I LIKE hanging out with these ... people! )
Only thought-- is "://" correct for HTML? I guess you see it most on the web, but URLs of all sorts use it.. rtsp://,skype:// etc... I can't think of anything better at the moment tho.
First reaction. The blueprint blue is still too blue. Since "blueprints" are actually "bluelines" in the profession these days, I think an even lighter shade of dark blue would be acceptable; thinking the really small icon size blueprint would be brutal to distinguish as is. Please don't take this comment the wrong way, your efforts have been tremendous so far.
First reaction. The blueprint blue is still too blue. Since "blueprints" are actually "bluelines" in the profession these days, I think an even lighter shade of dark blue would be acceptable; thinking the really small icon size blueprint would be brutal to distinguish as is. Please don't take this comment the wrong way, your efforts have been tremendous so far.
Personally, I am so impressed as to not understanding why this lighter blue is important.
Although I share Waldo's doubts about using :// since it is a protocol thing, not a file type. How about
ht
ml
Even if it is a little pedestrian and frightfully unoriginal.. If anyone else has a better idea, let us know. Other than that I must agree with Waldo's general opinion:
I'm very impressed with all the work that's going into these icons, but I still find that when shrunk to the equivalent size of my desktop icons, the 'blueprint' icons become pretty much indistinguishable from one another. I've got fairly good eyesight - I feel that this is not going to be distinct enough for anyone with even slightly impaired vision.
If the 'turned-over corner is blue' idea is not a runner for template identification, I'd like to suggest as another possibility a small dark-blue circle in the top left corner - which would balance nicely with the ship in the bottom right, I think. Something done a lot more stylishly/professionally than:
(yes, well, we'll draw a veil over my unnecessary graphic mockup, which doesn't do a better job that half a dozen words already used...)
Just an idea to float, I'm certainly not attached to this particular approach, I just think that the icons as they are stand beautifully and only need some small obvious identification mark to show that they're templates.
- padmavyuha
Last edited by yoxi on Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:50 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 10:36 am Post subject:
Guest wrote:
Since "blueprints" are actually "bluelines" in the profession these days, I think an even lighter shade of dark blue would be acceptable; thinking the really small icon size blueprint would be brutal to distinguish as is.
OK I've made the blueprints lighter which I think makes them easier on the eye. But I don't think it's too important to make the icon photorealistic - after all I'm representing the idea of a blueprint, not the real thing, to signify a document template.
yoxi wrote:
I'm very impressed with all the work that's going into these icons, but I still find that when shrunk to the equivalent size of my desktop icons, the 'blueprint' icons become pretty much indistinguishable from one another.
They look good for me at 32x32. Almost any icon is nearly unidentifiable at small sizes like 16x16 so there's only so much I can do to make them legible. I think that's why the colour is so important. At small sizes when the icon is too small to be legible you can use the colour for identification: green = spreadsheet, red = database, green with blue centre = spreadsheet template.
I'm very impressed with all the work that's going into these icons, but I still find that when shrunk to the equivalent size of my desktop icons, the 'blueprint' icons become pretty much indistinguishable from one another. I've got fairly good eyesight - I feel that this is not going to be distinct enough for anyone with even slightly impaired vision.
You mean to say that the colours get lost and all people will see is a dark blue rectangle in a whitish field?
I haven't tried. I guess it depends on how Daniel scales the icons. Also, someone with impaired vision may use larger icons than you do. One of my best friends has bad eyesight and she does a lot of computer work (she's a judge in training). She uses Windows XP, but has her fonts and icons set to large. I think she uses 15 or 16 point fonts on windows where someone else would use 12 points.
I hope something nice can be found. I was rather taken with the blueprint approach, and putting everything in the corners (dot on the top left, paper corner on the top right, ship on the bottom right) is a bit jarring..
Best wishes,
Oscar
best wishes,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Yes, a moment's consideration shows me that my 'dot' idea was pretty crap... - I'm using a powerbook 15" with icons at 28x28, and I displayed the icons jpg shrunk down until its icons were roughly the same size, and yes, I find that the graphics in the blueprint part become unreadable, and also that the coloured edge around that area that shows text/spread/draw etc. is lost, so all I could tell was it was a NeoOffice icon.
Interestingly, though, with the lighter blue in your most recent jpg, the edge colours stand out much better at small size than with the previous one. And I take the point about visually impaired folk using larger icons in any case, so you get my consensus on this one (for what that's worth ) - I like the latest one a lot better, the blue doesn't overpower the field so much. I guess I don't like the rectangular approach so much (which is one reason why I was suggesting alternatives), but that's just my own subjectivity, so isn't relevant to this evaluation process. Thanks for all your work so far!
- padmavyuha
*edit (Oh, and my tuppence-worth for the html icon: angle brackets, e.g.
Code:
<b>
would sort of match up with the Ab of the rtf/txt ones)
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and growing to like the idea of using "blueprint" imagery for "templates". 
Very clever, and simple once you understand the thinking! Congraulations!
)
