A bit more contrast and the smaler versions.
So flowing the feedback from yesterdays blog post here is an update on the status of the icon.
Did not made the arrow green or blue for several reasons, most of them that have to so with the over usage of arrows and the fact that the green one already have a more document local browsing meaning to them.
Plus I think that this one that pop up from the envelop itself makes sense to me at least, and avoid hading unnecessary visual clutter.
One thing don't judge a icon contrast by the way it looks on white background specially if this contrast is made with alpha shadow, the white tends to fade it off.
The same icon on actual oxygen use...
Might still play with the 22x22 version a tad bit but overall I am happy with it...
For 16x16 there is a option to just use the arrow like we do in many mail icons,
we could just use the tiny arrow that is the defining element. Maybe....
Did not made the arrow green or blue for several reasons, most of them that have to so with the over usage of arrows and the fact that the green one already have a more document local browsing meaning to them.
Plus I think that this one that pop up from the envelop itself makes sense to me at least, and avoid hading unnecessary visual clutter.
One thing don't judge a icon contrast by the way it looks on white background specially if this contrast is made with alpha shadow, the white tends to fade it off.The same icon on actual oxygen use...
Might still play with the 22x22 version a tad bit but overall I am happy with it...
For 16x16 there is a option to just use the arrow like we do in many mail icons,
we could just use the tiny arrow that is the defining element. Maybe....
Comments
The problem is the contrast between the arrow element and the letter elemnet. They blur togheter into a squarish elemt with a pointy appendage, with no visual sepparation.
The icon describe two distinct elements, the acction part(arrow) and context part(envelope). As it's already used in context(in a mail application) the key element should be the acction. So the arrow should be higlighted in some way compared to the background(envelope).
But if your application requires more specific icons with finer grain of meaning, then the simplistic approach is not enough and you will start to need to had color to differentiate actions. and less commonly known objects that simplified are completely unrecognizable.
Thats the reason most more specific apps in apple world ship action icons that are very much like the oxygen ones, simply because the simplistic approach cant deliver meaning enough it.
The fact that a couple of simplified symbols work very well is because they are something people have become familiar with over the years, and we in oxygen try to use those symbols as much as we can, but what we cant do is the apple way of doing them that is to strip down the application number of action icons to a complete and absolute minimum, In an open source world we work as teams, and wile I try to convince the application developers to not abuse the number of icons they show I do not force that in to them and do tray to make all the icons they need. and in the end the collection of action icons needed in a true universal open-source icon theme is in the vacancy of 3000, much, much, much, more that the 200 or something apple ships.
This ones are a bit better, especially on dark BG, but still the smaller sizes are bit hard to recognize. Try to tell what the (2nd) smallest icon is about, sitting about arm-length distance from the monitor.
(I suppose most common usecase when this icon is being used in kmails toolbar)
HTH
Karol
I think it seems a bit familiar... ;-)
http://office.microsoft.com/_Services/Ont/images/logooffice.gif
why not the beautiful circles?
what happened raptor menu? :)
Thats exactly what I was searching in this time...
Thanks!!!