Writers' Talk With Corey Marion of the Iconfactory
Pages: 1, 2, 3
alanosx: Are you finding any challenges when building icons for X?
iconfactorycorey: The biggest challenge we have found with 128x128 is detail
iconfactorycorey: knowing when enough is enough
alanosx: YEah...because scaling is a beast...and unforgiving.
iconfactorycorey: A lot of users will never see the 128s
iconfactorycorey: Hints (at 48,32,16) currently work in the finder which helps, but not in the dock
iconfactorycorey: supposedly it is coming
iconfactorycorey: developers see that they have 16,384 pixels to work with now instead of just 1,024
alanosx: I found a lot of difficulty bridging the line between detail, the Apple Guidelines...and branding.
iconfactorycorey: and they want to use them all
alanosx: And I have seen very few developers following the guidelines.
iconfactorycorey: Branding is a huge issue with our clients
alanosx: I'll bet.
alanosx: Were you at the Icon seminar?
iconfactorycorey: yes I was
alanosx: They want developers to build their brand in with a sample of the media handled in the background...
alanosx: almost impossible to get a lot of detail...or sometimes any in that.
iconfactorycorey: Apple actually showed some mock-up of ways to address branding
iconfactorycorey: Some worked well
alanosx: I saw them...yes some did...but I suspect those were the best ones they had.
iconfactorycorey: You can replace the tool in the icon with the brand and keep the media
iconfactorycorey: or make the media as specific as possible to the app (a spreadsheet for Microsoft Excel for example) and keep the tool
alanosx: Except when you scale the icon...
iconfactorycorey: exactly
alanosx: you get to a point in the system...where it is a meaningless little blob. That is where detail becomes noise.
iconfactorycorey: therefore the client wants the brand as big as possible
iconfactorycorey: The IE icon in X is a great example
alanosx: Can't miss it.
iconfactorycorey: it is simply an Aquafied version of the old one
alanosx: Same with AIM.
iconfactorycorey: A lot of clients want that, for good reason
alanosx: with Apple's desire to have these genres...
alanosx: and the emotive qualities they want to address and get across...
alanosx: it is ignored for the large part so far...
alanosx: do you think that will continue?
alanosx: has the genre battle already been lost...?
alanosx: Or is Apple just doing a poor job of communicating the message?
iconfactorycorey: A novice user may be thinking "I need to write a letter" and see the TextEdit icon
iconfactorycorey: they should understand it immediately
alanosx: right.
iconfactorycorey: but a poweruser is looking for a familiar app
iconfactorycorey: not a concept
iconfactorycorey: I need Photoshop now!
iconfactorycorey: What the hell is that photo with the pencil on it?
alanosx: and there is the issue with similarity...
iconfactorycorey: exactly
alanosx: in genres...you can have to apps that have similar icons...
alanosx: but they have different functions...and are different brands...can easily be confused.
iconfactorycorey: Plus you can have very important apps that are classified as utilities
alanosx: Not every word processor should look similar to TextEdit.
alanosx: right.
iconfactorycorey: so they seem to be second class citizens
iconfactorycorey: Norton Utlilies, Stuffit Deluxe
alanosx: also...I think that in theory... genres is a solid idea...until you put it in practice... it becomes much more complicated
iconfactorycorey: I think it works well for apps that ship with OS X
OReillyMac: I have a question then ...
