[ubuntu-art] Icon discussion

[Michiel Sikma]

Op 21-jun-2006, om 20:08 heeft Sean Hammond het volgende geschreven:

> With the default icon theme in dapper (human) there's a couple of
> icons I really don't like:
>
> * The 'Quit' button
> * The 'X' icon appearing on 'Close' buttons
>
> and it also seems to introduce some rendering errors. So I switched to
> tangerine instead, which additionally has a bit of a cleaner, clearer
> feel to it.
>
> I guess these problems with the human icons could be fixed and SVG
> versions provided with a little more work though.
>
> I'm not sure I really understand why the human icon theme was
> developed, given that tangerine exists, but I assume this has already
> been discussed.
>
> --  
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SeanHammond
>
>

I agree with you on those two things. There are also other  
disagreements that I have with the Human theme. Notably, it doesn't  
really seem to follow any kind of standard. Some of the icons are  
displayed with a totally different point of view; what's are the  
criteria? It also seems to do something which I would personally like  
to prevent for Edgy: it goes overboard with the "orangification" of  
the system. There isn't a need for everything to be orange. It could  
even be considered that making keeping common icons in more neutral  
colors will accentuate those icons that _are_ orange.

If we look at Mac OS X, for example, we see that the abundant usage  
of gray dwarfs the large amount of blue that is used and thus reduces  
blue to an effective accent color. It gives much more room for  
typical icons of programs and other OS-related designs that are not  
blue. The system has a very neutral appearance, despite the strong  
presence of the Aqua theme. This is something that we should aim for  
with Ubuntu as well.

If we look at, for example, the "X" icon on the "Close" buttons, we  
see a gigantic orange knob with a large X in it. I don't see this as  
a valid design choice. Old themes have, very effectively, used simple  
and small ballot V and X icons. They are exactly what is required in  
a common icon that will be shown in almost every program that will  
ever run on the system: non-intrusive.

I believe that such things are possible to resolve, but we do not  
have proper control over Human to do so. To me, Tangerine and Tango  
feels like a much better alternative, simply for the fact that they  
adhere much more to sane design principles and due to their openness.

Michiel