[ubuntu-art] Apport icons -- merely some ideas

Nacho de los Ríos Tormo nachodelosrios at gmail.com
Sat Feb 10 09:23:39 GMT 2007


The bug icons are very cute and very well done. However, before they are 
used to represent the concept "bug-report" I would like to argue that 
the images map to the concept through the polysemy of the word "bug" in 
English ("insect" and "defect in a program"), and so they won't work 
well for people that speak other languages. And adding a verb to the 
image by making the bug appear writing a paper might not be 
cross-language grammatically correct.

In Spanish, as an example, program bugs are commonly called "fallos" 
(faults), so I don't believe that the image of a cockroach writing on a 
piece of paper will make you think of the phrase "bug report" and then 
convey it's meaning, but more likely, to make myself understood, it will 
make you think of the phrase "ant writing" and then leave you a bit 
disconcerted.

I've tried the icon on my boyfriend, and he was totally clueless; he 
offered possibilities such as "notepad", or "drawing", but he did not 
guess what the bug meant in the first place. It is not a statistically 
meaningful experiment, but he's an architect used to computers -- 
*windows* computers, unfortunately ;-).

Again, I insist that the icons are very well done and I do find them cute.



Kenneth Wimer escribió:
> On Friday 09 February 2007 18:44:46 Donn wrote:
>   
>> Hello out there,
>>  For some reason I found myself designing symbols to express the ideas in
>> the post asking for apport icons.
>>
>>     
>
> Great work! Looks really nice.
>
>   
>> I have never seen apport (besides some screenshots) and I use Kubuntu, so I
>> am sure I will be way off-base in the style. I posted some to another
>> thread in this list, but I have done a few more so I thought I'd start a
>> new post.
>>
>>     
>
> As mentioned, there will be a kubuntu version of this too (for feisty, 
> hopefully) but I don't think we necessarily need two different versions of 
> the icons for gnome/kde if we make them generic enough.
>
> You might want to take a look at the Oxygen, Human, and Tangerine icon sets to 
> get an idea of the style(s) we need. If we can make icons that fit these 
> styles there is no need for different versions.
>
> As you mention, making icons is somewhat different than creating graphic 
> design but with your artistic talent it shouldn't be too hard to pick it up 
> with a bit of practice :-)
>
>   
>> I kept scaling in mind and used Inkscape's cool icon-view tool to watch
>> what was happening. They don't all scale very well, but it was about
>> getting the idea of "report" "inform" "bug" "error" across in a way that
>> would not exclude anyone. I don't purport to have achieved that, but I did
>> stay away from words and punctuation and things like that.
>>
>> I'll post the inkscape files to anyone who wants them should there be some
>> interest.
>>
>>     
>
> I'd be interested in playing around with them to make them look good at small 
> sizes. Because most of these icons will be shown at very small sizes (16x16 
> and 22x22/24x24) they might need to be simplified a bit.
>
>   
>> The lighthouse idea was last, it's not very clever nor is it a visual pun,
>> but it can mean "watching out for your safety", "Beware problem ahead". It
>> stands for safety and intervention in a situation where things are going
>> wrong -- well that was my line of thought anyway.
>>
>> hth
>> /d
>>
>>  "I hereby publish this work under the Creative Commons Share Alike
>> license"
>>     
>
>
> Bye,
> Ken
>
>   




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