OSX icon - any interest?

Previous topic - Next topic

arkany

Hey there everyone,

I made an icon for Scribus, adhering to the icon design style guide for OSX. Any interest? [File should be attached.]

I completely recognize that open source projects have their own culture and way of doing things, so I'm cool either way.

Cheers,

David

[attachment deleted by admin]

GarryP

Hi David.

Your icon looks very nice and the "book device" has more relevance to what Scribus does than the current "circle with squiggle", in my opinion anyway.

I have some notes though:

1. It's usually best to avoid text in an icon. For the first part, it's language specific and some people may not be able to understand it (for instance, they may not even have those letters in their alphabet). For the second part, at small sizes it becomes unreadable. And, for the third part, it's just generally not done. One or two letters are sometimes okay, e.g. Qt/Adobe/etc, but it's usually best to avoid text.

2. If the Scribus icon - and therefore logo - were to be changed I'd (personally) prefer to get away from using a fountain pen. While a pen does have connotations of "writing a book", Scribus can do way more than that and it looks a bit archaic to me.

3. The icon needs to work on all OSes and not just OSX. Have you checked any other guidelines? It also needs to be scalable to look nice when used very small in taskbars, window headers, etc.

4. I don't think that the Scribus team has any plans to change the logo/icon since they've recently got an updated splash screen done by an artist. It would be bad form to just drop it after the work was done but you never know with these things.

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to see more potential Scribus icons. Maybe one of them would be so good that it would simply make sense to change to it. At the very least it might start some kind of discussion.

Welcome to the forum and I hope to see more of your work.

a.l.e

personally, i always wondered what a fountain pen has to do with layouting...

to me, a new logo that i like should avoid that graphic element :-)

otherwise, garry's feedback seems to be on spot...

anyway: also from my side: nice icon!


arkany

Hey there GarryP and a.l.e.,

A pleasure to meet you and thank you reviewing the work!

A few responses:

Quote from: GarryP on January 08, 2016, 03:47:19 PM1. It's usually best to avoid text in an icon. For the first part, it's language specific and some people may not be able to understand it (for instance, they may not even have those letters in their alphabet). For the second part, at small sizes it becomes unreadable. And, for the third part, it's just generally not done. One or two letters are sometimes okay, e.g. Qt/Adobe/etc, but it's usually best to avoid text.

I generally agree with you in this regard. However, in order to make it feel more like a system icon, I actually modeled the design after the Pages app, which does indeed have text. If it's good enough for Apple to have on Apple icons, I figure I'd give it a shot. Also, the dominant visibility of the icon is in the tray, where the text is minimally distracting. Attached is a side by side of the Scribus and the Pages icon.

Quote2. If the Scribus icon - and therefore logo - were to be changed I'd (personally) prefer to get away from using a fountain pen. While a pen does have connotations of "writing a book", Scribus can do way more than that and it looks a bit archaic to me.

Very interesting! And very good to know. I didn't expect a movement away from the fountain pen! It feels very embedded into the brand identity of the Scribus product. Hmmm...that gives me something to think about for the next version.

Quote3. The icon needs to work on all OSes and not just OSX. Have you checked any other guidelines? It also needs to be scalable to look nice when used very small in taskbars, window headers, etc.

I did know it would need to work on all OSes, though I didn't check the guidelines. I understand it needs to be scalable, but if people generally like the direction of one icon, I can then move forward with an overarching direction that fits across all sizes and platforms. To submit a completed icon in all those directions and have them be dismissed(i.e.-for using the fountain pen) poses quite a bit of wasted time on my part. If indeed I hit upon an icon that people are digging, then I can match it to the style of Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, etc.

Quote4. I don't think that the Scribus team has any plans to change the logo/icon since they've recently got an updated splash screen done by an artist. It would be bad form to just drop it after the work was done but you never know with these things.

Ah, hm. that is good to know. Well, it was a fun exercise for me.

Quote
Welcome to the forum and I hope to see more of your work.

Thank you for your time and kindness.

[attachment deleted by admin]

GarryP

Apologies for crashing the thread but this seemed as good a place as any to post this.

I had an idea for a Scribus app icon pop into my head today so I thought I'd put a quick mock-up together and see what it looked like. The idea behind the whole things was "things coming together to make a page". (I've shown the same icon on different backgrounds.)

It was thrown together very crudely and quickly so it needs a lot of tidying up - especially when shown at small sizes - but I wondered what everyone thought about the concept (rather than the presentation). Like it? Hate it? Couldn't care less?

I can't see the Scribus icon changing anytime soon - if ever - but it can't hurt to have some kind of discussion on this kind of thing. Maybe something good will rise to the surface.

[attachment deleted by admin]

a.l.e

i like the direction of your proposal!
(in the context of high res os x icons...)

i just would not use that image for the picture... it don't know why but it's shouts microsoft to me :-)

GarryP

a.l.e: Damn, you're right. Now that you've pointed it out I can't help seeing it that way too. Oh well, back to the drawing board. (It was just something that popped into my head anyway.)

I've had a few different ideas about the icon but nothing feels right, for example:
1. Using a typesetting form full of characters would just look like a font app.
2. Using geometric shapes on a page would just look like something to do with CAD.
3. A picture of a designer/layout artist's desk wouldn't look like much at all.
4. The "Scribus" name doesn't really give anything to work with except "scribe" which, to me, harks back to the fountain pen (or earlier).

I'm now wondering if something abstract might be good. Something that's unique but nothing really to do with DTP. I'll do a bit more experimenting and report back if I come up with anything remotely decent. (I wish I was more artistic.)

I think I'll point myself along the lines of a theme such as "assemble with creativity" - which is really what Scribus allows you to do.

I'd like to see more ideas in this area. Even if nothing comes from it, it could be a good start of a discussion about icon/logo design in general.

GarryP

It's back to basics time.
Some variations on a theme.
(Please don't ask what some of them are supposed to represent as I'm not totally sure myself!)
Any reactions?

[attachment deleted by admin]

Kunda

I dig them all.
Favorites:
5th screenshot (left icon)
1st screenshot (right icon)
3rd screenshot (left icon)

GarryP

Thanks Kunda.

Now that I look at them again they look more like mobile phone app icons but they might give someone an idea for something much better.

I'd be interested in seeing lots of different icons. A bit of a distributed brainstorming session.