Dated OS X icons

[supergod]

Just a thought: has anyone noticed that the standard OS X folder icon has become extremely dated? The icon, a translucent blue rectangle through which you can see a stripe lined interior, seems to be in need of an update. Since Apple has been going crazy with the number of new interfaces they are adding and their changing of icons for their core apps, you would think that after all of these years they would have modifed such a basic icon, along with other important and dated ones like the application, documents, movies, music, pictures and home icons.

But back to the folder. Even though apple has been making stripes more subtle over the years along with largely removing them from some of their interfaces and replacing them with the "plastic" menu bar, the folder icon is very noticable and very pronounced stripes. This is especially noticeable if you look at a preview of the icon. In addition, the shade of blue used represents the earlier representation of the aqua theme and doesnt really match with anything else.

I think a better representation of the folder might be to keep the translucent exterior but to replace the striped interior with a metal one.

 

[Benjamin]

Probably you are right they are dated, but why changed them in apple case, just more time and effort away from real eye candy changes. At any rate whats stopping you from changing your own icons? I haven't had the original folders since OS X 10.0 Beta.

 

[mad jew]

I think a better representation of the folder might be to keep the translucent exterior but to replace the striped interior with a metal one.

I can't imagine that looking good though.

Apple's pretty good when it comes to GUI and generally, things like icons shouldn't be changed all that often because it'll cause confusion as to what they represent.

Having said that, they could change the icon for folders because it'd take a serious lack of brainpower to not be able to figure things out. Nevertheless, it still looks good and there's no real need to change it IMO.

 

[fistful]

Personally I like them but I could do without the strips. I've changed the standard folders using candy bar before and it just didn't look right.

 

[goodtimes5]

It's just something that I've gotten used to. I paid no attention as to how beautiful or tacky the folder looked until I read this thread.

 

[ham_man]

#1 - I replaced those icons long ago with custom 'cons
#2 - They just hired Mike Matas, so...

 

[mad jew]

Erm, who's Mike Matas?

 

[dubbz]

Erm, who's Mike Matas?

Was wondering that too, so I did a little search...

Mike Matas

Some sweet icons there!

Also a blog here.

 

[mad jew]

Thanks dubbz. It looks promising.

 

[ham_man]

Mike Matas is the co-founder of Delicious Monster and the best icon creator I have yet too see...

 

[ravenvii]

Whoever this Matas guy is...

This is an awesome picture.

 

[Freg3000]

When I think of old icons in Mac OS X I think about the Desktop icon. Feels like ages ago.

 

[Benjamin]

#1 - I replaced those icons long ago with custom 'cons
#2 - They just hired Mike Matas, so...

yeah i can see them changing icons since leopard will be the first of a new generation of the "Desktop Experience" for Apple, so could be that hired him for that but thats a long shot.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

I'm not keen on the standard OS folder icons either. Like a lot of the previous posters one of the first things I did when I first got my hands on OS X was to replace them with some nice custom icons – the World of Aqua icon sets over at The Iconfactory are especially nice.

Matas has done some really nice work too – hopefully Leopard will benefit from his talents.

 

[michaelrjohnson]

I agree with you. I don't really like to change many things from the "default" because, well, they're designed to work together (i.e. "Aqua" desktop picture, default icons, etc) I do, however, feel that they are very dated.

My favorite replacements are: MINIUM by Sascha Hohne . (also, additional complimentary icons 'DOCUNIUM' by Cyrill Seillet

They (IMO) are the best compliments to the Aqua interface and my PowerBook.

 

[supergod]

I used to have a very customized user interface but now since reinstalling Tiger I'm going to stay vanilla for at least a little while. I have tried creating and customizing my own icons too, but with mixed results. I think it is interesting to see how Apple has progressed icons over the years, sometimes making them more literal, like the guitar icon for garageband, and also making seemingly abstract icons, like the ones for core utilities.