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General [Coming January] Further 'flattening' iOS 7's icons
- Thread starter cobbyco
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Could you flatten Paper by Fiftythree's icon? It'd be great to see what you can do with it, I'm loving all the other icons you've made
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812?mt=8
Could you flatten Paper by Fiftythree's icon? It'd be great to see what you can do with it, I'm loving all the other icons you've made
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812?mt=8
That is a very interesting icon, and no doubt I'll have some trouble with flattening it. I'll try my best not to ruin it!
Just a general really good job. Even in examples that I don't like over the originals I like where your head is at.
- The Apple Store icon is so good. Like most really good designs it seems obvious and simple after you look at it. I'm going to be disappointed when they don't use it.
- the podcast icon is nice update, but I think they have to rethink it from the ground up. In fact, I bet they have. I'd be willing to bet the reason the recorder icon is not a microphone like you have made is because the podcast will be.
- For the record I mostly really like Apples new icons. After the initial shock has worn, I'm quite fond of most of them. Newsstand is one of my least faves. It's the only one that still looks like it would be more at home on android to me.
Your newsstand misses too, in my opinion. It's a tough nut to crack. Part of the problem is yours leans into newspaper, when I suspect most people will use this app for magazines (if at all).
I'm not a designer, but I would think you would want something that evoked looking at an actual newsstand. Maybe the outline of a traditional city newsstand.
Or a simplified take on rows of mags and papers. The one thing the current icon has going for it is that at least it's clear what it is.
Anyway. Thanks for using you skills to give us all something to have an actual constructive thread about.
Podcasts - I think an overall redesign is required for the icon, so I'll have a think about what I could do with it. You could be right in saying Apple will be using a microphone for the updated icon, but I don't think I'll be going down that route. Of course, I'm not going to redesign it just for the sake of it.
Newsstand - This has proven a difficult icon to design, but your idea sounds great! I'll try it out sometime this week and post the results.
And thanks for the feedback: it really helps with the making of the icons.
Really interesting poll results so far. It seems like the Darts icon will become the default one with the Controller icon being the alternative, but who knows? Perhaps the results will soon change...
Keep the votes coming in! I'll count the results on 10th September (5PM BST/9AM Pacific).
Keep the votes coming in! I'll count the results on 10th September (5PM BST/9AM Pacific).
I think the idea and the philosophy behind the original Game Center icon is that it was made with those 3D bubbles to show how games in the App Store are lively and moving, not static as some of the other reproductive apps, hence the 3D Bubbles they chose. Making the Game center icon flat as the rest of the other stock apps would also eliminate the differentiator between those two categories (Games and reproductivity apps), making it harder to distinguish between them.
The original icon might not be the best looking thing in the world, but it fits perfectly.
The original icon might not be the best looking thing in the world, but it fits perfectly.
Hey that Game Center icon came out perfect. Great Job. Apple should seriously switch to that over the bubbles. Never did get that one.
This is coming together very nicely
If you care, here are a few of my nitpicks:
- The day on the calendar icon looks a little too thin. Maybe just because this is online, but I feel like it's less legible than the official iOS 7 version. Maybe bumping up the weight a notch would help. I can't tell but it looks like it's either Helvetica Thin or Ultra Light. On iOS7 it's actually in Helvetica Light.
- The grey background on the Remote icon is a little clashing. I think white would work better, seeing how it looks on the new Find My iPhone icon.
- I think official iBooks icon (from Mavericks) is better in that it looks like a book. I understand that yours is basically how bookmarks look now, but I don't think that the system iconography necessarily has to be consistent with the app icons (seeing how none of them are anyway). And perhaps, maybe bookmarks and iBooks shouldn't look similar anyway as to not confuse two unrelated things.
- The 45 degree line in the Find My iPhone icon is sorely missed.
- The Find My Friend's icon retains too much of it's old essence. I expect the new one to have more pop like the rest of iOS 7, also given that it's a social app; we'll find out in next week though.
- The positioning of the Camera icon bothers me. I like how you're trying to fit the inner circle to the grid, but I don't think it works. I think grids are meant to be used for general positioning, and not specific details. Either way, design is about compromise: I think you lose more by not having the camera centered than what you gain by having the circle centered.
I like how you're embracing the new grid system, which is something almost no mockups do.
Edit: Also, I really like what you did with the Voice Memos icon, I can see all the ways in which it lines up with the grid.
I was thinking, the main part of the app has a black background, so I'm wondering how it would be with a black icon. There's not too many black icons as it is. The only problem is that black and red is a really harsh color combination imo.
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This is coming together very nicely
If you care, here are a few of my nitpicks:
- The day on the calendar icon looks a little too thin. Maybe just because this is online, but I feel like it's less legible than the official iOS 7 version. Maybe bumping up the weight a notch would help. I can't tell but it looks like it's either Helvetica Thin or Ultra Light. On iOS7 it's actually in Helvetica Light.
- The grey background on the Remote icon is a little clashing. I think white would work better, seeing how it looks on the new Find My iPhone icon.
- I think official iBooks icon (from Mavericks) is better in that it looks like a book. I understand that yours is basically how bookmarks look now, but I don't think that the system iconography necessarily has to be consistent with the app icons (seeing how none of them are anyway). And perhaps, maybe bookmarks and iBooks shouldn't look similar anyway as to not confuse two unrelated things.
- The 45 degree line in the Find My iPhone icon is sorely missed.
- The Find My Friend's icon retains too much of it's old essence. I expect the new one to have more pop like the rest of iOS 7, also given that it's a social app; we'll find out in next week though.
- The positioning of the Camera icon bothers me. I like how you're trying to fit the inner circle to the grid, but I don't think it works. I think grids are meant to be used for general positioning, and not specific details. Either way, design is about compromise: I think you lose more by not having the camera centered than what you gain by having the circle centered.
I like how you're embracing the new grid system, which is something almost no mockups do.
Edit: Also, I really like what you did with the Voice Memos icon, I can see all the ways in which it lines up with the grid.
Calendar - On the device, it's definitely legible. It's because I resized the screenshot to 70%. However, I don't know how I'm going to make that icon in the theme as I repositioned the day and the date, and the text is in white as opposed to it previously being in red...
Remote - I like the grey, but I'll make a white alternative for those who want it.
iBooks - The icon is based off a low-res icon found in iOS 7. I might consider changing it to the Mavericks one though.
Find my iPhone - This was a tough icon to make as I wanted to stay within the colour scheme Apple uses. I really didn't want to exclude the line from the icon but in the end I felt it just didn't look right. I'll try some things out with the icon and I'll hopefully post the results soon.
Find my Friends - Again, this is based off an icon found in iOS 7. Before I realised that icon existed I made the icon with a white background and a green foreground, but I switched to the colour scheme Apple used for it as I felt it looked a lot nicer. I want to try to keep the icons consistent with Apple's ones, so I don't think I'll be changing it anytime soon. Though I think Apple were kind of lazy with the icon as it looks the same colour as the leather iOS 6 one. They didn't think about why the icon used those colours...
Camera - I'm using the same positioning and size Apple used with their icon. I think because it has the circle directly in the middle of the icon, most of the focus is put on that which draws your attention away from the camera being postitioned higher. Personally, I don't ever notice the odd postitioning. I've had problems with postitioning in the other icons as well, and it's something I need to work on.
Voice Memos - Like you said, black and red wouldn't look right. Also, I wanted to make it the same colours as the camera icon as they are both recording apps. And I'm also pretty happy with how I managed to align it to the grid system
Thanks for the feedback! I'll try out some changes with the icons sometime this week.
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I've got a small update almost ready for tomorrow. I'm going to be busy from now onwards, so I might only manage to make and alter icons once per week.
Please vote for Game Center if you haven't already! There's only a few days left before I stop counting results.
Also, please give more of your feedback on the icons. It really helps to improve the design of the icons!
Please vote for Game Center if you haven't already! There's only a few days left before I stop counting results.
Also, please give more of your feedback on the icons. It really helps to improve the design of the icons!
Overall, really fantastic work here. I think iOS 7 overall looks pretty good, but you've effectively gotten rid of the few annoyances that were there, particularly the gradients. I'd pay for this theme.
I think it would be really cool if you could do icons for Tweetbot, Dropbox, and Google Maps. The icon you have for Apple Maps would be sufficient for Google Maps I think. Dropbox is already pretty flat so there's not much to do there. Tweetbot could just potentially use a generic Twitter icon, that could be used for any app that accesses Twitter.
Really nice work though, keep it up!
I think it would be really cool if you could do icons for Tweetbot, Dropbox, and Google Maps. The icon you have for Apple Maps would be sufficient for Google Maps I think. Dropbox is already pretty flat so there's not much to do there. Tweetbot could just potentially use a generic Twitter icon, that could be used for any app that accesses Twitter.
Really nice work though, keep it up!
I really hope developers update their apps (and icons in particular) asap. They can be rather slow to adopt to Apples changes - just look how long some apps took to go retina or get updated for the iPhone 5 display!
Google Maps - I'll do a seperate icon for this, though I might just base it off the Apple icon with Google graphics on top.
Dropbox - Icon seems easy enough to flatten.
Tweetbot - I think I might do a different icon, but I'm not sure. If people only use one Twitter app, is there any point?
I should have those done by Sunday. Thanks for the suggestions!
And if anyone is wondering, I'm not doing Skype or IGN as they are both flat and both fit the Grid System.
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