New Icon Set...[echo]...

[David Nielsen]

man, 07 08 2006 kl. 12:45 +0300, skrev Nicu Buculei:
> 
> No, is not a good process to start with 16x16/24x24. Even the GNOME HIG 
> recommend drawing at the default size (48x48) and derive the small 
> version (24x24) from it - 
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/icons-design.html
> I suspect this was the workflow used by Jimmac when originally creating 
> Industrial.
> 
> The same is true for Tango: starting with 48x48:
> http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines#Suggested_Workflow_.26_Support_Files
> 
> This being said, I would agree the SVG files have unneeded large and 
> strange resolutions (two examples: 69.52x107.33 and 86.84x92.31) - I 
> suspect this is because those are used only as intermediary versions, 
> not final product (with PNG being the final product)

Admittedly I know very little about visual design in terms of the
technical details - however I am rather good with project management and
that aspect of things. I've always been a huge fan of concentrating on
your core use cases, so I remain of the opinion that starting by putting
thought into where you are actually going to use your work is a better
idea than starting somewhere random.

Not to discard the notion that going big doesn't have it's advantages
but if you spend more than 80% of your time fiddling with cases that get
hit less than 20% of the time seems like good old fasioned waste to me. 

Getting a rough idea and an overview is nice but we should never forget
the actual use of any given project. What I was hinting at was we should
design with the core case in mind, how will this convey information at
the size it's eventually going to be presented at on the desktop. It
doesn't mean you can't start with 128x128 for all I care if that works
for you but to spend hours fiddling with that only to scale it down and
go.. wow this looks like shit let's start over, that seems wasteful to
me.

Then again I could be wrong, I was after all brain damaged with UML and
iterative development in college. Ever since I've been paranoid about
the whole time and focus aspect of development, often wasting time now
means getting eaten by angry clients later.. Core cases first. 

Also jimmac provided some excellent scripts to blur out icons to
simulate poor eyesight, please feel free to apply to excess on your
work. The rest of humanity will thank you and it will give you a good
idea of how your art looks to people who don't have the fortune of good
health. I remember the first time I got a change to simulate what an
interface looks like to people with red/green color blindness, it's just
a great experience and an invaluable resource in terms of learning - for
visual design, an hour with your eyes beats a mile in your shoes.

- David