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List:       kde-artists
Subject:    Re: K-ARTIST: Any graphics besides icons needed?
From:       Ante Wessels <vitanova2 () softhome ! net>
Date:       2004-01-24 12:03:56
Message-ID: 200401241256.51028.vitanova2 () softhome ! net
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On Jueves 22 Enero 2004 14:36, annemarie.mahfouf@free.fr wrote:
> On January 22, 2004 07:30 am, Andreas Kwiatkowski wrote:

> About svg and style: yes, a style guide is needed, now!
> I got some svg sources for several KDE-Edu applications. So I generated png
> from the ksvgtopng script. In 16, 32, 48 and 128. As I am not an artist,
> the 16x16 seem good enough. But with a guideline, I would be able to tell
> the artist what to specifically do with 16x16.

Good question, it deserves an answer right away. The 16x16 icon has to been 
seen in relationship with the other sizes. So, what is a good icon? Let's 
pretend we are old-school philosophers, take one principle and explain the 
whole icon-world from it. 


  - -   Icons are Recognizable   - -

They should be recognizable at all levels.

 - The Symbolic level. A notebook and pencil together are symbolic for a 
simple text editor, a notebook and a fountain pen for a more advanced text 
editor. A car, a bucket and a brush stands for an application to wash a car. 

Icons never walk alone, in fact, they come in floods. Traffic rules are 
needed. In kde for instance, the K and the gearwheel are reserved for the 
desktop as a whole and the core elements. (In discussing the kexi icon we 
forgot to ask ourselves whether kexi deserves to use the gearwheel, like 
krita should not use the K.) 

 - The Object level. Objects often have an archetypal form and deviations from 
that form. You can have a classical watch or a swatch. Someone looking for a 
tool to set the system time may overlook the swatch, he will not overlook the 
classical watch. 

Each one of us has an other image of a classical watch in his mind. You may 
have experienced being in a supermarket, looking for a certain product, while 
having the wrong image of it in your mind. It is hard to find then, while 
with the right image in mind it is spotted instantly. For this reason the 
artist should not follow his own image and paint it as he sees it in his 
mind's eye. He should bring it down to the essential elements. Pictogramms 
are often cartoonish. Instantly recognizable for all. 

It is time to mention the general design principle KISS - Keep It Simple, 
Stupid. While artists may love to paint beautiful paintings, icons need 
simple symbols. Think Icon, Not Painting. Be a follower of KISS. 

 - The Shapes level. You travel by train to a big city you do not know yet. 
You pass the industrial outskirts, you see many non-descript buildings, and 
forget them immediately. On the other hand, if you ever saw an image of the 
Empire State Building, you will always recognize it. Some shapes stand out, 
others do not. You will not mistake a Mondrian for a Monet. 

 - The Assembly level. Shapes together form an assembled shape. This shape too 
can stand out or not. Icon sets may enhance the assembly shape with an 
outline. An example of an assembly shape is the skyline of New York. 

Here we can mention the empty shape too. You probable know the images with two 
faces looking at each other, seen en face. Some see the two faces, other see 
a chandelier in between them. With two wine bottles, one a bit in front of 
the other, in between them you can see a beautiful v like form. The empty 
shape is the glue in images. It too can stand out or not. 

 - The Sizes level. Now we scale the image down to 16x16. All details are 
lost, but that should not be a problem. Do we still recognize the notebook 
and the pencil? Can we distinguish the pencil from the fountain pen? Do we 
exclaim: Hee, a miniature Empire State Building? Do we recognize the skyline 
of New York? Is it, though smaller, basically the same image? Then we're 
looking at a damn good icon!

With this in mind, log out from kde, start an old-school windowmanager, in 
which the icons were drawn pixel by pixel. Poke around, look at the bigger 
and the smaller icons. Which ones are good, which ones are not? Do these 
rules apply, can you make better rules? (Enlighten us.) Then log into kde 
again, look at the icons. What do you see?

I hope this answers your question. The real answer is of course, the artist 
should have started with the 16x16. It is to only way to make icons that can 
be scaled down...


> Problem of the svg source: where to commit it? At the moment I committed
> the resulting png to an icons folder in the apps dir. The svg is not in the
> cvs tree as it generates warning messages from the automake.

Then the pics/crystalsvg should work

>
> Where must the svg or /and svgz go? Should the png be committed or not?
>
> What about the licence? Is there something to write, where?
>
> Thanks,
>
> annma, who wants to do it right for the KDE-Edu module.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kde-artists mailing list
> kde-artists@mail.kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-artists

-- 

Cordialemente,

Ante



******
The most up to date info for kde artists can be found at the wiki:

http://kde.ground.cz/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Artists

Scripts for kde artists, like svg2png4kde, add border, add drop shadow, change 
filename, file conversion:
http://home.uwnet.nl/~vita/linux/index.html

Web course italian, poem generator, poetry, stories and visual art:
http://home.uwnet.nl/~vita


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