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List:       kde-artists
Subject:    Re: [kde-artists] Pencil fetish in Oxygen icons
From:       Danil Dotsenko <dd () accentsolution ! com>
Date:       2006-06-12 15:16:49
Message-ID: 200606120816.49302.dd () accentsolution ! com
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Monday 12 June 2006 08:33 Torsten Rahn wrote:
> Am Montag, 12. Juni 2006 06:17 schrieb Danil Dotsenko:
> > but 1/3 of the application icons are NOT "application icons." They
> > are "action icons" What gives and how do we fix the flawed thinking?
>
> However your point remains valid. Do you have a suggestion for those icons
> involved how they should look instead ?

My "suggestion" is rather obvious - Just remove the pens / pencils (other misc 
visual trash elements) from the icons. The element's connotations should 
really be central to the application to be on the icon, like paint brush in 
Krita. I looked at the SVGs for knotes and Kmail, removed the "sticks" and 
found that the remaining parts (yellow stickie and envelope) are quite good 
on their own.

The icons are not badly done, they are overdone. Too many elements, for no 
observable reason. Extra elements bring wrong connotation to the composition.

When thinking about adding an element, think not what that element will do 
good; think how it will detract / skew your icon. Detractions, no matter how 
small, always outweigh positives.

Sometimes, if you force yourself to create a "different" product you end up 
limited in freedom of creating a "better" product. If a concern about "plain" 
envelop looking like some other platform's application icons is what drives 
this composition overpopulation, priorities are probably in a wrong place. 
That concern has no place in creation of a "good" icon set.

So far, the artwork is good looking and exquisite. Please, don't overdo it.

Cheers

-- 
Danil Dotsenko

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