January 2004
So, what do you think of the new Adobe CS icons? Surely you have an opinion. What do I think? I’ll tell you…
My first reaction was: “You’ve got to be kidding! Those aren’t icons.” But I have to say that after thinking about them (and using them for a bit) I am going to take the probably controversial position that they’re completely successful. For one, they don’t look like any of the other icons around them. This means both that they are highly salient and that they cohere as a design system and brand extension. And, really, the old icons don’t communicate any more useful information than the new ones. Finally, they’re easily distinguishable. Sure, you have to remember that the feather is Photoshop and the flower is Illustrator, but once you do (and it takes about 2 launches at most) they separate from each other quite well, probably due to the significantly different shapes. Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t upgraded your Photoshop yet, I have three words for you: nested layer sets.
What are the differences between a vocabulary, a taxonomy, a thesaurus, an ontology, and a meta-model? (via xplane)
In interface design, as in architecture, both god and the devil are in the details, battling things out. Take, for example, the align/distribute palette in Illustrator.
The top row provides controls for aligning objects. On the left are the 3 horizontal controls; on the right are the 3 vertical controls. Below this row is a row of controls for distributing objects. On the left are the 3 vertical controls; on the right are the horizontal controls. Why, oh why, didn’t they put the vertical controls on the same side in each row?! This is especially problematic because the lower (distribution) icons are nowhere near as successful as the alignment icons above them. If the palette had been better organized, it would be possible to use the top row of icons to orient yourself and then just drop down to the bottom row to distribute objects rather than aligning them. (fwiw, I think Adobe generally has done a remarkably good job with their UI, which makes something like this stand out).
Golden Shower - Video Computer System: “Video Computer System (named for the deceivingly futuristic sounding subtitle of the Atari 2600)… won Best Electronica video at MTV Brazil’s 2000 award show, much to the chagrin of more established Brazilian techno heads.” Nostalgia-rific! (thanks, tim)
No idea whether this series of drawings during an acid trip are legit, but from *ahem* what I’ve heard they look to be for real. (thanks xblog)
Peter gives props (with illustrations) to the National Park Service design program. The NPS “Unigrid” system, developed by Massimo Vignelli back before everyone was a graphic designer, was designed to take advantage of the cost savings of purchasing paper in bulk while offering the usual advantages of a grid-based design system (coherence with flexibility). It’s also a great design success story.