Every time I look at my Dock and just see squircle after squircle after squircle ... I get a little sad inside.
Mac app icons used to have so much character and individuality. They feel so … blasé now.
(The apps are great! I'm not trying to speak ill of any of the apps. I'm just sad that this is the direction people have gone with icon design)
oh god. that was *so* amazing. this is the stuff that made me want to be an i die dev!!!!
we all took a wrong turn somewhere. how did we get to this… this… least attractive timeline?
we were once a handsome nation.
@isaiah @wjs @davedelong early-era Mac OS X certainly had some gorgeous icons, both from Apple and third parties. (Some big ones, too — Photoshop 7 had a pretty one.)
I think it’s a combination of
• design fads come and go
• it went too far in one direction (I personally thought the Leopard Dock was overdone, and iOS 6 was ugly; I also didn’t care for the design of apps like… Disco? That disc burning thing)
• Zune/WinPhone7 started a flat design trend that took over
• flat design is easier
@isaiah @wjs @davedelong for example, something like SF Symbols gets most devs’ needs 80% of the way there in terms of toolbar icons, etc.
*And* they’re scalable, so you get Retina for free as well.
@chucker if the industry is leaning too far in one direction or the other then i prefer the carefully designed fad instead of todays generic icon with zero chrome fad.
the lack of individuality is too dull for me. even if things are simple or even austere i enjoy a bit of uniqueness.
Ivory for example has a very unique icon style. But that much attention to detail seems rare now.
Dave DeLong
Wil Shipley
isaiah
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