Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [libreoffice-design] Initial icon design

Hi Bernhard, all,

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Dr. Bernhard Dippold
<bernhard@familie-dippold.at> wrote:
> [...]
> One point I realized: Your icons are broader than the TDF logo.
>
> I don't know if this is on purpose, but if we want the icons be based on
> the logo (I'll reply to Christoph's mail on this topic), proportions should
> be the same IMHO.

Hmm... I used Christoph's 16x16 icons from the SVG he emailed us -
maybe it needs some small adjustments if it seems wider. There was no
(intentional) transformation on my part. Having seen your designs,
you're right - it does seem wider. The 32x32 icon is just the 16x16
icon scaled 200% so that might not be the best way to do it. Could you
make a 16x16 outline based on your design?

> > Now, the ambiguous part: working with the color pallet at [2], I found
> > some small points of possible improvement. Mostly that applies to
> > perceived lightness of colors (which, in my experience, is not always
> > equivalent to the actual luminosity value in the HSL color model). For
> > example, Green 4 appears much lighter than Blue 4, so that a gradient
> > that goes from Green 4 to Green 3 appears more distinct than a
> > gradient that goes from Blue 4 to Blue 3. At the same time, a gradient
> > from Blue 2 to Blue 1 appears darker than a gradient going from Green
> > 2 to Green 1 - try it out and let me know if you see it that way too.
>
> It seems to depend very much on your monitor's calibration.
>
> While I fould your point very reasonable when I looked at your
> DraftReference.png [3], here at work it looks quite different:
> With 16 bit colors (can't  be modified by a user) the colored right upper
> corner is much darker in the Calc icon than the others (especially than
> Writer and Base).

That is probably the darkest of them all, because the Calc icon uses
the darkest colors for the outline; I would like to use slightly less
dark colors which is why I suggested small adjustments to the color
table. But I realise that it is at least partially subjective and
partially due to monitor settings/calibration, etc. It's never simple
:)

> I created my second version [B - left icons] with the unmodified color palette.
> Here on this monitor th corners look similar bright in blue and green, while
> the gradients of the inner fill are different on the document icons: green looks
> lighter than blue (but similar in the darker gradients on the application icons).

And here I should take the opportunity to comment on your designs - I
really like the different styles you used for application, document
and template icons. They also let us test the colors more thoroughly.
Not much more to add than a +1.

I think the inner shadow effect should be used sparingly (only used
for the application symbol?) and only apply to icon sizes over 32x32
(to add some extra detail for larger icons).

> I don't know if this is a special case because of the color restrictions here
> on my system - and how many monitor's options are similar.
>
> > Based on this, I created a reference image [3] that (for me at least)
> > had the greatest apparent consistency between designs. It's imperfect,
> > but out of all the possible combinations, this worked best
> > subjectively. That doesn't mean I propose we use these colors, but
> > rather that we make small adjustments to the existing color table.
>
> This should be done for the "Community Branding".
>
> As Christoph already pointed out, the present palette might have been used
> for marketing material and other stuff already. Slight modifications could be
> done without much negative effects, but larger ones (like moving Blue1 to
> Blue0) might  be problematic.

No, I wouldn't recommend anything that dramatic.

> For smaller modifications I consider our time too precious to spend on this
> topic (just use the best color from the palette, even with Blue2 instead of
> Blue1 the general impression will stay consistent with our branding), larger
> should be postponed until the community branding starts.
>
> This is just my personal opinion - don't hesitate to express yours...

Clearly I'm a little temporally confused :). Whether something is
worth investing effort into depends on time - I'll let Christoph,
Thorsten, you, and anyone else who wants to weigh in, to be the judges
of that :)

Regards,
Ivan.

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