[libreoffice-design] Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] Libre Icons.zip

Hello Toby,

First of all, you are probably writing to the wrong list. Design
question best go to design@global.libreoffice.org and you're invited
to join there (I'm CC'ing this list).
Second, please note that I am only speaking as a single contributor to
the design team and am in general not an important person in the
project.

On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Richards, Toby
<toby.richards@slo.courts.ca.gov> wrote:
> I hope you can get attachments. I realized that I really dislike the current
> Libre Office icon. It looks like the icon for a generic file, which makes it
> ambiguous.

I can understand your criticism that document and application icons
look the same. That is not optimal. But there are also some compelling
reasons to make the application icon look like a document (these are
my reasons, not those of the authors of the icons):
* it's product of The Document Foundation
* it's supposed to be(come) document centric
* the old Openoffice.org icon was a sheet of paper, too (not such a good reason)
Besides, it takes a lot of time and energy to create modern icons and
we (as in, the Libreoffice community) have changed them less than half
a year ago. Changing them again radically now is probably not an
option. If you'd like to read more about the design process, see this
wiki page:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/LibreOffice_Initial_Icons .


> If you cannot get attachments on the list, then try
> https://sites.google.com/site/tobiasrichards/misc-files/LibreIcons.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

Now on to your proposal. I am sorry, but I don't think it currently
has the necessary quality:
* Its meaning is unclear to me—it looks like a "double traffic light"
and doesn't seem to have any relation to documents/a suite/an office
etc.
* There are only four key applications, not six—Base, Calc, Impress,
Writer, and one smaller application, Math; even though "Chart" (like
Math) is accessible from within Calc, Impress and Writer, it doesn't
have an own menu shortcut, so it doesn't count
* Google Images suggests that by BSG you mean Battlestar Galactica...
if that is what you mean, please bear in mind that LibreOffice is
supposed to appeal to wide international audience and not everyone
will be able to make this connection.

Even in case you now decide to quit icon-making, you should know that
as a manager of what is probably a larger deployment of
Openoffice.org/LibO you can might be able to make a few good proposals
for usability improvements.

Best regards,

Astron.

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