Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: Better branding (was: Re: Towards useful icon themes)

Hi Ape,

I just saw this conversation and like to jump in ... I was one of the
guys who created the icons initially. Maybe I can shed some light on the
decisions. By the way, I don't know whether anyone mentioned that page:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/LibreOffice_Initial_Icons

There, you find lots of information why we used this or that ...

Am Donnerstag, den 01.03.2012, 08:27 -0800 schrieb ape:
> Hi Astron,
>
> A.1 I agree, but the "Chart" had a green frame in the
> OpenOffice.org_Galaxy_ver.3.0.

Also targets A.2, A.3.

The basic decision we've made was to only highlight the most essential
document types and that led to only few colored application icons. The
main goal is to avoid too much mixture of color (frame) and additional
icons (the small graphic inside). A sub-goal is to establish the native
TDF / LibreOffice symbol - for many people TDF and LibreOffice are still
inexistent or very new ;-)

Consequently, we do only serve 5 icons with colored frames to our users.

For all other document types, icons with black borders are used. For
example, also the HTML document icon features a black border - although
it is opened in Writer. We also use a black border for the Master
Document - because it "only" embeds other ODT documents (and due to the
black border, Master Document icons and Writer Document icons can be
easily distinguished when using very small icons sizes).

Concerning the differentiation between document icon and application
icon - there is none, because we estimated that it doesn't add any
value. People start the application in a Start or Applications menu (no
document icons to be seen here) and they mainly use documents when they
browse documents (no applications to be started here). So we help users
to get a straight connection if we avoid any differences ...

Finally, personally I think these assumptions are still valid. But if
the goals changed or the team comes to a different conclusion, then its
surely time to update the icons.

> A.3 I'll be back to the provost embodiment, it is easy to do.
>
> A.4 I think you're wrong. Two files (ODT and DOC, ODG and VSD, ODS and XLS
> etc) have the same name. They will be denoted by the same symbol. You can
> not define the eyes, "who is who," if Windows Explorer is turned off "Hide
> extensions for known file types" (see attachment). LibreOffice uses in its
> "Explorer" different *.png (images.zip) to ODF\MSO files and do not have
> this problem.

Hehe, concerning the last statement, then its a bug ;-)

Seriously, nobody had the time to provide numerous icons for the same
document type ... it might not only happen to MS Word files, but all
other Text related documents LibreOffice is able to handle (Works, Word
Pro, WordPerfect, ...). The main alternatives are:
      * use the same icon for LibreOffice and foreign (equivalent)
        document types
      * use one icon for LibreOffice and a different icon for all
        foreign (equivalent) document types
      * use individual icons for all document types

We've decided to go for the most simple solution - provide one icon for
each document type. Because, the more (slightly) different icons you
provide, the harder to remember for the user.

The same is true for A.5 and A.6 (but I might not fully understand these
issues), that we use the simple LibreOffice / TDF icons for all other
places like the QuickStarter icon.

> B. Windows_NT-6.x Explorer reduces itself on the desktop icon 256*256 to a
> size 96*96, if you are using the classic (windows) theme. Icons 256*256
> applications LibreOffice blurred (see attachment). This led me to modify
> these figures.

So, if I get it right, we need 96x96 icons, right?

> D. "Template{all}_16*16" has lost a spiral after:
>  - svg-resource 16*16 has been exported to raster (file_16.png);
>  - png-files color was reduced to 256 colors (8 bits).

Strange ... could you please provide an example (I didn't find any, and
I'm unable to reproduce this here). If its lost due to an automatic
conversion process, then the process should get fixed ...

> P.S. I am a student of The Inscape. GIMP is my main instrument. Sorry.
>      This attachment does not attach, but here it is: 
> http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/file/n3790955/blurry%26grey.png 

Both are very fine graphic programs - and each of the programs has
strengths for certain tasks. For the given icons and their re-usability
throughout the project, I agree with Astron that switching to Inkscape
is a good option.

Ape, thanks for paying attention to details!

A final thought: All, please make use of quotations ... I found
discussing these issues looking at the bug report and two different
emails quite hard. (But this might just apply to me  *g*). Thanks!

Have a nice day,
Christoph

> Regards, ape
>
> --
> View this message in context: 
> http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Better-branding-was-Re-Towards-useful-icon-themes-tp3788930p3790955.html
> Sent from the Design mailing list archive at Nabble.com.



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