Matt Legend Gemmell – UI Design icon

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UI Design icon

So I’ve been working on the Magic Aubergine site (not public yet), including the page of various OS X development services I can provide, and I needed an icon to represent the concept of OS X UI design. I created an icon today in Photoshop and I wanted to post it here and solicit feedback.

The image will always be accompanied by text mentioning UI design and so forth; my question is just whether it seems reasonably appropriate to the topic. Any miscellaneous feedback on the design would also be good. I plan to rework it a bit to get it down to 128×128 pixels, but other than that I think it’s in roughly its final form.

So without further ado, here it is:

Post some feedback in the comments. Note: please don’t reuse the icon either; thanks.

9 Comments

Mike Zornek
12 October 2005 @ 5pm

Overall I like it.

It does bug me a little though how strait it stands so strait. Lots of OS X icons tilt a certain way and it feels strange that this does not.

Stevie
12 October 2005 @ 5pm

Yeah i agree … I like the blueprint form of the icon but it does seem a bit too straight. Maybe consider a kinda fake 3D feel to it … for examle like multi-layered if you know what i mean….. hope that helps.

Stevie :)

Mike Pecorini
12 October 2005 @ 5pm

I think that its good the way it is. Although the others made a good point i think that the x - + bubbles in thecandy bubble form are enough. If you make more 3d’ness to it, it will take away from the feel of the overall design…I say leave it its perfect.

Gary Fleming
12 October 2005 @ 6pm

Good icons tend not to feature words (beyond the odd never-changing acronym like GIF). Remember that an icon should universally explain it’s own meaning. Including English in the icon precludes that possibility. Other than that it seems reasonably explanatory, which is exactly what you want.

Kevin Ballard
13 October 2005 @ 2am

Wow, that’s pretty spiffy.

Gary - I think removing the words would be a bad idea. A bare checkbox and an empty button don’t make as much sense as a labeled checkbox and button.

Derek Murray
13 October 2005 @ 3pm

Kevin: I think Gary’s point was not that the words should simply be removed, but rather that the icon should be designed in such a way that obviates the need for the words altogether. Perhaps it would be possible to retain the blueprint concept but produce something more abstract?

Xavier
13 October 2005 @ 7pm

Great image! I would remove the “Design” label and the values in the middle of the demarcations (Those tiny numbers); I think they made the whole image look dense.

Uli Kusterer
18 October 2005 @ 3pm

IMHO the candy bubbles don’t fit the rest of the design. All of it is a blueprint, white lines on blue paper, but the candy bubbles are almost final look. Mybe just make them simple circles with the “X”, “-” and “+” in them in white?

Will
22 October 2005 @ 5pm

I agree with Uli about the candy bubble, maybe you could just dump the outline.
Design wise, it’s good.
Are you going to keep, that awful looking ‘Magic Aubergine’ logo?
Also, what motivated you to use Photoshop instead of Illustrator?