Jesse's GNUstep icons (was Re: GUI without X11 / Artist Help)

[Uli Kusterer]

In article <mailman.1279.1107847757.2841.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 Jesse Ross <jesse@jesseross.com> wrote:

> Also, I'd be interested in helping the project out graphically -- I 
> know that Jasper is already working on the icons, but I did a few comps 
> of the required icons to show you the quality and style of my work 
> (Keep in mind, these were done over two days, so the smaller icons 
> aren't fully cleaned up yet).
> http://www.jesseross.com/clients/icons/
> 
> Thanks for your help -- please let me know if there is anything I can 
> do to help out in return.

Jesse,

 note that I don't really have anything to say in the GNUstep community 
(I just talk a lot, that's all :-) ).

 Anyway, I kinda like your icons. They're a nice mix between MacOS X's 
photorealism and the stylized symbolic look that NEXTstep and Rhapsody 
offered.

 Though I don't care much for your Movie Document. It isn't at all 
obvious what it's supposed to be unless you know beforehand what it's 
supposed to be. Maybe you'd rather want to turn the whole thing shiny 
black and put two or three frames of movie image on this (making the 
little holes smaller and on both sides) so it looks like a strip of film 
with a bent corner?

 The Generic Application document also looks kinda techy. But I could 
live with it. The concept of a "program" isn't really easy to 
illustrate. And apart from what MacOS had (paper and hand, or paper and 
other tool), I wouldn't have a good idea either.

 But as you said, the GNUstep icon effort with Jasper is in the works. I 
haven't heard anything about that in a while (Quentin? Anyone?), but it 
would obviously be pointless to pay Jasper and then use your icons. And 
until we've seen what Jasper's icons look like, it'll be hard to decide 
whether you would want to help provide more icons. The styles would have 
to be similar, after all, and from what I know, Jasper mainly does 
Photoshop stuff, while your design looks like vector graphics. It's a 
whole different look.

 But I like your icons. Especially the idea of having folders display 
how full they are somehow appeals to me. Such subtle "secondary 
information" can come in handy sometimes, e.g. when trying to locate a 
particular folder among similarly-named ones: "Ah, yeah, the thick 
one...". There have been experiments with "aging" icons somewhere, too...

Well, thanks for offering these icons, and I'm as intrigued as you are 
what the actual doers of GNUstep will say about them.
-- Uli Kusterer
http://www.zathras.de