A diversion.
I mentioned back in the DVD rant that I love Handbrake.
I failed to mention that Handbrake's Icon is hideous. I can't understand for the life of me why it's a bad clipart version of a pineapple next to a cocktail. Tom Stoelwinder released a replacement icon a while back, downloadable here - a temporary link is at the bottom of the comments section, as his real site has been down for a while.
Tom's icon is an improvement, but I have a minor complaint: I have no idea what the heck it means. An orange box with a lever, with a DVD being inserted? It's the programmer's fault though - Handbrake is one of 'those names' that has no clear relevance to the product itself.
That's my attempt - a brake, clutching a disc, hooked up to an iPod (which is primarly what I use Handbrake for).
I've also created an icon for my 'Work Documents' folder in a bit of free time.
My agency's conference room, as viewed from my desk.
Which brings us to the latest 'scandal' in design (ok, so I'm a few months late) - the icons for Adobe Creative Suite 3. No link, just Google it for yourself. My main criticism of the CS & CS2 icons was that while pretty, they were useless as a visual representation of a program, at least until you had memorized their position and appearance. The new icons go to the extreme alternative: two sans-serif letters on a solid block of color (different for each program). Well, I got my wish - the icons are functional now. They're ugly, too.
There's much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usability crowd, but they miss one thing: the old icons were 10 times worse. A hundred times. The old icons were a hazard to effecient computing. These are merely annoying.
