Yes, very true but that is a known issue with vector fonts that we deal with via caching. So whenever Blender needs a particular character glyph in a particular font size it first looks in a cache for it, if not FreeType rasterizes it for us and we stick it in the cache for next time. So icons would benefit by this system that is already in place.
And we could have more icons available than just the Blender-specific ones we are currently talking about. We could also ship with a generic icon font as well, like Typicons, Entypo, or FontAwesome. The Material Design Icon font contains more than 1000 icons and is only 550K.
About icon constrains can we have some sort of color grouping of those? like if constrains are from similar family can we make it same color for example.
I wanted to point out that Blender is misusing the hamburger menu icon.
This is not a hamburger menu:
Neither is this:
Both of those are overflow menus, so a hamburger icon is incorrect and confusing. In the user preferences window, for example, a user might expect clicking the hamburger icon would open/close the left sidebar.
A proper icon design would feature a meatball or kebab symbol (horizontal or vertical ellipses, respectively). A kebab menu icon (vertical ellipses) tends to be more common and idiomatic for this case because the menu entries extend vertically.
For the user preferences window specifically, it might be worth considering an alternate icon such as a gear, however a kebab would be appropriate also. A hamburger, however, is definitely not.
Could the design of the dot files icon be changed to make it look less like it implies “new folder”?
I think another large factor in my constant confusion with that icon is due to placement. The right of the icon group is just a sensible place for a “new folder” icon, so that’s where I assume it should be. When there’s a sensible-looking icon for that task, I frequently click it. If we can instead move that whole group of icons to the right, leaving the actual “new folder” icon exposed intuitively at the end, that would solve the problem.
(Perhaps the “View” label could be removed, since it may be less relevant then.)
Considering there is already a “filter” and “show folders” icon on the right, that seems to be the logical place for that whole group of icons related to the file system view options. At the very least, the “show dot files” icon could be moved to the right and put beside the “show folders” icon, because those are both the only two icons dealing with showing/hiding entire categories from the list.
The fill really helps to solidify the file, otherwise it looks very much like a white box. I would keep the fill I think. The silhouettes are different already.
I agree with billrey. No need to remove the fill when they both have distinct silhouettes already. Plus, it adds some extra contrast so the icon doesn’t blend into the background.
Any way to vertically align the drive in External Drive and Network Drive?
I don’t think Desktop is very clear. It makes sense when you look at it and think about it, but it doesn’t have a very immediately obvious silhouette or shape.
See if you can improve the Zip File silhouette by making it like a manilla folder (taller than wide, sharp left corners, rounded right corners, tab on the right). The current sharp-edged square is not very unique or easy to interpret without thinking about it.
What does System mean? That icon does look like a system but I am unfamiliar with what that is used for in Blender.
The bottom row of drive icons looks very good now! For the Desktop icon, can you figure out a way to make the bottom horizontal line appear thicker to imply “start menu” or “dock” rather than what pops out in my head right now, “monitor stand base”? It looks like, in attempting to give it more of a unique silhouette, it sacrificed the continuity of form that gave the start menu/dock both shape and relation to the rest of the desktop. Do these all need to be single-tone icons, or can you do two-tone with them? Either way, maybe it would be helpful to explore the idea of making the start menu/dock checkered (either every pixel, or every other pixel). Another thought I just had is that the aspect ratio is wrong to imply “desktop” because most monitors are 16:9, and that might be a reason why the detached horizontal line underneath the desktop is making me think “CRT monitor stand” because CRTs were 4:3 aspect ratio and had a stand right below the screen. Perhaps cutting off a couple pixels of height can make it seem more like a desktop because it fits the aspect ratio we have come to expect in our minds. You’ll probably have to reduce the desktop icon squares to a pixel smaller, but I think that would be fine. After doing some research on icons for desktops, I’m realizing how hard it is because desktops are quite devoid of detail and shape.
To be honest, is it really crucial to properly recreate a 16:9 monitor in order to depict the computer Desktop? My first try was to make sth that resembles the Start menu / the Dock, but than I realized that I’ve got way too few pixels thus the pictogram is kind of abstract. It may look like a monitor / laptop with some icons on the desktop. At the same time it may be the actual desktop with kind of toolbar in the bottom. But it will never be a scaled down picture of actual thing. Reducing “icons” to 1x1 pixel size will make them less important, while those icons are clue of the pictogram, defining its shape.
Anyway I agree, that thicker bottom line looks better.
But making the main rectangle one pixel lower together with thin bottom line istn’t that bad as well.
I don’t know if 16:9 is required, but it was one thing I came up with when trying to trace the design’s concepts back to their roots. I don’t know if it is crucial in recognizing it, but I do think the human visual interpretation/distillation of a “computer desktop” might imply the concept that it’s wide, not a square. I could be totally wrong about that, however.
I particularly like the empty square for one of the three icons (squares) in the desktop. I’d be curious to see other permutations to the squares being filled or empty.
I like the one in your second picture a lot! The thicker line in the first is decent, but looks too disconnected from the concept of the desktop above it. The second one stays more connected and also helps because the aspect ratio is wider and it feels more like one, conjoined concept instead of a boxy thing on top of a platform for the boxy thing.
I’d still be curious about seeing permutations of the filled and empty squares for the three desktop items (perhaps they could be a tiny, marginal improvement, for example the Recycle Bin is usually the top left icon so having that one be different could make slightly more sense than just a random one). But I think we have a winner, this one does a really good job at conveying what it means in the very limited space available.
That icon would only be used to decorate (larger) folder icons to indicate that they are directories containing operating system files. Just as we’d probably dim out files and folders normally hidden by the operating system.
. I was just using your comment as an excuse to elaborate a bit more for anyone else interested.
