Call for new forum icons

Special Interest Groups Artwork and Graphics
1

An opportunity to contribute to this forum with your graphic design skills:

In the last major update to this forum, each board was given an icon. Due to the pressing need to keep the forum up and running 24/7, the icons were chosen rather hastily. Consequently there is something of a mishmash of icons in different styles on the forum index page.

Ideally we would like to have a set of new icons, one for each forum board, all in one coherent style.
Submissions must be the original work of the person posting, or written permission given from the copyright holder for the icons to be used on this forum.

Please post suggested icons as replies to this topic.

2

I will definitely try to tackle this as soon as possible. Quick question: Any required dimensions or shapes? ie Square vs Circular icons

-Axel

3

32 x 32 pixels.
GIF or PNG format.

Note that the Windows / Mac ? Linux icons on the index page are the official (trademark) logos for the respective operating systems.

No rush, but I look forward to seeing what you come up with :slight_smile:
When you’ve got something, I’d suggest starting a new topic, and post a link to it in this topic.

4

Was this already solved? …I didn’t see other threads with this icon proposals, so I’m asking

5

No, not solved. Take a look around the forum - there’s still the mishmash of icons that I threw together.

6

um… ok. I’ll do the icons myself then, maybe they will serve (I’ll probably work on it in this weekend). I may post them here soon

7

The new iconset is ready. Let me know where I can upload the files - if here as an attachment or somewhere else :wink:

8

Excellent :slight_smile:

Could you post a link to a public folder on Google Drive or similar?

9

Here is the link to today’s iconset:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-vx0Mb_0DoMfngxQ0RMSDJZVWZrUHAtbE1SUGVKQ1BRU29pTERxTENhZFRUdTlpVFhqSk0&usp=sharing

Color: blue, so that the set is in harmony with the official Audacity logo.
Dimensions: 32x32px
Format: transparent 24bit PNG so that everything looks great.

Details: I have created the set by looking at nowaday’s visual trends, so no circular of angular borders… just plain and simple icons, to match the material design standards (which is the biggest trend now in software and website interface design)

David

10

Thanks David.
I like them :slight_smile: I’ve brought this to the attention of the forum crew, and if they are in agreement I’d like to try them in situ.

11

Ah, Cool that someone posted some icons :slight_smile: (I had reduced time to work on my ones, sorry… …it was taking me some time since I was doing all from scratch).

I have time this weekend so I may work on it a bit more …I’m also working on a upgrade on the logo and the title design (it’s more of an upgrade than a redesign, even though it’s also a redesign)… I may probably post it all here as I’m done… I don’t know if a new thread is necessary.


Btw, I did a fast search in some icons from David, and found out that the ones I searched for are under “Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0” license.

In short, that means that you don’t need to ask permission for using the icons, but you need to link to the provider’s site (icons8.com in this case), from any page you use the icons on. Also, alter, transform, or build upon the original icons is not allowed under this license.

Hope that the License’s limitations are ok for you guys though, so you can use David’s icons.


I don’t want to sound rude by pointing this things out though (sorry if I did). I just checked this details here, cause coincidentally, I had similar problems when helping another game forum I’m part of, when choosing a free icon pack to use (we ended out discarding some icon options, due to license limitations).

12

Thanks David. I really don’t think we can use non-standard OS icons, whatever else we do. The GNU/Linux icon in particular is unrecognisable.

Gale

13

I’ve applied some corrections, in particular to the GNU LINUX and MAC OS X icons. Now they’re the official ones, so, there should be no problem about understandability.
I repost the link to the shared folder:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-vx0Mb_0DoMfngxQ0RMSDJZVWZrUHAtbE1SUGVKQ1BRU29pTERxTENhZFRUdTlpVFhqSk0&usp=sharing

Thanks guys, talk to you soon!

Cheers,

David

14

Thanks, David. The colour of the Windows one is not a colour that Microsoft uses, as far as I can tell. For Windows (as opposed to Windows Phone) the colour should be this:

Gale

15

I’d be happy to try these new icons out (with the Windows icon in the “official” colour) for a limited period so as to see what they look like in situ and hopefully get some user feedback. Any objections to me doing that?

16

As before, no objections from me to a trial, using the “more official” OS icons.

Gale

17

Ok, everything is updated (windows icon included) :wink:

here is the link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-vx0Mb_0DoMfngxQ0RMSDJZVWZrUHAtbE1SUGVKQ1BRU29pTERxTENhZFRUdTlpVFhqSk0&usp=sharing

cheers,

David

18

Thanks for the updated icons uxdavid. As you have no doubt noticed, I have put them into the forum for a trial period so that we can gather feedback from forum users.

There has already been some “off-list” comments from some of the moderators and helpers on this forum, which I will attempt to summarise. Note that these views do not necessarily represent the views of all of the forum crew, just the feedback that I’ve received so far. It would be nice if we also got some feedback from users of the forum (invitation for forum users to comment :wink:)

There is overall agreement that the choice of images depict the topic that they are intended for, though there is concern that they don’t fit well with the overall look of the forum.

In particular, the chosen shade of blue looks garish against the pink (example near top of page), though that may be more about the use of pink. On the index page the blue is noticeably less green than other blues on the page, which looks a bit odd in context. Although I note that your choice of blue was based on the use of blue in the Audacity logo, the relevance is not immediately apparent as it represents just one of the three strong colours (and is a lighter shade of blue).

I think that you have successfully maintained a consistent style across the range of icons, though there have been comments that they look a bit “blocky”. To quote one comment: “They might work on a modern looking site with large blocky elements”

There was also a practical consideration raised by one of the moderators, which was that with just one colour, the individual icons are less distinctive, so it is less easy to recognise at a glance the specific forum board that you are looking for.

In summary, the icons themselves are clear and have a consistent style, (both are qualities that we want), but that the monochrome style does not fit well with the overall look of the forum. One solution would be to redesign the entire forum, but I’d rather not go down that road at the present time due to other priorities (such as helping to get Audacity 2.1.2 ready for release).

I hope that this feedback is constructive, and invite others to comment while the icons are still up on the forum.

19

Dear Steve and forum users and helpers, thanks for your feedback!

(1) The blocky style is the most widespread style nowadays, and it communicates clarity. I have created it with the newbie user in mind, because details mean a lot when new users approach a new forum: the up to date taste for icons can be a big incentive for the new Audacity user, because the hard corners give the user a sensation of competence :slight_smile: It will add up to the big competence already present in this forum! :slight_smile:

(2) I have tried a non-monochrome version of the iconset ( basing on the light-blue gradient you have on the background of the forum header) and it makes things really awful, even if more consistent at first sight. That why I’ve come to the solution of dark blue - which you correctly noticed derives from Audacity logo. The dark blue, as you noticed, creates a contrast with the pink background: it is intentional, because now the “section descrption” acquires prominence and visibility - making its content look more important. In any case, your suggestions on different colors are welcome! :slight_smile: In my choice, I have done some in-depth study on color coordination but I’m open to better ideas! :slight_smile:

(3) I think that the difficulty of creating contextually-meaningful symbols can only dissipate through gradual visual evolution, i.e. No need to create a new forum theme, but this little change in “taste” is going to enable everybody to make more up to date choices tomorrow. And I’m very curious to read your ideas! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

David

20

I have uploaded on the second iconset theme I had created, in order to test it before pushing it to you.

The different iconset items have the name “iconset2_” before their filename.
Check it and tell me if it’s better (it looks more coherent to me, but it has less visual prominence, which may be a good thing for certain viewpoints)

The link, as usual: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-vx0Mb_0DoMfngxQ0RMSDJZVWZrUHAtbE1SUGVKQ1BRU29pTERxTENhZFRUdTlpVFhqSk0&usp=sharing

Waiting for your suggestions and feedback (thanks!)

Cheers,

David