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Why do you need a citation, if you have two eyes? Just look at iOS or OS X included icons, or Windows 10 icons, or the App Store top 100 apps. Most icons are a

Why do you need a citation, if you have two eyes? Just look at iOS or OS X included icons, or Windows 10 icons, or the App Store top 100 apps. Most icons are a flat background and some boring bland logo outline. We are in the dark ages of software-related design.

jameshart 11y ago
When was the classical age of app icon design then?
- asgard1024 11y ago
  I would think around the first iPhone. In my opinion, flat design was "invented" as a cost saving measure. In fact the design of all other things around us follows a similar pattern - complexity and "vestigial" features are being reduced.
  - jameshart 11y ago
    In my experience, it's harder to design something simple than to design something complex.
    - asgard1024 11y ago
      Design - maybe. Craft - doubt it. The OP, as I read it, is talking primarily about craft being lost. Maybe I am cynical, but it's easier to hire couple students filling outlines all day than to have proper artists that can do coloring, shading.. This happened to architecture and interior decoration before. We have a nice railing in my house (Prague, middle class appartment block from 1890s) that would be too expensive to replace today, you would be lucky to find a blacksmith who can do that. Apparently, it was a normal thing 120 years ago. How come that with all the technology we have today, we can afford intricately crafted designs less and less? My only explanation is economic - people are cheap and so-called "simple" design is good enough. I think we are losing something. Instead having people skilled in craft we have them either unemployed or having some bullshit office jobs (I am no exception btw).
  - kitsunesoba 11y ago
    It can’t be a coincidence that “flat” design became hip right around the time “HTML/CSS/JS for EVERYTHING” trend really started to gain momentum. Web tech is far more inclined toward flat, uncomplicated designs than it is the sort of detailed, nuanced, multi-dimensional designs that used to be popular. It’s trivial to create silky, sophisticated UIs in native software, but that segment of software engineers haven’t been the ones loudly blogging or writing lengthy design diatribes for quite some time now.
  - Someone 11y ago
    I bet answers to that will differ, and correlate fairly well with age. For some people, it will be a few decades before that: http://www.kare.com/portfolio/03_apple_macicons.html http://www.kare.com/portfolio/03_apple_macicons.html. That was a time when an icon wasn't "a drawing showing one object or coherent group of objects", but "around a hundred pixels showing one object or group of objects".
TranquilMarmot 11y ago
From what I understand of icon design, the goal is to make something that's instantly recognizable when glanced over. Your mind shouldn't have to interpret colors, light sources, shading, depth, etc. just to recognize a brand/app's icon. The Twitter and Apple icons are instantly recognizable no matter how small they are or how fast you glance over them. Facebook and Google have their icons as just letters with one specific color and typeface, and when you see that color + typeface together anywhere you instantly recognize what brand it is for. Flat icons may not take as much effort to make (which is debatable... in some cases, they take even more thought to create since you have to think about every little line and curve) but they do get their point across a lot faster and more effective than a fancy, shaded, intricate icon with tiny little details. In my opinion, if you can't easily draw an icon on a piece of paper in a few minutes, it's not a very good icon- it's more of a picture or a drawing.
- carlosrg 11y ago
  The human brain doesn't have any problem interpreting non-flat icons, as it doesn't have any problem with real world objects. We didn't have that problem you're saying before the flat design trend. Also icons should be aesthetically pleasing. When I see a iOS 6 homescreen, I see something beautiful. Can't say the same about iOS today. And I'm going to stop here, because people are going to downvote the hell out of me. Design can be something very divisive.
  - micampe 11y ago
    What does “design can be something very divisive” tell you about “why do you need a citation, if you have two eyes” and the original quote that started this thread?
- ArekDymalski 11y ago
  > and when you see that color + typeface together anywhere you instantly recognize what brand it is for. This (blue + simple, light shape) trend was taken to such extreme that nowadays I feel discomfort looking at the screen with FB, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, IFTTT, Dropbox, Skype etc.
- 11y ago

jameshart 11y ago

When was the classical age of app icon design then?

asgard1024 11y ago
I would think around the first iPhone. In my opinion, flat design was "invented" as a cost saving measure. In fact the design of all other things around us follows a similar pattern - complexity and "vestigial" features are being reduced.
- jameshart 11y ago
  In my experience, it's harder to design something simple than to design something complex.
  - asgard1024 11y ago
    Design - maybe. Craft - doubt it. The OP, as I read it, is talking primarily about craft being lost. Maybe I am cynical, but it's easier to hire couple students filling outlines all day than to have proper artists that can do coloring, shading.. This happened to architecture and interior decoration before. We have a nice railing in my house (Prague, middle class appartment block from 1890s) that would be too expensive to replace today, you would be lucky to find a blacksmith who can do that. Apparently, it was a normal thing 120 years ago. How come that with all the technology we have today, we can afford intricately crafted designs less and less? My only explanation is economic - people are cheap and so-called "simple" design is good enough. I think we are losing something. Instead having people skilled in craft we have them either unemployed or having some bullshit office jobs (I am no exception btw).
- kitsunesoba 11y ago
  It can’t be a coincidence that “flat” design became hip right around the time “HTML/CSS/JS for EVERYTHING” trend really started to gain momentum. Web tech is far more inclined toward flat, uncomplicated designs than it is the sort of detailed, nuanced, multi-dimensional designs that used to be popular. It’s trivial to create silky, sophisticated UIs in native software, but that segment of software engineers haven’t been the ones loudly blogging or writing lengthy design diatribes for quite some time now.
- Someone 11y ago
  I bet answers to that will differ, and correlate fairly well with age. For some people, it will be a few decades before that: http://www.kare.com/portfolio/03_apple_macicons.html http://www.kare.com/portfolio/03_apple_macicons.html. That was a time when an icon wasn't "a drawing showing one object or coherent group of objects", but "around a hundred pixels showing one object or group of objects".

TranquilMarmot 11y ago

From what I understand of icon design, the goal is to make something that's instantly recognizable when glanced over. Your mind shouldn't have to interpret colors, light sources, shading, depth, etc. just to recognize a brand/app's icon. The Twitter and Apple icons are instantly recognizable no matter how small they are or how fast you glance over them. Facebook and Google have their icons as just letters with one specific color and typeface, and when you see that color + typeface together anywhere you instantly recognize what brand it is for. Flat icons may not take as much effort to make (which is debatable... in some cases, they take even more thought to create since you have to think about every little line and curve) but they do get their point across a lot faster and more effective than a fancy, shaded, intricate icon with tiny little details. In my opinion, if you can't easily draw an icon on a piece of paper in a few minutes, it's not a very good icon- it's more of a picture or a drawing.

carlosrg 11y ago
The human brain doesn't have any problem interpreting non-flat icons, as it doesn't have any problem with real world objects. We didn't have that problem you're saying before the flat design trend. Also icons should be aesthetically pleasing. When I see a iOS 6 homescreen, I see something beautiful. Can't say the same about iOS today. And I'm going to stop here, because people are going to downvote the hell out of me. Design can be something very divisive.
- micampe 11y ago
  What does “design can be something very divisive” tell you about “why do you need a citation, if you have two eyes” and the original quote that started this thread?
ArekDymalski 11y ago
> and when you see that color + typeface together anywhere you instantly recognize what brand it is for. This (blue + simple, light shape) trend was taken to such extreme that nowadays I feel discomfort looking at the screen with FB, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, IFTTT, Dropbox, Skype etc.
11y ago