Comments on: Adobe CS3: Brand vs. Human

By: Harkins

Harkins — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:17:14 +0000

Hey, not bad. Why didn’t you use the Flash logo for that icon?

By: Brett Archibald

Brett Archibald — Wed, 09 May 2007 20:41:56 +0000

I have also made some CS3 replacement icons, but the difference between mine and all the other alternative replacement icon sets that I have seen so far is that my icons actually make use of icons, rather than the 2-letter “periodic table” style — so imagine a complete set of how Device Central and Acrobat, etc. currently look.

http://www.archimediadesign.com/assorted/cs3icons/

By: Chakram: 19th-Century Elegance at Icon O’Clock

Chakram: 19th-Century Elegance at Icon O’Clock — Tue, 01 May 2007 17:28:16 +0000

[...] The Photoshop icon (rightmost) feels indecisive, stuck between the old CS2 feather and the abstract CS3 tile. It stands out as the only icon in the set with an arbitrary border (a modern relic), the other [...]

By: Ammon

Ammon — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 21:47:50 +0000

Oy.

As a software developer who deals with a handful of Adobe products on a daily basis… I have to admit that I’ve already had problems with their previous icon scheme. Two programs that I frequently have to run in related circumstances already have near-identical icons. I am constantly firing up the wrong app as it is.

The office hasn’t upgraded yet and I’ll have to see the new icons in action before knowing if they really start to bug me. As it is, I don’t see how they could really get much worse for my personal application ;)

By: Adam H

Adam H — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:58:14 +0000

I looked at that and immediately thought “this was designed by a left-brained person who spends massive amounts of time working on Adobe products.” That would be great if their target audience consisted largely of left-brained, symbol-oriented people. For a company that produces art & design software, that’s a pretty monumental gaffe. Most artists did not enjoy their chemistry class — why bring back bad memories?

When you’re working on a product, it’s really easy to get “developer’s blinders.” You talk about it day-in, day-out for years and years, and it becomes blazingly obvious to you that the name and icon and function are all associated. You know, for example, that “Photoshop” is an appropriate program for producing novel images — but their name implies that the program will require a photograph as source material. Similarly, opaque icons acquire a meaning all their own when you’ve been staring at them for a long time — everyone at Adobe knows that a triple-looped swirl means “Acrobat,” but why on earth should it? The icon seems far more appropriate for a math visualization package.

This isn’t a big enough mistake to destroy a really good line of products. Still, I imagine that the Adobe kids will get bored of the style quickly and Adobe will revert to something sane(r) for the next set. After all, one of the biggest reasons to change up a perfectly good set of icons is boredom, and these icons won’t relieve that for long.