this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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I don't know about all of you, I don't like these new flat icons that everyone is using. What ever happened to the old icons, like on iPhone and Samsung they used to have them years ago. Those were good times. Now it is always these stupid boring cartoonish designed icons. Side note: Somebody please update this icon pack. I am trying to use it on xfce on arch but some of the icons aren't working properly because it hasn't been updated in a while. I'll donate to you right away if you do it. Link to the repo: https://github.com/madmaxms/iconpack-obsidian

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Hey, that's the icon set I use in KDE! And yes i'd sell my kidneys to bring back skeumorphism and aero

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I tried to do a couple of icon sets that went with that trend for KDE. At one point I was involved with the KDE VDG and was about to set the style of the icons they'd use.

But apparently some suit told them they needed to go completely flat as they needed to plaster Firefox/distros/whatever logos on it, so everything needed to look consistent.

So in the end I got bored about it and stepped away. I'm trying to redo a new square-shaped-skeumorphed icon set but it's so much work - like it'd need to be your daily job to pull it off.

However, if you take a look at it, it's already in this one - some of them are just the base shape with some logo plastered on it (like the whatsapp one, or the one with the butterfly) and voilá, there's your icon.

So icon sets are incredibly hard, and if you want a skeumorphism icon set its hard squared. That's another of the reasons flat icons thrive today.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago

I fucking love skeuomorphism !

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Kinda, yeah! These kinda remind me of some of the icon packs I used on my jailbroken iPod Touch!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

i don't, not at all, but still think elementaryOS looks beautiful! Like holy hell, even on their websites they manage to make their design look good!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, I don't understand flatness either. Neither I understand the dark themes either. My eyes and brain simply can't do the separation easily, I spend more time trying to process an image. Old style icons and UI colors are the best IMHO.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

My primary icon theme and widget style are 20+ years old and not flat in the least. You can still have that look and feel on a real computer if you want it (but you may have to compromise elsewhere or do some extra work). On phones, all bets are off.

Dunno what your issue with that icon pack is, but I'd bet there's a good chance it can be solved with a few file renames or symlinks if you care enough to bother.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

I don't know if you'd call that skeuomorphism, and we have icons that are similar.

I'm not sure what you would call the opposite of 'flat' in terms of these designs, but I think that's what you're referring to.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

I miss the KDE 3.x crystal theme

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

I do miss them. But I'm happy with my custom Suru++ Aspromauros icons too.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I miss UIs having lines and clear separations between elements. I loath this new flat style that everything has to have now, where you can't tell when one thing stops and another starts.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

And you can't tell when something is active/focused or not because every goddamn app and web site wants to use its own "design language". Wish I had a dollar for every time I saw two options, one light-gray and one dark-gray, with no way to know whether dark or light was supposed to mean "active".

I miss old-school Mac OS when consistency was king. But even Mac OS abandoned consistency about 25 years ago. I'd say the introduction of "brushed metal" was the beginning of the end, and IIRC that was late 90s. I am old and grumpy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

I miss being able to use bitmapped fonts back in the Gnome 1.x days.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

God, no!

Though these do look pretty, they don't look like the buttons in Windows 95/XP and maybe that's a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

I liked the soft gradient XP icons, though maybe that's just the nostalgia talking

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I do miss that, but idk how much of it is nostalgia and how much is an absolute aesthetic preference. I think the main reason for the change though is Microsoft trying to make Windows work well on mobile devices though, meaning forgoing the aero and more expensive VFX.

Wish some DEs would make their default style more like a win7 era style. Would be nice to have the variety.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

No reason they wouldn't work on a small phone, especially back then

photograph of the iPhone 2 with its skeuomorphic icons

[–] [email protected] 27 points 13 hours ago

I miss the time when not all icons were a rectangle or a circle.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Quick info, the link does not work. You need to put it in the address part aswell (like this [https://github.com/madmaxms/iconpack-obsidian](https://github.com/madmaxms/iconpack-obsidian) Here is a working one https://github.com/madmaxms/iconpack-obsidian

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

Okay thanks never made a post with a link

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago

My plasma 6 desktop has absolutely stunning icons, and im like you - I like proper icons that look more interesting.

Try plasma 6, I'm sure those icon sets are also much more complete. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

No. Old UI is terrible. The newest UI with extremely rounded corners is bad too but I'd much rather use it than old stuff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

How about flat, easy to recognise icons and straight, square windows and app designs?

Brutalism for your DE!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Another thing that's needed is icon labels or alternative text. Apps like LibreOffice suffer from icon-heavy UI which is hard to understand and remember for new users and even for me without any explanations.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Actually no, I hated the Vista era UI design. Linux themes were positively garish, add MacOS looked like a candy store. CDE greatly impressed me back then. It looked like it was made by adults for adults. Highly legible, and the pastel colors are being emulated by Solarized.

I'm sure that those UIs were a product of the times. The 90's and noughties were loud and colorful and exciting and everything looked like a comic. Now that we live in more depressing times, we can look to the science of perceptual psychology.

You see, we have an attention budget, we need to process what we see. Visually complex UIs need to be parsed, and that takes mental effort, and that robs us of mental energy to focus on our work. It's not a crippling effect, but it's there.

Look at street signs and corporate logos, they easily lodge in our mind. Effective advertising has a clear and simple visual language, and this is what UIs should strive for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

You see, we have an attention budget, we need to process what we see. Visually complex UIs need to be parsed

One of the reasons i like interfaces with clear lines. But that doesn't fit icons, all-same-isch looking rectangles are not easier to parse than "objects". The mind is optimized for 3D, not for abstract icons.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 14 hours ago

Effective advertising has a clear and simple visual language, and this is what UIs should strive for.

Interfaces can be needlessly complex regardless of being flat or skeuomorphic.

But flat interfaces still require mental effort to parse. Especially when the interface is complex and/or crowded and you're trying to pick out active UI elements amongst decorations like group boxes/panels.

Essentially, flat interfaces are currently popular because of touchscreen devices. Touchscreen devices have limited space and thus need simplistic UI elements that can be prodded by a fat finger on a small screen.

But I don't need a flat touchscreen-friendly interface on my non-touch dual 24" monitors with acres of screen real estate. I need an interface that nicely separates usable UI elements from the rest of the application window. That means 3D hints on a 2D screen, which allows my monkey-brain with five million years of evolved 3D vision the opportunity to run my "click the button" mental command as a background process.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

This is the first time Ive ever seen those vowels together

[–] [email protected] -1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

If I understood it correctly, in this context it means that the icons normally retain the original logo and color scheme, while incorporating them into a single style.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (3 children)

a skeuomorph (from greek, "tool/container-shape") is something that retains the characteristics of another thing that it is based on, even though those characteristics are no longer useful. think lamps shaped like candles, or the floppy disk save icon, or media player programs with volume knobs.

skeuomorphic UX is a good way to get users comfortable with a system by using designs they are already familiar with, and the original iphone used this to great effect.

This is a good example of skeuomorphic UI: skeuomorph

all to say, I'm not entirely sure these icons are skeuomorphs. they're just glossy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago

Wow that is a gorgeous image

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Thanks! Learning more every day

Also, beautiful design, and probably not bad for a touchscreen (terrible for mouse though)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Yeh the files being little pieces of paper, and the folders being old office folios are skeumorphic. Skeumorphic was (or is?) sometimes used more generically for ui elements made to look physical so perhaps the pseudo 3D shading, dropshadows, bevels and highlights qualify much of OPs examples, though they aren't representing any specific type of physical object necessarily. Just objects to be grabbed and used (clicked).

I’m sure trends will bring us back to a similar style at some point like they often do.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago

it's weird that. it's obviously possible to have a flat-shaded skeuomorph, just look at basically all of windows 95, but for some reason we connect them to this particular graphical style. files and folders are both part of the old classic "desktop metaphor", so they basically have to be skeuomorphs. but like, the application icons are basically just mosaic tiles of the normal icons.

a proper skeuomorph would indicate what the program is for. krita and whatever map software that is are both good, if a little flat. but the libreoffice suite just being squares with a letter on them? have them be like, a spreadsheet for calc, a stack of cards for impress, and a printed page for write.

remember all the icons for windows 95 network utilities that have people in them? those are also (attempts at) skeumorphs because they're trying to communicate what the program does.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 14 hours ago

For those who haven’t seen snl’s papyrus skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhlJNJopOQ

Or papyrus 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8PdffUfoF0

A couple of the best sketches SNL has ever done

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