Adobe CS3 icons meet scorn in blogosphere
While designers all sit around and wait for the actual CS3 (Creative Suite 3) software from Adobe, some of us anxiously pour over every press release and detail coming out of San Jose. Some a little too anxiously, IMHO.Take the re-design of the latest icons, said to be used on the CS3 release:
Looks a bit like the Periodic Table of the Elements, eh? Maybe a nice bit of homage? Do I really have to add another shameless plug to my Beeriodic Table? Yeah!
Most of the icons got the “periodic” treatment, including the apps I use daily… AE, PPro, PS. I guess now they’re: Ae, Pr, and Ps! Au and En (Audition and Encore) are in there also. It seems like Acrobat and Flash got to keep their traditional logos, though. Maybe because they’re comprised of letters already. And Illustrator is Ai?! Must be because of the name-association with the filename extension. And there’s some other odd pictures in there, as well. Since Adobe just bought one of my favorite video application companies, Serious Magic… maybe some of the funky icons are for slated for those “still to be decided” “Serious/Adobe” applications.
Unlike a lot of folks, I really don’t have a problem with the color-wheel, “periodic” treatment. But I never had a real affinity for the PS feather or the swirly-thing that’s going on with the AE icon. In fact, PPro’s and AE’s icons are too hard for me to distinguish at my desktop’s resolution. Even PS and Audition’s look too similar @ 1600×1200 w/ small icons enabled. And who cares about the Illustrator’s flower or Encore’s acrylic box? Big deal!
Again… are those above really any worse than these? Somebody tell me if you know every one of these by sight!
My only beef is Acrobat and Flash… and some of the other weird ones get preferential treatment over the “periodic” apps. Here’s a very cool Flash 3D Carosel someone made of the new icons.
I’ll settle for testing some new Adobe software soon… and let everybody else quibble about the icons. Sheesh!