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What is Adobe thinking? These new icons are bland and uninspiring in comparison to their current icon designs for each of the programs. They say nothing about the programs and about what you can do with them. I think that the new designs are a poor reflection to the program’s abilities and to Adobe. Adobe should really re-evaluate where they are going and remember who their audience is…Creative people! They should design the icons to reflect that. If they are going to do just a few letters to denote the program it should be something edgy and new like Macromedia did for their current icons.
What were they thinking? This is the biggest disappointment I have ever seen from “creative” professionals. Looks more like something from the Periodic Table of Elements. I MUCH prefer the current look of the icons.
Unfortunately, it seems the “icon”-driven user experience is being guided to an older DOS-like extension-driven experience. Extensions work fine for saving and sharing, but thinking of my day-to-day computer interaction, I’d much rather see a butterfly and think “InDesign” as opposed to having to interpret “Id” or “Ai” into the tool I’m wanting to use.
Reminds me of the elements in the periodic table.
As a student often overwhelmed with learning new applications, shortcuts, and computer processes, I dislike the change from the picture icons to the boring type abbreviations. With so much new information coming out all the time, can’t something stay the same, especially something as innocuous as application identity?
The new Adobe Icons are colorful but boring. I think they should have kept the CS2 style.
AAARGH! It’s grade 9 science class with a smudge of art class mixed in. These icons are not easily identifiable on the fly.
This is creative Software!!! Thats the best they can do a box?
The old Icons CS2 work just find! Can’t they be more creative than a box????
Don’t care for the new Adobe icons but if ‘Di” means Director it’s the first time I’ve seen any indication from Adobe that they will support Director in a future release so I’m psyched.
1. Are we agreeing or disagreeing with Terri? If so, I strongly agree.
2. Are we agreeing or disagreeing with Adobe’s new icons? If so, I strongly disagree.
I have assumed that I am responding to Terri’s article. As a former teacher I understand that you need to appeal to all senses because different people rely on different senses (visual, text, aural, etc) to varying degrees. Visually creative people respond to visually creative icons, as one of your earlier respondents suggested. Some people do favour textual clues but don’t the icons have text under them anyway?
As a Mac user I can say that this is so un-Macintosh and possibly even un-Windows.
What icons?
These icons, especially when seen all together on the ‘color wheel,’ look like they’re from some sort of corporate communications self-justifying masturbation session about seeing all the elements of the product line as a unified whole.
They have nothing to do with users, or feeling a sense of what the products do.
If that’s not clear enough, how about this: I hate them.
I come from a chemical and nuclear engineering background and eventually chucked it all to become a painter, photographer and printmaker. My current passion is the esoteria of color theory and management. My immediate response to the icons was straightforward, that they were like the elements in the periodic table and that the icons were a clever idea. But the author may have a point; the icons will be beyond the ken of most users.
Looks like Adobe is going rubber stamp corporate method. Pidgeon hole an application somewhere on the wheel, and you know what the icon will be with no design effort needed. *churl*
Considering that these are all graphical design applications, the icons should reflect that. From a creativity aspect, they do nothing but bore.
It’s also easier to spot what applications are on a computer by looking for specific icons. Can you imagine tech support when you ask:
Tech: “Do you have an icon that says ‘FW’?”
User: “I have an ‘FL'”
Tech: “We need ‘FW'”
User: “Oh, I see it, ‘Fh'”
Tech: “No, click on the ‘FL’ icon”
User: “You mean ‘FM’, right?”
Tech: “No, ‘FW’… Grrr… This is stupid”
User: “Well, ‘FU’ too!”
Tech: “I’m sorry, no, ‘FU’ is Adobe’s Farcical Upgrader”
I’m not a big fan of the new, uber-simplified icons. However, I’m assuming that Adobe wants to eventually unify the image of the two merged design software companies. It would then seem the only way to do this without alienating the Macromedia die-hards, would be to eliminate the familiar icons for BOTH companies for at least one software version. I’m sure that sometime in 2009, we’ll get a brand new, shiny set of Adobe product icons that we’re used to seeing.
It’s a clever idea which would appeal to a chemist or engineer, I suppose. Probably not meant to appeal to an artist. BTW, my vote is to agree with Terri’s article, not to approve the icons.
Design is clear and functional but falls short in Creativity. We look to the “Creative” Suite as role model to what can be achieved with this software. Perhaps it was meant to show how easy it is to create these graphics but if that be the case, we wouldn’t need the expensive software! Guess I’m getting used to eye candy and my sweet tooth is left craving!
I agree these are baffling. Also Acrobat & Flash remain more “iconic” along with a few less recognizable applications, interesting!
Working in the communication field I truly understand that image branding is a powerful benifit. The Adobe Line has become so massive that this direction does pull alll the applications into a family brand look. Yes they could have worked that out with imagery icons but this is quite a simple solution that allows for additional family members to be added with consistancey.
My vote is in agreement with the article, not on the quality of the icons.
“Creative Suite” should say it all. The new logos, if one can really call them that, put the products of both companies in the category of buzz words and acronyms, many of which are undecipherable to all but the “annointed” few. Even the existing icons have nothing to do with the product. I mean, really, a feather identifies PhotoShop, a butterfly for InDesign, and the truly meaningless ones that are used for the various incarnations of Acrobat?
Sorry, these new icons indicate laziness on the part of the “designers” and, possibly, contempt for the end user.
Two thumbs down on the icons.
Well, my guess is that the icon design job had been completed by someone who came from Macromedia. While squared rather than rounded, the icons do very much elicit the feel of the last Flash, Dreamweaver, etc. icons. But whether a feather can represent Photoshop any better is somewhat a matter of taste, but the previous Adobe icons DID suggest some design panache, which is sorely lacking from the new icons! Bad, Adobe. Sad, Adobe.
I don’t like them at all. It reminds me of the chemical elements found on a periodic table! For a company that has so much creativity, certainly Adobe can do far better!
Does this mean that Freehand lives (Fh)? God I hope so. Since the Adobe buyout of Macromedia, Freehand has remained in the deep freeze with no updates or much support. I just wish that they would dedicate the time on Freehand rather than these so called chemical icons.
Very disappointing to say the least. The old icons were beautiful, though I agree that there was no real tie between the icon and the program… Which isn’t a real problem for someone who uses these programs day in and day out! I think creative professionals deserve better: Adobe needs to go back to the drawing board on this one!
I always thought the feather worked better for Illustrator as that is the drawing program, but to chuck it all for squares seems incredibly corporate, not creative. My next thought was maybe they are trying to build something with all the products together, but traditionally bricks are rectangular – not square. Although these *will* certainly sink to the bottom of any creative pool. Sad really.
i’m really not too sure this is a story… btw, where’s the icons? ha…
…at least that’s what they look like. I’ve got 12 Macromedia/Adobe icons in my dock. I remember them more by location than by the actual icon. I must say that the letters in the Freehand icons do help with identification (as opposed to the feather, butterfly, shell etc. of Adobe). So I’m okay with letters, I just think the icons could be made more aesthetically pleasing.
I find the new icons very boring, and disappointing, especially for the creativity that Adobe represents.
While the old icons were prettier in design I find the new icons function better for product identity and product branding identity. I never associated a feather with Photoshop in my mind, though the letter PS says Photoshop to me with my eyes closed. The same holds true for all the other old icons.
What caught my eye right off was the “Au” . . . first thing that came to mind was the element symbol of gold. I don’t use or need all of Adobe’s apps making guess what Au is nuts.
What are they, NUTS???!! Totally boring, too reductive, & a grand failure of imagination!!
I too thought they were “placeholders” that some programmer stuck in until they designed an icon? I keep looking at the Ps in my dock thinking it stands for “PostScript”. Thank GOD all my apps don’t use this nomenclature – I would never find anything in my dock – everything would not only have two-letter designations, but not even adjacent letters in all cases (or Photoshop would be Ph). This once again makes the assumption that every app I own comes from Adobe – not even close. I cringe everytime the Ps Splash-Screen in the Beta comes up – looks really cheap and unfinished like there was no money left in the budget for design. My only hope is that Adobe did not “pay’ anyone to make these – if they did I will start using my Word Processor to sell “design” to my clients in the future.
For a visual program to make this kind of uttermost boring buttons is an exceptional wrong move. Associations are better made with visual concepts. Hope the beta version of CS3 improves and ships with better icons.
Perfect software irony — as the applications move toward unlearnable complexity, the icons become simpler.
The old icons are pretty and nice to look at, but I sometimes click on the wrong one in my toolbar because they are so abstract. The new icons may help with identification, but they are pretty utilitarian.
This is just another example of the end of true graphic design. The software tools have enabled engineers to decide what websites look like, eliminating the need to truly communicate in a graphically appealing way. This is obviously at work when you look at the new Adobe “icons”. They are sterile, and of course apply the dimensionality available as a Photoshop setting with the little drop shadow to float the colored background slightly above the surface of the page or screen. Frankly, I am tired of seeing the same recycled tricks applied to every button, navigation and page. Return to true communication design, and forget all the bells and whistles that are pre-programmed in the software. In this particular case, the typography is weak and ineffectual. Learn how to make a graphic statement that has impact and is able to stand the test of time.
It’s a little periodic table of the elements-esque.
Not an entirely bad strategy when you have so many products to manage.
These icons are the worst icons I think I’ve ever witnessed. Sure, they’re consistent, but for a company like Adobe/Macromedia to use these for such popular applications and as icons which will constantly be seen is a disgrace to designers and the software company itself. Adobe should be ashamed of itself for allowing such an inane design to go public. Someone should be fired. Not the designer of the icons, but rather whoever approved them for widespread use.
You couldn’t be more right. Someone overdosed on an elements chart.
As an Artist and Graphic Designer and a loyal user of Adobe and Macromwdia products for over ten years I am appalled and thoroughly disappointed that these icons are to represent the next generation of Adobe products. What has happened to good visual design? I feel that Big is not Better and that this truth is painfully showing in the corporate image Adobe is assuming. I think visual artists will feel abandoned.
Icons for a creative suite should reflect or at least suggest creativity. These icons look like road signs. They’re boring. I couldn’t find anything that said ‘InDesign’ to me, or ‘Acrobat’.
Makes more sense than flowers, butterflies and feathers, but now that I’ve memorized those, these will be soooo boooooring in my dock. Maybe I’ll make my own!
The periodic table idea is a little clever, but an icon for graphic design software should be a strong visual icon (not just text in a rounded corner box). Also, the inconsistent use of uppercase, lowercase & small caps text show the “lo-end” design quality IMO.
I don’t like the new icons. Personally, I liked the eye icon for PS
The new icons seem incredibly vapid creatively; dare I say intellectually bankrupt? It makes me think of a periodic table thrown onto a color wheel. That doesn’t exactly strike me as a logical metaphor.
I can’t wait to see the explanation for why they did this.
It occurred to me that the various icons will be a real pain to distinguish in the dock. It just makes me even crankier than my original reaction…
If Br is Bridge, and Ps is Photoshop, why isn’t Illustrator Il?
Lame excuse for designers and copywriters
The icons look like Adobe’s version of Scrabble! Teeny letters in a teeny squares? Come on, certainly you can come up with something better!!
Looks like a combination of color wheel/match color chips with the index of elements chart some of us may remember from high school science class.
UGLEEEEEE!
Terrible! They show zero imagination and design sense, are completely uninspiring, in my opinion. Amazingly, these are for apps that designers use! It looks like the icon designers got lazy and couldn’t come up with interesting visual icons such as Photoshop has had in the past. I’m sure Adobe can do better than this.
How pretty! How opaque! How much getting used-to is this going to take?
As an OPTION perhaps! Those who elect to work this way should have the choice.
BUT A CIRCLE is an INEFFICIENT USE OF AVAILABLE SPACE on a monitor.
I don’t think even Microsoft could have designed something so mediocre. They probably thought they were being “clever” or “edgy” or “minimalist.” I say boring, pointless, annoying, ugly.
Who are they designing for? – toddlers with abc blocks? I’ve always loved Adobe’s icons. The red Acrobat spiral is known by everyone and I even kept the Photoshop 6 icon even though i’ve liked the newer ones, it was just special. I’ve been using Photoshop since version 1 and love the Adobe brand. It’s a brand for designers so please don’t cheapen the brand recognition with boring graphics, alright? gary in austin
and boring. The new icons have a greater uniformity, unfortuantely, in the process they’ve lost their individual creativity. I suppose that’s so we’ll actually explore the applications they represent.
The industry doesn’t even use Ps and a descriptor. We have been typing PSD for years. After some of the nicest graphic icons they go to this ugly font that is unfamiliar to most of us. Truly an unfortunate decision. Makes me think they have hashed to workflows to boot.
Icons are to scientific looking. Icons never really had an impact for me until I saw these. One not bad, boring, but not bad. But when you see them all together to hard to tell what program is what. Artists are more visual than that. This is one instance where less is NOT more! Please have them change these, basically they suck!
These are the worst app icons I ever saw. Sterile, inconsistent, ugly. They do not communicate at all.
Adobe is taking some directions which let me worried. The new Acrobat 8 is targeted basically to office tasks, forgetting the graphic designers and even removing features DTP people needs. This release seems to summarize the whole company vision: to sell more software we need to support business people, even if this makes the designers to be left on a second plan.
While this, Microsoft is finally introducing itself on professional graphic market with Expression line. Surely, it’s still very early to fear this, but in the future Adobe will not have the right to make so many mistakes it uses to do. These terrible icons are another one.
Personally, it’s a little odd. I never liked the butterfly, the shell or the flower..they never seemed to distinquish themselves on the mac dock. Thus, I created icons nearly exactly the same. And I was lazy. These are pretty unremarkable considering these are programs that most professionals use…but again, I would remind every mac user, you can always create your own.
I can guess that who ever designed these new icons must have a concept, though i really don’t get it… These are the most wonderfull softwares why diminish them with these terrible simple icons? Please let me know what they were thinking (the concept they followed) THXS
I can’t imagine what Adobe was thinking with these icons. As a Windows user I’m looking forward to the visual enhancements Microsoft is making in the Vista OS, including the improved icons. Adobe seems to be moving in the wrong direction. These icons are unimaginative, confusing and non-iconic. Adobe should hold a contest to allow their users to design a decent set of icons.
I love them – should make my desktop look like a periodic chart – I think it is a very clean look – I already look for my apps by color – this is perfect.
My first thought was Chemistry, not design. Hopefully, Adobe does a usability study before the release.
I feel like I’m back in my high school chemistry class struggling to remember what letters stand for what… doesn’t Br stand for Bromine?
are they thinking?!? I hope this article is a trial balloon and they respond to what would have to be overwhelming feedback about how terrible these icons are. CS and CS2 icons are gorgeous. Why change from that style? But even if the change was warranted, they can surely do better than a colorful periodic elements chart. (Maybe they’re trying to compete with Microsoft for ugliest product design.)
Have Adobe turned into a chemical industry? Anyway the colourwheel strongly makes me think of my teenager studies chemical chart… Maybe that’s on purpose, but for a so-called “creative” suite, I don’t see the point. Nothing’s less creative than chemistry to me…
I hope they never get used, they slow you down. When you see letters you READ them and try and turn them into a meaningful word. Your mind has to go through many extra routines to associate the letters with the correct application. A symbol does it in one move once you know it. The letters never will.
When I saw them I instantly saw them as emulating the periodic table – and how the allegory of these ‘elements’ being used individually or grouped to produce our projects. The periodic table represents the building blocks of everything on an atomic scale – it is also a very good design for communicating a lot of complex ideas.
Creativity down to “no creativity”, that’s Adobe CS3.
Did you take a look at the Mac OS X dock?
The Ps and Br (BETA VERSIONS of CS3) stand out easily.
During all those years icons have become more sophisticated and complex, but if you have a lot of Apps open the dock becomes a colorful and confusing mess. Those are easy to spot.
In Windows (I use them as well) the tabs in toolbar they have text that you cannot really read if you have a lot open and the icons are easy to spot there too. I also use the Objectdock in Windows, a utility that behaves similar and can look the same as the Mac OS X dock. Are they pretty? I am neutral about their look. I believe a symmetrical but colored differently line of icons in the dock will be very practical with their lettering distinction, and pretty as well(but that remains to be seen when the whole suite comes out).
I love the new CS3 icons.
Adobe has, in the past, evolved some real ‘mystery meat’ icons up to CS2, and it’s about time they stopped.
What does a blue feather have to do with Photoshop CS2?
What does an orange flower have to do with Illustrator CS2?
I’m glad that Adobe has realized that the path to these icons (which made a lot of sense at the time) has led to an awfully silly conclusion.
Way to simplify the icons properly!
Thanks for making my dock look a lot more professional and a little less feminine! (feather, seashell, flower, butterfly? zomg)
Who could confuse Ps for anything but Photoshop?
Or Ai for anything but Illustrator!
Instant recognition: that’s what every true designer wants.
Come on ADOBE, what about creativity? I’ve enjoyed the unveiling of what the new icons would look like for each new version except now. Too bad your minimalist approach missed the mark. Sure hope the update is more exciting.
More acronyms for my wee little left brain to store. Glad they had some fun with their brainstorming session…the periodic table does show Adobe’s proliferation. Most professors would have challenged a student bringing such a concept forward to go back and rethink. The dock will become an “eye chart”.
I understand Adobe has a lot under its umbrella now, but seriously? Design is what put Adobe on the map. I do not see anything visually appealing in the icons and for that matter their website either. Let’s hope Adobe hasn’t “jumped the shark.”
The last thing I want my dock to look like is the Periodic Table. Seesh. Br = Bromine, for God’ sake!
My impression of Adobe in the 10+ years of using their products is one of user friendly, intuitive, creative solutions to the needs of designers etc. The new look flies in the face of all that! I guess I will still use Adobe products, but it beats me why they think this will improve their image. I am with you – I just don’t get it!
I never thought I would ever have to look at a periodic table outside of chem in high school! Now I can look forward to being really lost, trying to remember the symbols to concoct a simple layout!
Why tweak a format that works? There’s something to be said for BRAND CONSISTENCY, but what about each brand’s already existing value??
I think that Adobe is trying to create their own periodic table with these new icons.
My brain has a hard time with fanciful icons so ones that make some sort of sense in a real world manor appeal to me.
To be brief: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! This “improvement” is simply indecipherable.
Creative Pro needs to ask a specific question above the voting area if they take polls. If you compare what was checked to what people wrote it often doesn’t match.
Obviously voters could not tell if they were checking “Disagree” because they disagreed with Adobe’s icon choice, or because they disagree with the author not liking the icons. It is affecting the accuracy of your poll results.
After years of building their brand identity successfully with each product brand logo, why would Adobe trash that, only to now stand naked in the marketplace? Familiarity and personality are marks of successful brand building and traits of brand equity. They do not happen overnight, nor do they come cheap. Luckily for Adobe, the company has no serious competitor to pounce on this.
Come on now Adobe, get some well designed, easily identified… focused icons, and keep them.
Great, after getting used to the lovely new icons that came with CS2, now I have to memorize the Adobe chart of elements? I understand the desire for brand consistency, but I think most users have cottoned onto the difference between the square Adobe logos and the inherited round Macromedia logos. Frankly, the shape and style difference helps me to quickly target the right app for the right project. The color wheel is shiny and all, but I’m not a fan of it. :-
The new icons are not very intuitive. I do not want to have to figure out a whole new icon system in order to efficiently use the program.
Hey, I’m an english major, but it’s still showing me that they are trying to have good design chemistry. Might be a tough go from a marketing standpoint, but I love it from a creative standpoint… They have it covered…
What were they thinking? The new icons look like a Scrabble enthusiast’s dream. Two letters on one tile, on a triple word score….what a nightmare!
I really like the CS2 icons, and the difference between the Macromedia & Adobe icons are GOOD! Helps to identify them better. I wish they wouldn’t change them.
(Just to clarify my “Agree” choice – I’m agreeing with the article, and disagreeing with the new icons)
We’re seeing the icons out of context. There’s always the possibility that, once we see how the icons are integrated into the overall design scheme, it might all make perfect sense. Who knows?
Anyway, there are other far more important things to be fuss about. Children are starving in Ethiopia.
I love the new icon concept. It is straightforward and easy to understand. The 2 letter designation on a colored background is distinctive from all other applications on my taskbar and desktop. I have been using Adobe products for about ten years or so.
To date, the exixting icons between InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop have changed a little with each program update, but within the suite (or the then current applications), were so similar as to create confusion for myself and my colleagues.
Kudos to Adobe for making product logos understandable, based on the type of files they are, PS for photoshop, AI for Illustrator, etc.
Hurray!!!!!
When I downloaded the beta Photoshop, my first thought was that they didn’t have time to design a new logo. It looked foolish and oddly disturbing on my taskbar. I am unhappy to hear that it, and friends like it, will soon occupy this space so unattractively.
ICK!!! UGLY!!! These are total uninspiring graphics. Makes me wonder what the packaging will be. A brown paper bags??? LOL!
Who cares? What a yaaaawn…
The new icons left me cold, cold enough to spend the time to express myself here. Icy, sterile, boring, uninspired.
Alienating. Too much change to shove down consumers’ throats on top of uncertainty about how merger will affect product lines.
Adobe should save icon revolution for next upgrade round, concentrate on showing us how they will handle corporate consolidation and substantive software improvements. Evolve the current icons instead.
If I did that I’d be fired.
The new icons make me think of the periodic table.
HATE the new icons! They are ugly, uninspired and lack artistic merit. And they look unfinished. I will continue to use the great CS products, but having to look at these icons each time I open an application will not be fun. And using CS products is definitely fun!
I can’t believe someone got PAID to create those. My clients would never accept such uninspired work. Shame on Adobe.
Ugh..
You should not have to learn an icon. An icon, by definition, is a pictorial representation of its subject.
What is the point of an icon that has no relationship to its subject? Feather? Flower? Butterfly? Seashell? How are we supposed to relate these to their the programs they represent? It’s form over function.
As you can probably guess I really dislike the last batch of Adobe icons. ;)
While I’m not hot on the latest at least they are a step in the right direction. But I think they should go back to the older ones.
Adobe’s wimpy icon scheme might well be cited as an example of The Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome applied to graphic design. Tsk, tsk.
I can see that Adobe is trying to say their software are “elements” or basic building blocks. The icons float on a colour wheel, to conyey them as colour swatches which will combine to form a kaleidescope of amazing works of art. Grouping software by media family within the same hue on the colour wheel is a smart move.
I’m a believer that ‘less is more’ and clean design is effective design. When I look at my row of icons on my Genie dock, I can never remember which is Photoshop and which is Illustrator until I look at the titles above them. (And I’ve been using these software daily for years!) By contrast, I can easily find Dreamweaver and Flash. Simplistic, yet easily identifiable.
However, I do agree that the new icons are boring and don’t have a creative edge. They lack pizazz. Adobe (the Designer) could have taken a few more design steps and still kept the overall concepts intact.
I can only hope that the animations and visuals for the software launch sequences will be awe-inspiring. Or take the next few months to develop the icons further. Give us something to salivate over!
those icons strike me as similar to the graphics used on any standard Periodic Table of the Elements. Perhaps this is Adobe’s way of saying everything in the visual world is composed of these elemental apps in the Creative Suite?
Your article was non-commital in its reveiw of the icons and asked “What do you think of the new icons?”
There is no way to agree or disagree with that statement. If “strongly disagree” means I don’t like the icons, then I strongly disagree. If “Strongly Agree” means I don’t like the icons, then that would be my answer.
You need to restate the question in the article..
They look like science and if I wanted a science career, I would have chosen that path. As a graphic designer, these icons are insulting to my design sense. Keep the old ones, at least we know what they are.
I chose neutral because it is not clear which way means that I hate the new icons.
There’s an appealing quality in the simplicity of the design of the new CS3 icons, but they don’t demonstrate the creative flair that the previous CS icons have. CS and CS2 icons give a direct indication of what the programs can do… namely something creative. These look like boxes off the Periodic Table of Elements. Adobe could have done a much better job on these icons.
I like the new icons quite a lot, and they are a huge improvement over the old ones. I never liked the CS2 icons: A feather for Photoshop? An x-rayed shell for Bridge? The images had do connection to the product. And even worse, when those icons got reduced in the dock, it was almost impossible to see what they represented. The new icons are clean and functional, and work at nearly any size.
The trend of opinion, predictably, is that these are horribly uncreative icons to be used on a creative suite. People–they’re ICONS! They are, first and foremost, pointers. The last two icon iterations, while beautiful and certainly creative, never worked well for me. FWIW, I’m a left-handed illustrator/designer, presumably one of the usual “creative” suspects. The picture icons, to this day, make me stop before I click because if I don’t mentally sort them, I might wind up in the wrong app. They never got internalized–I guess because there’s no strong pre-existing symbolic association. Also, I think people are looking at the large images linked to the article, rather than at small images crowded among a diversity of other eye-sugarplums in a dock or desktop or whatever. Adobe aren’t stupid. These icons are about esthetics in the context of usability. That said, I don’t kow how well I’ll really like ’em until I’ve test-driven them for a while.
Too many times in design the best solution is overlooked because it is simple. Case in point: an evolved logo. Google any corporation for their logos past and present (Ford, Starbuck’s, AT&T) for a lesson in how “simple” wins the iconic race.
It is possible when Adobe created Illustrator in the dark ages of the late 80’s they did not anticipate a suite of products whose icons would later be represented in a line up of tiny graphics at the bottom of our screens. It will be a nice change… until they change them again.
I would love to hear the argument that birthed these… um… squares with letters. Icons and logos have discrete purposes. These have a great deal of neither. Letters are not icons are not logos. IMO, unobtrusive distinction is the best you can ask for in a desktop icon. I agree that after a week of use, icon descriptiveness becomes frosting, albeit admirable frosting. Three cheers for being bold, a big loud boooo for allowing theory to invalidate beauty.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the OS platform these comments are being submitted from. These icons would look right at home in Windows where everything looks the same, but can you imagine what a nightmare it would be if every app adopted this as their philosophy? I would have a dock full of little square boxes some with the same two letters. Sorry a box with two letters is not an icon unless you are only dealing with a few apps like Adobe. I agree that feathers and butterflys have nothing to do with the programs they represent and they took a while to get used to, but that is what we have learned over the past few years to deal with and when I see a butterly now I see InDesign, etc. I could even distinguish dissimilar butterflys with different programs if necessary, but as always – a picture is worth a 1000 words and a true icon is worth 1000 boxes filled with letters.
For me, I recognize file extensions faster than Periodic Tables (I suck at science). If I see a psd, I know what that is, if I see an ai, I know what that is, if I see swf, I know what that is. Okay, you get the point now. But really, when does Ps = photoshop? ps = post script. Confusing? Maybe. Although it’s a step in the right direction to identify everything simply, it is still a step in the wrong direction in accomplishing it’s goal. Give it another attempt and I think they will have it.
I never got used to the feather, butterfly, etc., so I looked for the name to appear on the app. The initials are easier to recognize, but even Office icons have some artistic value.
You gotta be joking! This is what the folks at Adobe have come up with? Remember years ago when Coca-Cola tried something new? Are we going to see a menu item in the preferences that lets the user select ‘Icons Classic’ for those us that want to be normal? Wheel see, woe hunt we?
Can author provide update with Key and sample dock? We could use a key as I could only decipher 11 of the icons.
More importantly, it would be helpful to see 3 or more mocked up docks representing what a graphic designer, a web designer, and a web technician (Coldfusion etc.) would typically see respectively. Add a few apps for a multipurpose user as well.
I plan to try a mock dock regardless.
I think if only Adobe adopts this convention that it will work well. They put typical apps for a person in one area at complementary positions on the color wheel–eg Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign are very different colors.
It would be interesting to see rounded corners for web apps so that folks that are both print and web designers will have one addtional clue besides color for recognition of icons.
Finally, while icons should work at the outset of introduction, they are also what you make of them over time. The first use of nature illustrations were only pretty and not functional. They only became functional (marginally, I would argue) over time.
To the comment on “using letters means you stop and read, which takes time” (paraphrased) — Perceptual research tells us that we see shapes of words, not so much the letters. In these icons we will have quicker recognition not slower, with only two letters– it will improve with use just as the nature icons did.
I just think these will work better at the outset and will work even better than the nature icons with continued usage.
I hate them – they’re horrible! It DOES look like a periodic table! The lack of clever design reminds me of uncreative Mr. PC from the Mac commercials. How are they supposed to sellling a “creative suite” if the icons say “uh… no creative ideas here!”
I am disappointed in the new icons. It doesn’t matter if I connect an icon with a particular program – if I have the corresponding program, my computer knows. To me, it’s just loss of character in the combining of Adobe and Macromedia.
Once again, who cares about icons, how is the software? Don’ give a rat’s *** how it looks, just how I can make things look. Just supply the fuctionality, I’ll supply the creativity.
C’mon folks, they’re just icons. Remember icons are supposed to be simple in appearance. It’s the pedigree and functionality of the software that truly matters.
Go back to icons that have become meaningful and still give us a sense of design.
I think they are ugly.
I think they look terrible
I usually don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the elegance of the packaging for the products I purchase, but the programs in Adobe’s Creative Suite have been an exception to this rule. I don’t see the necessity of bucking tradiition in this way…
I would have to say that I’m very disappointed. It makes me wonder if there was too much to do and they had to cut something and the marketing was what suffered. Untimately it is the quality of the application that counts but that aside especially for those of us who design creativity is King.
I would have to say that I’m very disappointed. It makes me wonder if there was too much to do and they had to cut something and the marketing was what suffered. Untimately it is the quality of the application that counts but that aside especially for those of us who design creativity is King.
I agree with those who say that the choice of imagery for the old icons was baffling, to say the least (why the butterfly? especially). However, this is just jumping to the other extreme. Minimalism is ok by me, but why not make the design and typography interesting? These icons are terribly depressing. And it’s not as if the products are cheap. We are designers — the packaging is important.
I am sorry but I think it is so boring. The Icons should be beautiful and illustrate conceptually what the programs strengths are. As a illustrator and designer I prefer icons that communicate and please my eye and senses.
Logos. Icons. Always a tough assignment. You can bet that someone in the Nike boardroom was saying, “Come on guys, it’s a check mark!”
‘New and cutting edge’ is truly an overused phrase. However,this is neither – the colorwheel idea is interesting but the chemistry is in the creativity and originality of these products, definitely not these icons. There is not enough differentiation of the icons and the fonts are boring. Let’s get up to speed with the market we are serving. It’s hard to sell what doesn’t look good. Packaging IS IMPORTANT.
I don’t like the new icons and the more I look at them, I feel like I’m looking at a periodic table or old micro chips. But on a positive note, the new icon concept is cool for one thing: When I’m sitting in front of my computer trying to figure out the best way to do something, I can entertain myself by arranging all of the adobe toolbar icons by color theory!
I like the color chart for its immediate visual impact. Keep it simple and colorful (perhaps using smooth gradiant colors): To many letters that mean little and confuse the meaning. What is the message I have to ask myself and I shoud’nt have to ask.
The whole point of Icons, surely is that they are immediately recognisable! The Alphabetic Icons have no easily identifiable application.
They could be for a children’s book or blocks.
Certainly they are colourful but within such close proximity they do not stand out from each other. I can imagine that they would be hell on wheels to try and remember!
These are crap!
Yes, icons are supposed to be simple. But they’re also supposed to be immediately recognizable and meaningful. These icons are neither.
They do nothing to convey their meaning graphically, and almost nothing to differentiate themselves graphically — which means the viewer has to actually read and interpret the letters to identify which Adobe application the icon represents. And THAT means that the icon’s meaning is conveyed through written language instead of graphic recognition.
And isn’t graphic recognition the point of icons in the first place?
that was the point, whether or not it makes sense, I don’t know. I do know that I found the Macromedia icons for Flash and Dreamweaver easily recognizable and useful, while the CS2 ones were vague (although pretty). My hunch is that these new icons will work for you, even if you don’t think they’re creative.
They SUCK!
Are they groundbreaking design? No… any of us could have come up with these. But that fact could be what makes them work!
I don’t need my icons to be avant garde… i need them to instantly communicate. And as Adobe’s line of products grows ever more extensive, I am having a hard time keeping all the little pictures straight. I constantly find myself having to think twice about what icon I am clicking on. Lately, InDesign & Bridge always trip me up, and invariably I click on the wrong one. And I have been a Butterfly — I mean, InDesign — user since day one!
When I need to edit a photo, I am not thinking “feather”. I am thinking, “Photoshop.” So I feel the abbreviations will match up easily with the emphasized consonants in the program title, and I will be able to find and click on the right program icon without missing a beat.
And I kind of like the periodic table connection… communicates that design, creativity are elemental.
In the end, they are just icons… I have better things to worry about. Like how to get the non-profit I work for to find the money needed to BUY the programs with the much maligned icons! Come on folks, let’s get some perspective!
Perhaps they binged too heavily on the opening credits for Breaking Bad.